Obituary: L. Clifford Davis, Civil Rights Lawyer & Judge, 100

 

Davis was a civil rights lawyer in the 1950s who helped integrate Texas public schools that had resisted the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the principle of “separate but equal.” He recalled assisting Thurgood Marshall, then the chief of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, with the legal work supporting Brown v. Board of Education, which ended with a unanimous 1954 US Supreme Court decision in which the justices ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional.

After graduating from Howard University School of Law in 1949, Davis practiced civil rights law in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, one of nine Black lawyers in the entire state. Seeing a greater need for his services in Texas, where racial segregation was more prevalent, he moved to Texas. He became licensed in Texas in 1953, and in 1954, moved to Fort Worth, where he was one of only two Black lawyers in the city.

In 1955, Davis was the lead attorney in a lawsuit, Jackson v. Rawdon, seeking the admission of several Black students to public schools in Mansfield, a Fort Worth suburb that was then a farming community. A federal appeals court judge ordered that the schools integrate. Despite that ruling, and despite the US Supreme Court’s earlier decision in Brown, segregationists in the district fiercely opposed the mandate.

As the new school year began in 1956, mobs tried to prevent Black students from entering the local high school. A Black student was hung in effigy from a noose downtown. Other effigies were hung at the school entrance and from a flagpole. Gov. Allan Shivers, a Democrat who had denounced the Brown decision, dispatched the Texas Rangers. At one point, according to an account in the New York Times, an Episcopal minister attempted to quell the mob, remarking that it was difficult to “put the Bible’s ‘love thy neighbor’ together with this crowd.” “This ain’t a ‘love thy neighbor’ crowd!” one of the White resisters yelled back. Davis conceded it was simply too dangerous to send Black students into Mansfield High School. “All we were asking them to do was to just follow the law,” he told the Dallas Morning News in 2003. “That’s all. The appeals court ordered the [trial] judge to follow the law, that’s all. He entered the integration order, but we couldn’t go into the schools. It would have been totally unsafe for us to go.”

In 1959, Davis filed Flax, et al. v. Potts, another federal civil rights suit, which led to the desegregation of the Fort Worth Independent School District. He was lead attorney on many noteworthy cases over his career, including the race discrimination class action suit against General Dynamics, In the 1960s he became one of the first Black lawyers to join the Tarrant County Bar Association and in 1983, he was first appointed and then elected to the Texas Criminal District Court No. 2 district court bench, becoming one of the first Black state district judges in Tarrant County, where he served on the bench until 1988.

Davis received numerous awards from other social organizations. He was recognized by his peers in 1997 when he received the Tarrant County Bar Association's highest award and was inducted into the National Bar Association Hall of Fame. He was also recognized by the NAACP and awarded the “William Robert Ming Award” for his efforts with their legal affairs.

Read the February 21, 2025 Washington Post article.

Read the obituary by the L. Clifford Davis Legal Association.

102-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor is Vogue Germany’s Cover Star

A 102-year-old Holocaust survivor whose family was murdered at Auschwitz is the cover star for the July/August edition of Vogue Germany. Margot Friedländer, née Bendheim, was born in Berlin in 1921. According to a brief bio on the website of Berlin’s Jewish Museum, Friedländer spent the early part of the war with her mother and younger brother Ralph after her parents separated. They had plans to flee the country but in 1943 her brother was arrested by the Gestapo. Their mother confronted the Gestapo, which led to her being deported to Auschwitz with her son, where they were both murdered. But before leaving, she left behind a message for her daughter that read: “Try to make your life.” Friedländer, then just 21 years old, went into hiding but was ultimately betrayed by “catchers” and was sent to Theresienstadt camp in the then-Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia in 1944, according to the museum.

Kerstin Weng, head of editorial content at the magazine, said that the theme of the issue was love, featuring their “favorite pieces, favorite people.” The front of the collector’s issue includes the word “love” written by Friedländer, as well as her signature. The multi-page piece, which includes numerous shots of Friedländer, covers a range of topics, from growing up in Nazi Germany to her commitment as a Holocaust survivor today. The collector's issue of Vogue Germany is available on newsstands from June 22.

Friedländer met her future husband, Adolf, while in the Nazi concentration camp, and married him soon after liberation. The pair emigrated to the US in 1946 and lived in New York for more than six decades. But in 2010, following her husband’s death aged 88, Friedländer moved back to Berlin. Ever since, she has been campaigning as a Holocaust educator. Her tireless efforts have earnt her numerous awards, including the Federal Cross of Merit First Class.

Friedländer told Vogue Germany that she was “appalled” by the growth of right-wing populism and the rise of antisemitic attacks. When addressing the issue of society becoming more polarized, she said: “Look not toward what separates us. Look towards what bring us together. Be People. Be sensible.” Grateful for the opportunity to pass on her message, she said: “You will carry my story onward. That this never comes to happen again.”

Read the June 20, 2024 CNN.com article.

CFPB Takes Action Against Draper & Kramer Mortgage for Discriminatory Mortgage Lending Practices Including Redlined Neighborhoods in Chicago and Boston

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has taken action against Draper & Kramer Mortgage Corporation (Draper) for discriminatory mortgage lending activities that discouraged homebuyers from applying to Draper for homes in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in the greater Chicago and Boston areas. The CFPB alleges that Draper located all its offices in majority-white neighborhoods, concentrated its marketing in majority-white neighborhoods, and avoided marketing to majority-Black and Hispanic areas. These actions resulted in disproportionately low numbers of mortgage loan applications and mortgage loan originations from majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago and Boston compared to other lenders. If entered by the court, the proposed order announced today would ban Draper from engaging in residential mortgage lending activities for five years, and require Draper to pay a $1.5 million civil money penalty into the CFPB’s victims relief fund.

Draper & Kramer Mortgage Corporation is a non-depository mortgage lender based in Downers Grove, Illinois. Draper received applications and originated mortgage loans across the country, including in Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin.

The CFPB alleges that, from 2019-2021, Draper engaged in redlining majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in the greater Chicago and Boston areas, resulting in it significantly underperforming its peers in lending activity to these areas. Draper discouraged mortgage applicants from making or pursuing an application for credit on the basis of race, color, and national origin, violating the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Regulation B.

Specifically, the CFPB alleges that Draper violated the law by:

(1) Intentionally focusing mortgage lending activities in majority-white neighborhoods and excluding Black and Hispanic neighborhoods: Draper had no offices, no loan officers, and virtually no marketing or outreach in majority- or high-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago and Boston. Draper did not assign any loan officers to solicit applications in majority-Black and Hispanic communities and failed to train or incentivize its loan officers to lend in these communities. Draper’s outreach and marketing specifically targeted majority-white neighborhoods and mostly avoided majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

(2) Discouraging mortgage applicants from pursuing properties in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods: Draper’s business model discouraged borrowers from applying for loans to purchase property located in these neighborhoods. Draper’s peer lenders generated applications for properties in majority-Black and Hispanic areas in the Chicago metro area at over two and-a-half times the rate and in the Boston metro area at three times the rate that Draper generated such applications. Draper also originated disproportionately low amounts of mortgage loans for properties in these neighborhoods, with peers in Chicago and Boston originating two and-a-half times more loans than Draper in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

Under the Consumer Financial Protection Act, the CFPB has the authority to take action against institutions violating consumer financial laws, including the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and engaging in unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices.

If entered by the court, the order would require Draper to:

• Cease residential mortgage lending activities for five years: For that period, Draper cannot perform any residential mortgage lending activities, nor receive any compensation for any residential mortgage lending.
• Pay a $1.5 million civil penalty to the CFPB’s victims relief fund.

Read today’s proposed order.

Consumers can submit complaints about financial products and services by visiting the CFPB’s website or by calling (855) 411-CFPB (2372).

Employees who believe their company has violated federal consumer financial protection laws are encouraged to send information about what they know to whistleblower@cfpb.gov. To learn more about reporting potential industry misconduct, visit the CFPB’s website.

Read the January 17, 2025 CFPB article.

Civil and Human Rights Organizations Sue Trump Administration Over Executive Orders Banning Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility and Erasing Transgender People

The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and Lambda Legal have filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the National Urban League, the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago challenging three anti-equity executive orders from President Trump related to diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and transgender people. LDF and Lambda Legal claim these orders will severely limit the organizations’ ability to provide critical social and health services such as HIV treatment, fair housing, equal employment opportunities, affordable credit, civil rights protections, and many others. This would harm countless people across the US, including people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, and people living with HIV. The lawsuit claims that the administration is violating the organizations’ rights to free speech and due process and is engaging in intentional discrimination by issuing and enforcing the anti-equity orders.

The three executive orders being challenged would end equity-related grants and forbid federally-funded entities from engaging in diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs, and from recognizing the existence of transgender people. These orders reverse decades of civil rights progress and pose an existential threat to the organizations that advocate for the civil rights of transgender people, and provide them shelter, services, and support.

“Fair housing is a national policy of the U.S. Our nation’s fair housing principles are embedded in the Constitution and civil rights statutes secured by the blood, sweat, tears, and lives of millions of people who fought to make our Declaration of Independence and Constitution real for everyone in this country. The Constitution and our civil rights laws are centered on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. The President cannot undo the Constitution or take away our rights by affixing a signature to an executive order,” said Lisa Rice, President and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance. “The administration’s Executive Orders and OMB funding freeze memorandum have caused chaos, fear, insecurity, dysfunction, and loss of rights. The Administration’s illegal actions put all people in harm’s way, driving up the cost of housing and leaving millions exposed to discrimination, harassment, and retaliation with no structure for protection. ‘Out of Many, One’ is our national motto -– any effort to divide, stoke fear and treat people unfairly is not in line with our nation’s founding principles. America is best when united and relentlessly pursuing a country where everyone, regardless of their background, has a fair chance at reaching the American Dream.”

“Beyond spreading inaccurate, dehumanizing, and divisive rhetoric, President Trump’s executive orders seek to tie the hands of organizations, like our clients, providing critical services to people who need them most,” said Janai Nelson, President and Director-Counsel of LDF. “The three orders we are challenging today perpetuate false and longstanding stereotypes that Black people and other underrepresented groups lack skills, talent, and merit - willfully ignoring the discriminatory barriers that prevent a true meritocracy from flourishing. We proudly stand with our clients and Lambda Legal against these unconstitutional orders and hope the court will act quickly so the arduous work of advancing and sustaining our multiracial democracy can continue without unlawful interference from the Trump administration.”

“These policies drip with contempt for transgender people, and pose a significant threat to critical health and HIV services that support marginalized communities, putting lives at risk,” said Jose Abrigo, Lambda Legal’s HIV Project Director. “These orders pose an existential threat to transgender people and the organizations that provide them with shelter and support. The orders defund organizations providing critical health and HIV services, and punish organizations for striving to improve the lives of Black people, people of color, and members of other marginalized communities. They are patently unconstitutional. Lambda Legal and LDF teamed up because the fights to end racism, the HIV epidemic, and anti-transgender bias are inseparable. For organizations like our plaintiffs providing these services, addressing these compounding barriers is essential to HIV prevention and care, and this policy would impede the work to eradicate and address the HIV epidemic.”

The lawsuit, National Urban League v. Trump, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, claims that the executive orders violate the plaintiffs’ First Amendment right to free speech by censoring and chilling their views on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. The plaintiffs also claim that the executive orders are so vague that the organizations do not know what is and is not prohibited, in violation of their Fifth Amendment due process rights. Also, the executive orders discriminate against people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ people, with particular animus towards Black people and transgender individuals, in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.

You can read the full complaint here.

Read the February 19, 2025 NFHA article.

Book Review: "Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights" by Dylan C. Penningroth

 

In Before the Movement, acclaimed historian Dylan C. Penningroth revises the conventional story. Drawing on long-forgotten sources found in the basements of county courthouses across the nation, Penningroth shows that African Americans, far from being ignorant about law until the middle of the twentieth century, have thought about, talked about, and used it going as far back as even the era of slavery. They dealt constantly with the laws of property, contract, inheritance, marriage and divorce, of associations (like churches and businesses and activist groups), and more. By exercising these “rights of everyday use,” they made Black rights usual. And in innumerable subtle ways, they helped shape the law itself.

Free Black people participated extensively in credit, debt and contracts in the decades before the Civil War. According to Penningroth, by 1860, there were over 16,000 free Black property owners in the South who held property worth nearly $8.8 billion in today’s dollars. Freedom meant that they could ask local judges to protect their rights, and they went to court in cases involving farms, cows and myriad other types of property. Black homeownership rose from 43,000 families in 1870 to over 500,000 families in 1910 (about 1 in 4 Black families nationwide). Black farmers owned more than 15 million acres and $208 billion in farm property (in today’s dollars). Lynchings also rose sharply in these years, and not coincidentally. 

"Penningroth's conclusions emerge from an epic research agenda.... Before the Movement presents an original and provocative account of how civil law was experienced by Black citizens and how their 'legal lives' changed over time . . . [an] ambitious, stimulating, and provocative book." - Eric Foner, New York Review of Books.

The author is a professor of law and history at the University of California, Berkeley. The book, which stretches from the last decades of slavery to the 1970s, partly traces the history of the author's own family. Before the Movement is an account of Black legal lives that looks beyond the Constitution and the criminal justice system to recover a rich, broader vision of Black life.

Read the September 26, 2023 Washington Post article.

Justice Department Finds that Idaho Violates Federal Civil Rights Law by Unnecessarily Segregating People with Physical Disabilities

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced its finding that Idaho unnecessarily segregates adults with physical disabilities in nursing facilities, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the US Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C. DOJ’s findings, detailed in a letter to Idaho Governor Brad Little, follow a thorough investigation into the state’s service system for people with physical disabilities.

The ADA and the Olmstead decision require state and local governments to ensure the services they provide to people with disabilities are available in the most integrated setting appropriate to individuals’ needs. Community-based services can include assistance with daily activities, like showering or transferring from bed to wheelchair. Without community-based services, Idahoans with physical disabilities have little choice but to enter nursing facilities. Many will remain in those nursing facilities for years or decades, when they would prefer to live in the community. And each year of nursing facility care costs Idaho, on average per person, much more than what Idaho spends serving adults with physical disabilities at home.

According to the DOJ’s findings, 65% of Idahoans in nursing facilities have expressed a desire to live in the community, but 82% did not have an active discharge plan as of October 2024. In Idaho, about 19% of nursing home residents are younger than 65, and about 14% have low care needs.

DOJ’s investigation found that most Idaho Medicaid-funded nursing facility residents could live successfully at home with services Idaho offers. But Idaho limits access to services to transition out of nursing facilities and to live in the community. As a result, very few Idahoans with physical disabilities can access Idaho’s services to leave nursing facilities and remain at home. 

In-home nursing services can help people with disabilities with medication management, bathing, housekeeping, and more intensive care like managing medical devices. The DOJ letter says Idaho could remedy the ADA violations by expanding community-based services and allocating more resources to existing programs. By doing so, the state could not only improve outcomes for individuals with disabilities, but also save money on Medicaid expenditures, the report says.

The Civil Rights Division’s Disability Rights Section investigated this case with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Idaho.

For more information on the ADA, please call the department’s toll-free ADA Information Line at 1-800-514-0301 (TDD 800-514-0383) or visit www.ada.gov/topics/community-integration/.

Read the January 16, 2025 DOJ press release.

Read the January 19, 2025 Idaho Capital Sun article.

Justice Department Agreement with DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Orlando at SeaWorld Resolves Allegations of Discriminatory Policy Against Hosting Arabs

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has reached an agreement with AWH Orlando Property LLC, the owner of the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Orlando at SeaWorld in Florida (DoubleTree), to resolve allegations that the DoubleTree discriminated against people of Arab descent in violation of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title II). Title II prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin in places of public accommodation, including hotels.

The owner, AWH Orlando Property, denied the allegations and did not admit liability. Attorneys for the owner said that both parties reached the agreement to avoid a prolonged legal process.

The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida alleges that the DoubleTree adopted and implemented a discriminatory policy against hosting guests of Arab descent by unilaterally canceling a conference that was to be held by the Arab America Foundation, a non-profit educational and cultural organization, in November 2023, a week before the conference was scheduled to begin and almost a month after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The lawsuit alleges that the DoubleTree’s decision to cancel the Arab America Foundation’s conference was not because of any legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons. Although the hotel claimed that the cancelation was because of security concerns, the hotel faced no security threats or risks associated with the conference. As alleged in DOJ’s complaint, contrary to what the DoubleTree told to the Arab America Foundation, it had not received any calls or other communications raising a safety or security threat to the conference or to the hotel. Rather, the decision to cancel was based on the national origin of the Arab America Foundation’s members and the conference attendees. The complaint therefore alleges that the DoubleTree discriminated on the basis of national origin and denied people of Arab descent the full and equal enjoyment of access to the services, accommodations, and privileges at the hotel.

The settlement, a consent decree that must still be approved by the court, requires the DoubleTree to:

• Issue a statement to the Arab America Foundation that all guests and groups are welcome to the hotel, including Arab and Arab American guests and groups;
• Retain a qualified compliance officer to oversee compliance with the consent decree for two years;
• Notify employees and executives of the DoubleTree’s obligations under Title II and the consent decree, including its commitment to ensuring equal access to the hotel, regardless of race, color, religion, or national origin;
• Establish a written anti-discrimination policy, which includes a system of accepting, investigating, and responding to guest complaints of discrimination;
• Conduct outreach to Arab or Arab American groups to share promotional materials about the hotel and indicate that it is open to all members of the public;
• Provide training to employees and executives on Title II and the company's obligations under the consent decree; and
• Make regular reports to DOJ to demonstrate its compliance with the consent decree.

Under Title II, DOJ’s Civil Rights Division can obtain injunctive relief that changes policies and practices to remedy the discriminatory conduct. Title II does not authorize the division to obtain monetary damages for customers who are victims of discrimination.

Read the January 16, 2025 DOJ release.

Read the January 17, 2025 CBS News article.

Justice Department (DOJ) Issues Report Highlighting Critical Enforcement Work Over the Past Four Years; But Trump Administration DOJ Then Cancels New Civil Rights Work

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has issued its 2021-2024 Civil Rights Division Highlights Report, outlining various accomplishments of the division and its partners in enforcing the nation’s civil rights laws and the Constitution from 2021-2024.

The report reflects upon a portion of the critical civil rights work across the division’s 11 sections where the career staff and leadership worked to bring to justice those who harmed, threatened and/or intimidated people because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, English proficiency, or disability status.   

This work has included challenging discriminatory voting laws and abortion restrictions, to investigating police departments and prison conditions, to fighting modern day redlining, and working to combat hate and protect people with disabilities and LGBTQ people.

“Our Civil Rights Division has doggedly pursued justice for our nation’s most vulnerable through enforcement of our civil rights laws by combating hate and exploitation, promoting fairness and accountability in our criminal justice system, strengthening democracy, and expanding and ensuring opportunity and access for all. This report provides snapshots of some of that work,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Over the past four years, I have had the privilege and honor of leading the Civil Rights Division and overseeing this crucial work. I am incredibly grateful for the tireless efforts of our career employees who have steadfastly abided by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland’s charge to uphold the rule of law, protect civil rights and keep our country and communities safe. And I am indebted to our communities and advocates who bravely asserted their rights and shared their stories in our common pursuit of justice and fairness.”

More information about the Civil Rights Division can be found at www.justice.gov/crt. To report a possible civil rights violation, please visit www.civilrights.justice.gov/.  

Unfortunately, on January 22, 2025, the Trump Administration Justice Department "has ordered an immediate halt to all new civil rights cases or investigations - and signaled that it might back out of Biden-era agreements with police departments that engaged in discrimination or violence, according to two internal memos sent to staff on Wednesday. The actions, while expected, represent an abrupt about-face for a department that had for the past four years aggressively investigated high-profile instances of violence and systemic discrimination in local law enforcement and government agencies."

Read the January 16, 2025 DOJ press release.

Read the January 17, 2025 Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights article.

Read the January 22, 2025 New York Times article.

Book Review: "Not in My Backyard: How Citizen Activists Nationalized Local Politics in the Fight to Save Green Springs" by Brian Balogh

Yale University Press, 2024. $35.00 hardcover. 385 pages.

This interesting book details how a woman-led citizens’ group beat a Southern political machine by enlisting federal bureaucrats and judges to protect their neighborhood from unchecked economic development. It is also one story of the beginning of NIMBYism and local political activism in a decades-long fight to save Green Springs, Virginia. It illuminates the economic tradeoffs of protecting the environment, the changing nature of local control, and the surprising power of history to advance public policy.

Political neophyte Rae Ely began a campaign in 1970 to stop a prison and later a strip mine, in Green Springs. The local political machine supported the proposed projects, promising jobs for impoverished Louisa County, Virginia. But Ely and her allies prevailed by applying some of the tactics of the Civil Rights movement - the appeal to federal agencies and courts to circumvent local control—and by using new historical interpretations to create the first rural National Historic Landmark District. When these middle-class white women spoke out in defense of their community, they expanded the space for political participation in ways that would have lasting consequences.

The Green Springs protesters fought to preserve the historic character of their neighborhood and the surrounding environment characterized the conflict in late twentieth-century America between unbridled economic development for all and protecting the quality of life for an economically privileged few. 

NIMBY tactics are now used by neighborhood groups across the nation, even if they have been applied in ways she never intended: to resist any form of development. Green Springs, in fact, reflects an atypical approach to NIMBYism. Ely could only turn to the federal government because the projects she sought to stop received federal funds. In most cases, the political power that NIMBY groups wield is overwhelmingly dependent on the turn toward local control - which was a change in urban policy that developed in reaction to urban renewal (often federally funded).

A good source for detailing the start of NIMBYism is Katherine Levine Einstein, David M. Glick, and Maxwell Palmer’s Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and America's Housing Crisis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Read the February 4, 2024 article in the Independent Review: A  Journal of Political Economy.

Book Review: JOHN LEWIS: A Life, by David Greenberg

 

Simon & Schuster, 2024. $35.00 hardcover. 704 pages.

David Greenberg’s “authoritative…definitive biography” (David J. Garrow, Pulitzer Prize–winning author) follows Lewis’ life through documents from numerous archives, interviews with 275 people who knew him, and rare footage of Lewis speaking from his hospital bed after Selma. The author relates his history beyond the civil rights era, highlighting his leadership in the Voter Education Project, where he helped enroll millions of African American voters across the South. The book also covers Lewis' ascent in politics, first locally in Atlanta and then as a respected member of Congress. As part of the Democratic leadership, Lewis was admired on both sides of the aisle for his unwavering dedication to nonviolent integration and justice. Recommended.

Support Needed for Fair Housing Bill HB1239 in the Current Maryland Session!

 

The Fair Housing and Housing Discrimination - Regulations, Intent, and Discriminatory Effect Bill is sponsored by Delegates Deni Taveras (D-47B), Mary A. Lehman (D-21), Joe Vogel (D-17), Nick Allen (D-8), Julian Ivey (D-47A), Joseline A. Peña-Melnyk (D-21), and Jamila J. Woods (D-26). Go to https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/HB1239?ys=2025RS to read the Official Document.

The bill was originally assigned to the House Environment and Transportation Committee. Its effective date would be October 1, 2025. It currently is in the House of Delegates, and a House Environment and Transportation Committee hearing about the bill is scheduled for February 28th at 1:00 p.m.

HB1239 authorizes the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development to adopt certain regulations related to affirmatively furthering fair housing; providing that certain discriminatory housing practices may be committed without intent; prohibiting a person from acting in a certain manner that has a discriminatory effect against a person related to the sale or rental of a dwelling; and providing that certain conduct does not constitute a certain violation.

This bill enhances fair housing protections in the state of Maryland by expanding the Department of Housing and Community Development's responsibilities and clarifying housing discrimination regulations. The bill requires the Department to administer housing programs in a way that "affirmatively furthers fair housing" and to collaborate with nonprofit and governmental entities committed to fair housing goals. Most importantly, the legislation introduces a new legal standard that allows claims of housing discrimination to be proven even without demonstrating intentional discrimination, meaning that practices with a discriminatory effect can be challenged regardless of the actor's intent. This statement refers to the legal concept of "disparate impact" in housing discrimination.

Disparate impact theory is a key legal principle in fair housing enforcement, ensuring  that policies or practices that disproportionately harm protected groups - regardless of intent - can be challenged under the law. Unlike cases of overt discrimination, disparate impact cases address systemic inequities that come from seemingly neutral policies. This doctrine is crucial for addressing racial disparities in housing, zoning laws that disproportionately exclude certain populations, and lending practices that result in unequal mortgage approvals. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of disparate impact claims in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project (2015), affirming that policies with discriminatory effects can violate the Fair Housing Act, even in the absence of intentional discrimination. California, New York, and Illinois have state-level disparate impact protections similar to what this bill proposes.

The bill specifically prohibits various discriminatory practices in housing, such as refusing to rent or sell, making discriminatory statements, or providing unequal services based on characteristics like race, color, religion, sex, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, source of income, or military status. 

The bill also provides a defense for actions that meet three conditions: the action was without discriminatory intent, was justified by legitimate business necessity, and could not have been accomplished through less discriminatory means. 

The legislation empowers aggrieved persons to file civil actions and allows for remedies including damages and injunctive relief, with the Attorney General granted broad investigative and prosecutorial powers to address civil rights violations in housing.

Read the BillTrack50 summary.

Read the proposed bill.

Anne Arundel County Hate Bias Reporting Forum is March 29th at Anne Arundel Community College

 

Saturday, March 29 · 9:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. EDT

Anne Arundel Community College, 101 College Parkway Arnold, Maryland 21012

This forum is being presented by the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights, the Maryland Office of the Attorney General, and the Anne Arundel County Office of Equity and Human Rights. The Hate Bias Reporting Forum will provide community members and law enforcement with information related to the 2023 Hate Bias Report. 

   

The forum will engage local law enforcement, elected officials, and community leaders in discussions and information sharing on methods to facilitate more effective reporting as well as responding to bias incidents and hate crimes.

Please register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/anne-arundel-county-hate-bias-forum-tickets-1248414414119?aff=oddtdtcreator. 

There is a large parking lot in front of the Cade building, so parking should be easy to find: https://www.aacc.edu/media/college/images/maps/Campus-Map_WEB_09052024.jpg.

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Johnston Square Being Redeveloped Without Displacement

 

In 2013, Regina Hammond has been leader in community development in Johnston Square, a neighborhood historically plagued by racist lending practices and disinvestment for generations. She established the Rebuild Johnston Square Neighborhood Organization (RJSNO) and started listening to the needs of her neighbors. Conducting a survey, RJSNO made plans that would eventually become part of the Johnston Square 2020 Vision Plan. The plans were made alongside nonprofit ReBUILD Metro and Baltimore’s Department of Housing and Community Development.

Hammond and RJSNO’s plans for Johnston Square involve both refurbishing homes and creating a holistic and health environment that benefits the community. RJSNO has planted gardens and trees in Johnston Square, and their collaborators at ReBUILD Metro are currently spearheading the construction of Greenmount Park for the local schools, Saint Frances Academy and Johnston Square Elementary. RJSNO's bee symbol, started with a mural on the corner of Wilcox and Biddle streets, represents the organization’s grit and stands as a unifying sign for the neighborhood’s identity.

The city agency gains ownership of vacant houses to be refurbished and approves their community projects. Aside from Greenmount Park, ReBUILD Metro and RJSNO have also begun building a new Enoch Pratt Free Library branch. The library will provide a productive  space for learning and socializing. They are both scheduled to open in August 2025

Preventing displacement of current residents is a top concern for RJSNO and ReBUILD Metro as revitalization proceeds. A 2019 study conducted by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) found that Baltimore had the fifth-highest rate of gentrification from 2000 to 2013, with five neighborhoods displacing an average of 673 Black residents.

“The biggest way in which [displacement] happens is largely through property taxes,” said Andrew Samuel, an economics professor at Loyola University Maryland “And when the properties get reappraised at a higher value, even if the property tax rate doesn’t change, the liability that people are expected to bear now goes up. And that’s usually the most frequent way in which people find that they are unable to continue to afford to live in the neighborhood.”

Hammond and Closkey believe the path to revitalization without gentrification starts with community involvement. Lowering Johnston Square’s vacancy rates requires more than home repair. Examining how houses end up vacant and preventing future vacancies is just as important. For example, the city housing department collaborates with companies like LifeBridge Health and Meals on Wheels to help with the health of underserved senior citizens. “All of those components and helping our older adults age in place actually are preventing vacant properties,” said Alice Kennedy, commissioner of the Department of Housing and Community Development “We can’t demolish our way out of this, and we also have a focus on preventing the vacants as well.”

Rising from decades of disinvestment also must include building generational wealth through homeownership. ReBUILD Metro established a free program called Path to Own to help renters in Johnston Square take the necessary steps to buy a home, so residents can benefit from predictable mortgage payments and rising equity. Residents are urged to apply for the Maryland Homestead Tax Credit, a program designed to limit tax increases and assist homeowners experiencing large jumps in property tax that are often plague developing neighborhoods. 

ReBUILD Metro - whose programs serve to cure the root cause of vacant housing, rather than simply eliminate the symptoms - also refurbishes Johnston Square residents’ homes under their Legacy Homeowner Repair program. These renovations serve to improve the living conditions of the residents and assist in building equity in their homes, which keeps the houses occupied and the families content. 

RJSNO’s Johnston Square 2020 Vision Plan details their goals to maintain mixed-income housing within the neighborhood to help prevent displacement.

Read the February 19, 2025 Baltimore Fishbowl article.

Chicago Non-Profit Transforming Vacant Land Stripped by Redlining & Other Discrimination

Chicago's Emerald South is working to reverse the negative effects of historic redlining by revitalizing and transforming 205 acres of vacant land. Ghian Foreman leads the Emerald South Economic Development Collaborative, a nonprofit. Its Terra Firma initiative. begun in 2021, is a multiyear, $50 million land care initiative to beautify, maintain, and activate vacant land in the community. 

The Collaborative's mission is "to attract and coordinate investment through community convening and collaborative partnerships that increase local ownership and prosperity." It was started in 2017 with a $250,000 grant from the Chicago Community Trust and funding from the Polk Bros. Foundation. The goal is to create ways for local businesses and residents to benefit from the tourists expected to come to the area once the Obama Presidential Center is built in Jackson Park.

The project focuses on revitalizing neighborhoods across what the organization calls the Mid South Side: from Bronzeville to the north, down to South Chicago, to the south. According to housing policy experts, many of these areas were shaped by discriminatory housing practices. "There were policies that were put in place - redlining, restrictive covenants, urban renewal - where a lot of these buildings that sat here were actually torn down," said Foreman.

According to the Cook County Assessor, there are over 30,000 vacant lots in Cook County, both city- and privately-owned. The vast majority, 93%, are in communities of color, while only 7% are in majority-white neighborhoods. On Chicago's South Side, vacant lots account for 67% of the total, compared to just 4% on the North Side.

Emerald South is still in phase one of its ambitious plan. So far, the organization has cleaned and beautified over 100 acres. That land is marked by its signature split-rail fencing, a symbol of what's to come. "First, it's just clean and green, no trash, a fence, a sign that this land is cared for," explained Foreman. "Then, we activate spaces with murals and community art. And after that, we start imagining- What if we owned the land? What if we built on it?"

Read the February 19, 2025 ABC7-TV article.

Read the 2018 Chicago Tribune article.

Obituary: Thomas Gaither, Who Chose Jail After Civil Rights Sit-ins, 86

 

One year after the sit-in movement that began at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., in 1960 and spread to other cities, stimulating the nation’s conscience over racial segregation, was in danger of losing momentum. In Rock Hill, S.C., local businesses still refused to integrate, despite the sit-ins, and local news no longer covered them. Then, in 1961, a 22-year-old organizer, Thomas Gaither, introduced a new tactic. In the next sit-in, at the lunch counter of a McCrory’s dime store in Rock Hill, Black students led by Gaither were dragged off counter stools by police officers. But this time, instead of paying a $100 trespassing fine as earlier protesters did, they chose to serve 30-day sentences on the county chain gang. Their “jail no bail” tactic dramatized their moral commitment and changed the direction of the civil rights movement. Within days, protesters in other cities followed suit, their imprisoning drawing more attention and protests. The choice of jail, historian Taylor Branch wrote in Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 (1988), was “an emotional breakthrough for the civil rights movement” because it dramatized protesters’ willingness to pay a real price for their convictions.

A little-sung catalyst of the civil rights protests of the 1960s, Gaither was one of the activists who, driven by high moral purpose, peacefully put their bodies on the line to fight racial discrimination. Those actions helped bring about historic federal laws to end legal segregation and ensure voting rights.

At Claflin College, an all-Black institution in Orangeburg, S.C., he was president of the youth chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. In March 1960, he was co-leader of a march of 1,000 students protesting segregated businesses. The peaceful Orangeburg marchers were attacked with fire hoses and tear gas, leading to 388 arrests. Many were held in a stockade meant for cattle, where they sang “God Bless America.”

As a field secretary by the Congress of Racial Equality, which used nonviolent direct action to fight segregation, Gaither was sent to organize in Kentucky, California, and Arizona. Ahead of the “jail no bail” sit-in in Rock Hill, on January 31, 1961, he helped train the protesters, eight students from Friendship Junior College. He and the students were known as the Friendship Nine after choosing to serve jail sentences. “The amazing thing about the Friendship Nine,” he added, “was that we took essentially a group of college students who had no knowledge at all of tactical nonviolence and we pulled off one of the most important protest events of the movement.”

Several months later, Gaither and fellow CORE organizer Gordon Carey both read a biography of Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of nonviolent protest, and developed the idea for the first Freedom Ride: an integrated group of activists who would take a bus trip from Washington through the Deep South. The idea was to dramatize the refusal of Southern states to comply with US Supreme Court rulings that segregated interstate buses and terminals were unconstitutional. In May 1961, CORE national director James Farmer led the first Freedom Ride, with 13 white and Black passengers, including the future congressman and civil rights advocate John Lewis.

In Alabama, the CORE activists were arrested and beaten by white mobs led by the Ku Klux Klan. The commercial buses they rode in were firebombed. The police abetted the violence, and hospitals refused to treat bloodied victims. National publicity drew hundreds more activists, who made dozens of Freedom Rides crisscrossing the South through 1961. The violence shocked the nation, no less because of the complicity of the Southern authorities in allowing it to happen in defense of Jim Crow laws.

Gaither was not on the original Freedom Ride in May 1961; he was scouting the route and contacting local supporters to house the riders. He was staying at the home of the civil rights leader the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy in Montgomery, Alabama, on May 20 when riders arriving at the Greyhound station there were beaten with baseball bats and iron pipes. The next night, more than 1,500 people went to Abernathy’s church to hear the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak as a rock-throwing white mob surrounded the building. Dr. King called on Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to send federal protection.

He later became a professor of biology in 1968 at Slippery Rock University (Pennsylvania), and taught there for 38 years before retiring in 2007.

In his later years, Gaither felt that the civil rights movement had profoundly changed America, but also that the structures of racism had remained in his native South. “No question, the South has changed tremendously,” he said in 2011. “But the fundamental infrastructure of racism and segregation that called the shots in the South in 1960 are still in place. They have slightly different labels, they accomplish their goals by slightly different means, but there has been no real fundamental shift in who really calls the signals.”

Read the January 24, 2025 New York Times obituary.

Listen to a 2011 Library of Congress Oral History Interview with Thomas Gaither.

Obituary: Henry Marsh, Civil Rights Lawyer and First Black Mayor of Richmond, 91

 

Marsh became prominent as a young lawyer during the civil rights movement and helped mount the legal challenge to “Massive Resistance,” the concerted effort to subvert the integration of public school as mandated by the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

“My heart is heavy with grief and full of gratitude that I had the chance to know Henry Marsh—a truly exceptional person,” U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) said in a statement Friday. “Any single one of Henry’s accomplishments would be enough cause to be proud, but he never stopped looking for new opportunities to serve. I’m honored to have called him a friend and mentor.”

While he was growing up in Virginia, the “daily affronts to my dignity" (such as being denied a seat at a lunch counter or forced to sit in the back of a bus because of the color of his skin),” he wrote in a memoir, “also motivated me to do something constructive.” Marsh entered politics and won a seat on the Richmond City Council in 1966. 

His Council service coincided with a shift in the politics of the state capital, once the seat of power in the slaveholding South and, a century after the end of the Civil War, remained dominated by a conservative White business class. At the time, Richmond’s mayor was selected by a city council of nine members elected at large. Following the city’s controversial annexation of White suburbs and a court challenge under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Richmond began a ward system that in 1977 produced the first Black majority on the city council. Marsh then was selected as mayor.

As mayor during 1977-1982, Marsh worked to improve the city’s housing; helped spearhead a partnership with the White business community to revitalize the city’s downtown; pushed to bring African Americans into key municipal positions and into civil service; and helped transform the city from a bastion of White power to one that really represented more equitably the population.

In 1991 he was elected to the state senate, serving until 2014. He was among those who pushed the legislature to reckon with Virginia’s role in slavery and segregation. In 2007, the General Assembly passed a resolution stating “profound regret” for Virginia’s slaveholding past.

As a member of a leading Black law firm in Richmond, with partners including the civil rights lawyers Oliver W. Hill, Sr. and Samuel Tucker, Marsh helped argue cases related to voting rights, school desegregation, and discrimination in employment. “We were constantly fighting against race prejudice,” he recalled. “For instance, in the case of Franklin v. Giles County, a local official fired all of the black public school teachers. We sued and got the (that) decision overruled.” The firm also worked on a variety of other fronts, ranging from housing and voting rights to employment issues.

Marsh's memoir The Memoirs of Hon. Henry L. Marsh, III: Civil Rights Champion, Public Servant, Lawyer was published in 2018 by GrantHouse Publishers (232 pages). It was edited by Jonathan K. Stubbs and Danielle Wingfield-Smith.

Read the January 28, 2025 Washington Post obituary.

Read the January 25, 2025 VPM article.

Read the March 22, 2018 Richmond Free Press article.

Save the CFPB Rally on February 8th 11-1 in DC

 

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was formed in the wake of the Great Recession, after banks crashed the economy leaving millions of homeowners to face foreclosure and American taxpayers to bail out big banks. 

The CFPB was created to protect consumers from predatory and deceptive trick and traps. Since its creation, the CFPB has obtained over $21 billion in relief for over 200 million people in restitution and canceled debts. Under former Director Rohit Chopra’s tenure alone, bad corporate actors returned over $6 billion to wronged consumers and paid $3.2 billion in civil penalties.

Now, the CFPB is at risk. Unelected DOGE staff arrived at the CFPB's Washington DC office on Friday. These young men began to access CFPB’s sensitive personnel and financial records. Because the CFPB investigates banks, credit unions, debt collectors, and others, the Bureau has access to personal data including individuals social security numbers and bank accounts, as well as proprietary information of financial services and products. 

This entry and access of CFPB data is unprecedented. Make no mistake–it is also undemocratic. It is critical that the only government agency specifically tasked with protecting consumers from financial fraud, abuse, and scams be able to continue it’s vital work on behalf of working families across the country. 

Join staff, advocates, and others SATURDAY, 2/8 from 11 AM - 1 PM to defend and protect the CFPB. (Gather outside the CFPB headquarters, 1700 G Street NW, Washington DC).

Economic Action Maryland

2209 Maryland Avenue

Baltimore, MD 21218

410.220.0494

info@econaction.org

Happy Lunar New Year, Baltimore!

 

Happy Lunar New Year, Baltimore! May the Year of the Snake be filled with joy, prosperity, and good luck for you and your loved ones. Among others - such as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Harbor Point, Seeing Green Studio, Ekiben and Cafe Dear Leon, the Corner Pantry, Baltimore County Public Library, and MGM National Harbor - the Walters Art Museum annually holds a Lunar New Year celebration attended by visitors of all ages for a day of art-making, tours, story time sessions, photo booth fun, food, and more! On February 1, 2025, the Peabody Heights Brewery and the National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP) Baltimore joined forces to celebrate Lunar New Year with a Beer Release: SALAK – Snake Fruit Inspired Beer; Activities: Money Tree, Snakes & Ladders, and Paper Chain Snakes; Performances: Dual Lion Dance and music by Steve Hung; Food: Ekiben; Vendors: Asian owned businesses; Asian-Themed Arcade Games; and Art by Reed Bmore & Jethro Patalinghug.

Lunar New Year is a celebration of the arrival of spring and the beginning of a new year on the lunisolar calendar. It is the most important holiday in China, and it is also widely celebrated in South Korea, Vietnam, and countries with a significant overseas Chinese population. While the official dates encompassing the holiday vary by culture, those celebrating consider it the time of the year to reunite with immediate and extended family.

Lunar New Year is the beginning of a new year based on lunar calendars or, informally but more widely, lunisolar calendars. Typically, both types of calendar begin with a new moon but, whilst a lunar calendar year has a fixed number (usually twelve) of lunar months, lunisolar calendars have a variable number of lunar months, resetting the count periodically to resynchronise with the solar year. The event is celebrated by numerous cultures in various ways at diverse dates. The determination of the first day of a new lunar or lunisolar year varies by culture.

Commonly known as the Spring Festival in China, Lunar New Year is a fifteen-day celebration marked by many traditions. At home, families decorate windows with red paper cuttings and adorn doors with couplets expressing auspicious wishes for the new year. Shopping for holiday sundries in open-air markets and cleaning the house are also traditions. The Lunar New Year’s Eve reunion dinner is the highlight that begins the holiday, a feast with a spread of symbolic dishes, such as a whole fish representing abundance, that bring good luck and fortune. The fifteenth and final day of the holiday is the Lantern Festival, during which people have tangyuan, or sweet glutinous rice balls, and children carry lanterns around the neighborhood at night to mark the end of the celebration.

In the Chinese zodiac, 2025 is the year of the snake. Different regions across Asia celebrate Lunar New Year in many ways and may follow a different zodiac. However, many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders do not observe the Chinese/lunar zodiac.

After 10 years of advocating for its inclusion by China and other countries in Asia, the United Nations unanimously passed a resolution in 2023 to recognize Lunar New Year (based on the lunisolar Chinese calendar), as a floating holiday, at the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly. This meant that starting in 2024, UN bodies were encouraged to avoid holding meetings during that day, marking Lunar New Year as the eighth floating holiday that is observed by UN staff internationally.

Go to the Walters Art Museum's Lunar New Year page.

Go to the National Museum of Asian Art.