| Buchanan v. Warley | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued April 10–11, 1916 Reargued April 27, 1917 Decided November 5, 1917 | |
| Full case name | Buchanan v. Warley |
| Citations | 245 U.S. 60 (more) 38 S. Ct. 16; 62 L. Ed. 149; 1917 U.S. LEXIS 1788 |
| Holding | |
| Bans on the sale of real estate to black people violate freedom of contract as protected under the Fourteenth Amendment. Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinion | |
| Majority | Day, joined by unanimous |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. XIV | |
Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60 (1917), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States addressed civil government-instituted racial segregation in residential areas. The Court held unanimously that a Louisville, Kentucky, city ordinance prohibiting the sale of real property to blacks in white-majority neighborhoods or buildings and vice versa violated the Fourteenth Amendment's protections for freedom of contract. The ruling of the Kentucky Court of Appeals was thus reversed.
Previous state court rulings had overturned racial zoning ordinances on grounds of the "takings clause" because of their failures to grandfather land that had been owned before enactment. The Court, in Buchanan, ruled that the motive for the Louisville ordinance—separation of races for purported reasons—was an inappropriate exercise of police power, and its insufficient purpose also made it unconstitutional.[1]
- ^ Silver, Christopher (1997). "The Racial Origins of Zoning in American Cities". In Thomas, J. M.; Ritzdorf, M. (eds.). Urban Planning & the African American Community: In the Shadows. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publ. ISBN 0803972334.[page needed]