St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1942-01-30
Petition to Legalize Segregation
Turned Down by Mill City Body
Rv Rem peerv

Petition to Legalize Segregation
Turned Down by Mill City Body
By Ben Peery
Efforts to make Southeast Min
neapolis lily white met with scant
consideration before the City
Planning Commission Friday.
Presented to Herman Olson, City
Engineer, about three weeks ago,
a petition was referred to City At
torney Wiggin for comment.
The following was Mr.. Virgins
reply:
January 6, 1912.
Mr.. Herman E. Olson,
City Planning Engineer,
Minneapolis, MINI.
| Dear Sir:
We have at hand your communication of
recent date enclosing petitions by property
owners that the Planning Commission re-
| strict the use of property in a certain dis
other than the Caucasian Race may be per-
mitted to occupy the (same)," and to fur
| Their restrict the use of property in said
district for period of twenty years from
October l, 1941, to October 1, 1861. Your
| letter asks for our advice "as to what ac-
ton the City Planning Commission should
take with respect to it." We beg to ad-
wise as follows:
The petitions ask for action by the Plan
| ming Commission SO that no person or per-
sons of other than the Caucasian Race may
| be permitted to occupy property in a GER
tain district. We believe it is generally
assumed that the Caucasian Race original
ly inhabited certain areas in Europe, North
| Africa and Southwestern Asia, SO that SIM
pie reference to the Caucasian Race might
| be confusing. We assume, however, that
the purpose of these petitions is to exclude
| from the area persons other than the white
race and that the petitioners desire local
zoning legislation to accomplish this pur-
pose.
In the case of Buchanan v. Marley, 245
U. S. so, the Supreme Court of the United
| States held that an ordinance of the City
| of Louisville, Kentucky, with similar pur-
pose, was invalid. The syllabus of this
case sufficiently expresses the courts hold
| ing:
"a city ordinance forbidding colored
| persons from occupying houses as resi-
| dences, or places of abode or public
assembly, on blocks where the majority
of the houses are occupied by white
persons for those purposes, and in like
manner forbidding white persons when
the conditions as to occupancy are re-
versed, and which bases the interdic-
ton upon color and nothing more,
passes the legitimate bounds of police
power and invades the civil right to
acquire, enjoy and use property, which
is guaranteed in equal measure to all
citizens, white or colored, by the Four
teenth Amendment.
Such a prohibition cannot be sus-
tanned upon the grounds that, through
race segregation, it serves to diminish
miscegenation and promotes the pub
lie peace by averting race hostility and
conflict, or that it prevents deteriora-
ton in value of property owned and
occupied by white people; nor does the
fact that upon its face it applies i'm
partially to both races relieve it from
the vice of discrimination or obviate
the objection that it deprives of prop
erty without due process of law. Pies
sy v. Ferguson, 1853 u. S. 537, and
Berea College Case, 211 U. s. as, dis
tinguished."
The decision in this case was followed