Fair Housing History in Greensboro NC: From the Sit-Ins to Your Closing Table

Every home sale in Greensboro ends with a deed recorded at the Guilford County Register of Deeds. Some of the older deed books in that office still hold language that once told owners who could live on the land and who could not. Those words have no legal force today. The history behind them still shapes the neighborhoods I help people buy and rent in.

This guide traces fair housing law from 1866 to 2026. It names the lawmakers who wrote the protections, lays out what the National Association of Realtors did to hurt fair housing and what it later did to repair it, and shows where Greensboro's civil rights movement fits. Each term of art is defined, and the primary sources are linked so you can read them yourself.

What Fair Housing Means

Fair housing is your right to rent, buy, finance, or insure a home without being treated differently because of who you are. The federal Fair Housing Act protects seven groups, called protected classes: race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, and familial status, which covers households with children under 18 and people who are pregnant.

North Carolina's State Fair Housing Act, G.S. Chapter 41A, protects the same seven classes. So does the City of Greensboro's Fair Housing Ordinance. As a Realtor, I am also bound by Article 10 of the NAR Code of Ethics, which adds sexual orientation and gender identity.

Key Terms in This Post

Protected class: A group of people the law shields from housing discrimination, such as people of a certain race or families with children.

Restrictive covenant: A rule written into a deed or plat that limits how a property can be used. A racial covenant was a version that barred sale to, or occupancy by, people of certain races.

Redlining: Denying loans or insurance to people because of the racial makeup of the neighborhood where they live or want to live. The name comes from 1930s federal maps that shaded some neighborhoods red.

HOLC: The Home Owners' Loan Corporation, a New Deal agency created in 1933. Its color-coded city maps are preserved online by the University of Richmond's Mapping Inequality project.

Steering: Guiding a buyer or renter toward or away from a neighborhood because of a protected class. Federal rules at 24 CFR 100.70 list examples, such as telling someone they would not be comfortable among the people who already live there.

Disparate impact: A policy that looks neutral but falls harder on a protected class. Disparate treatment is the intentional kind.

Urban renewal: A federal program, starting in 1949, that paid cities to clear neighborhoods labeled blighted and rebuild them. In Greensboro, the program cleared most of Warnersville in the 1960s.

FHAP agency: A state or local office that HUD certifies as enforcing a fair housing law "substantially equivalent" to the federal act. Greensboro's Human Rights Department is one.

Fair Housing Timeline: Laws, Lawmakers, and Greensboro Moments

Reconstruction Through the Courts, 1866 to 1948

1866. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and Congress passed it over President Andrew Johnson's veto. It gave all citizens the same right as white citizens to buy, lease, sell, hold, and convey property. That promise still stands at 42 U.S.C. 1982.

Late 1860s. Pennsylvania Quaker Yardley Warner bought land just south of Greensboro and sold lots to freed families. The result was Warnersville, the city's first planned African American community.

1917. In Buchanan v. Warley, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Louisville law that zoned city blocks by race. Segregation moved from city ordinances into private deeds.

1924. The National Association of Real Estate Boards, the group now called the National Association of Realtors, added Article 34 to its Code of Ethics. It told members never to introduce "members of any race or nationality" into a neighborhood if their presence would hurt property values. The Oregon Historical Society has the full text.

1937. The HOLC finished its Greensboro map in June 1937, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago working paper. You can look up your own street on Mapping Inequality's Greensboro map.

1948. In Shelley v. Kraemer, the Supreme Court ruled that courts cannot enforce racial covenants. The covenants stayed in the deed books anyway.

Greensboro Pushes the Country Forward, 1960 to 1968

February 1, 1960. Four freshmen from North Carolina A&T, Ezell Blair Jr. (later Jibreel Khazan), Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond, sat down at the whites-only lunch counter in the Woolworth store on South Elm Street. The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources credits them with launching the sit-in movement across the South. The building is now the International Civil Rights Center & Museum.

November 20, 1962. President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 11063, which barred discrimination in housing owned, operated, or financed by the federal government.

November 1, 1963. In Simkins v. Cone, Greensboro dentist and NAACP chapter president Dr. George Simkins Jr. won a federal appeals ruling against two Greensboro hospitals built with federal Hill-Burton money. The court held they could not shut out Black patients and doctors. Housing policy turned on the same question in those years: whether federal money carries a duty not to discriminate.

1964 and 1967. The California Real Estate Association, a state Realtor group, sponsored Proposition 14 to repeal California's Rumford Fair Housing Act. Voters passed it. The U.S. Supreme Court struck it down in Reitman v. Mulkey in 1967.

April 11, 1968. One week after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Its Title VIII is the Fair Housing Act. Senators Walter Mondale of Minnesota and Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, then the only Black member of the Senate, wrote the fair housing amendment. Clarence Mitchell Jr., the NAACP's lobbyist in Washington, pushed for it, as Senator Edward Kennedy later recounted. The original law covered race, color, religion, and national origin.

June 17, 1968. In Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., the Supreme Court held that the 1866 law bars all racial discrimination in the sale or rental of property, private as well as public.

November 1968. Greensboro lawyer Henry Frye won a seat in the North Carolina House, the first Black member of the General Assembly since 1899. His first bill sought to end the literacy test for voting. He later became the first Black Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court.

Building Out the Law, 1974 to 1988

1974. Congress added sex as a protected class, an amendment the Congressional Black Caucus backed.

November 3, 1979. Klan members and neo-Nazis shot and killed five people at an anti-Klan rally at Morningside Homes, Greensboro's first public housing community. In 2020 the Greensboro City Council passed a resolution of apology to the victims, survivors, and Morningside Homes community, acknowledging that police knew of the planned attack, as WUNC reported.

1983. The North Carolina General Assembly passed the State Fair Housing Act, Session Law 1983-522. Later amendments added disability and familial status.

September 13, 1988. President Ronald Reagan signed the Fair Housing Amendments Act. It added disability and familial status, gave HUD an administrative process to decide complaints, and extended the deadline to sue from 180 days to two years, according to the Congressional Research Service summary. Senator Edward Kennedy sponsored the Senate version, S. 558, with Senator Arlen Specter. Reagan credited Representative Hamilton Fish of New York for decades of work on fair housing. It passed the Senate 94 to 3.

Recent Years, 2015 to 2026

2015. In Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, the Supreme Court held that disparate impact claims can be brought under the Fair Housing Act.

2019. Newsday published Long Island Divided, a three-year undercover investigation. Reporters used paired testing, sending matched home seekers of different races to the same agents, and reported evidence of unequal treatment in 40% of 86 tests.

2021. North Carolina Senators Julie Mayfield and Natalie Murdock filed Senate Bill 427 to give owners a form for discharging discriminatory covenants from their deeds. The bill died in committee, NC Newsline reported.

2025. HUD replaced its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule with an interim final rule, meaning one that takes effect before public comment closes. It lets local governments certify their own compliance. HUD canceled 78 Fair Housing Initiatives Program grants in February, and a federal judge ordered them reinstated in March, WOSU reported. In April, Executive Order 14281 directed agencies to limit disparate impact liability.

2026. On January 14, HUD proposed removing its disparate impact regulations, saying courts rather than the agency should interpret that question. On August 10, HUD reopened comments through October 9, 2026. As I publish this, the rule is not final. In July, fair housing groups filed a third lawsuit over HUD's handling of the grant program, Axios reported.

The National Association of Realtors: The Harm and the Repair

I am a Realtor, so this part of the story belongs to my profession. NAR has said so in its own words.

What Hurt Fair Housing

Article 34 of the Code of Ethics told members to keep neighborhoods segregated from 1924 until 1950, when the association removed the words "race or nationality." NAR now states that it opposed passage of the Fair Housing Act and once let local boards exclude members based on race or sex. Black brokers shut out of those boards formed the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, whose members are called Realtists, in 1947. In California, the state Realtor group led the Proposition 14 campaign described above.

What Helped Fair Housing

In May 1972, the year the group took the name National Association of Realtors, its board approved a Code for Equal Opportunity in Housing. In 1974 it rewrote the Code of Ethics to add Article 10, which requires equal professional service. In 1975 it signed a Voluntary Affirmative Marketing Agreement with HUD that committed members to outreach and to guarding against steering. The real estate industry backed the 1988 amendments, UPI reported at the signing.

After the Newsday investigation, NAR adopted a fair housing action plan called ACT, for accountability, culture change, and training. In November 2020 its board added Standard of Practice 10-5, which bans hate speech by members. That same month, NAR President Charlie Oppler issued a formal apology for the association's role in segregation. In 2023, NAR began requiring fair housing training every three years, starting in 2025. On February 13, 2026, NAR filed comments opposing HUD's proposal to remove its disparate impact rule, arguing that disparate impact liability is settled law.

What This History Means When You Buy or Rent in Greensboro

Old Deeds Can Still Carry Covenant Language

The Greensboro News & Record documented racially restrictive language in Guilford County deed books, including in deeds homeowners did not know about. That language is void under Shelley v. Kraemer and the Fair Housing Act. North Carolina still has no simple form to strike it from the record. Wake County's Register of Deeds has cataloged about 15,000 such deeds there. I found no comparable Guilford County project.

If covenant language turns up in a title search, ask your closing attorney what it means for you. The Justice Law Group on Battleground Avenue handles closings for many of my clients, and you can find them with the rest of my preferred vendors. For HOA and deed restriction questions, my HOA and COA buyer resources page is a good next stop.

How I Talk About Neighborhoods

I describe homes and places: the lot, the age of the house, the walk to the greenway, the commute to Cone Health. I do not describe who lives there or who "should." NAR Standard of Practice 10-1 bars Realtors from volunteering the racial, religious, or ethnic makeup of a neighborhood, and federal steering rules back that up.

When buyers ask whether a neighborhood is safe, I send them to CrimeMapping.com, the public map the Greensboro Police Department uses to share incident data. I can also pull property and market reports for any home from Realtors Property Resource (RPR), a data tool NAR provides to its members. I also tell them I live on West Wendover Avenue. My comfort with traffic and city noise may not match theirs. Questions about safety, noise, quiet streets, and the "best" part of town have personal answers, so I give buyers the data and let them decide.

North Carolina Law Still Covers Discriminatory Effects

Whatever HUD decides about its federal regulation, G.S. 41A-5 makes it a violation when an act "has the effect, regardless of intent," of discriminating against a protected class, unless the person proves a business necessity. The 2015 Supreme Court ruling also still stands.

Where to Report Housing Discrimination

Inside Greensboro city limits, call the Human Rights Department's Fair Housing Division at 336-373-2038. Anywhere in North Carolina, contact the Civil Rights Division of the Office of Administrative Hearings at 984-236-1914. You can also report to HUD online. A HUD complaint must be filed within one year. For free legal help, contact the Fair Housing Project of Legal Aid of North Carolina.

Disability rights come up often for renters. My posts on emotional support animals and assistance animals in North Carolina and on whether a landlord can refuse a tenant who works from home walk through reasonable accommodation requests.

Fair Housing FAQ

Who wrote the Fair Housing Act?

Senators Walter Mondale of Minnesota and Edward Brooke of Massachusetts wrote the fair housing amendment that became Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it on April 11, 1968.

Did the National Association of Realtors oppose the Fair Housing Act?

Yes. NAR, then called the National Association of Real Estate Boards, opposed the 1968 law. NAR has acknowledged this, and its president formally apologized in November 2020.

Is a racial covenant in my Greensboro deed enforceable?

No. Courts cannot enforce racial covenants under Shelley v. Kraemer (1948), and the Fair Housing Act makes them illegal. North Carolina does not offer a simple form to remove the language, so ask a closing attorney about your options.

What are the protected classes in North Carolina?

Race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, and familial status, under both federal law and G.S. Chapter 41A.

Did HUD end disparate impact in 2026?

Not as of October 4, 2026. HUD proposed removing its disparate impact regulations in January 2026 and reopened comments through October 9, 2026. The Supreme Court's 2015 ruling and North Carolina's G.S. 41A-5 still recognize discriminatory effect claims.

Visit the Places in This Story

You can stand where the sit-ins began at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, 134 South Elm Street. The Simkins v. Cone historical marker stands on North Elm Street beside Cone Hospital. Warnersville residents still gather for reunions south of downtown, and the community's story is kept by the people who grew up there.

Keep reading: the full Joy Watson Real Estate blog

Keep reading: What the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act Means for Greensboro and the Triad

Keep reading: Who Actually Pays Your Agent? Buyer and Seller Compensation in North Carolina, Explained

Keep reading: Can a Landlord Refuse a Tenant Who Works From Home? NC Fair Housing Rules Explained

Joy Watson Real Estate is an independent, non-corporate brokerage in Greensboro, NC. Joy Watson is a licensed North Carolina real estate broker (Broker-in-Charge). Questions about buying, selling, or renting in the Triad? Reach out through JoyWatsonRealEstate.com.

This post is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Talk to your attorney, CPA, or lender about your situation.

Joy Watson Real Estate is committed to the letter and spirit of fair housing law. License #307423 | Firm License #C37131 | 909 W Wendover Ave, Greensboro, NC 27408 | Equal Housing Opportunity.