Introduction: “The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was a child of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty and part of his Great Society plan to eliminate poverty and racial injustice in America. Yet, as HUD’s first Secretary, Robert Weaver, recognized, the agency inherited the racialized politics and policies of its predecessor agencies. In 1968, President Johnson’s new housing agency moved into its “brutalist” architectural-styled headquarters in Washington D.C., only a few months after the Fair Housing Act became law. Since that time, the fate of both the agency and the Fair Housing Act has been intertwined. HUD and its grantees have been sued, and HUD has learned valuable lessons from these cases. HUD has also brought its own fair housing claims against state and local governments and housing providers, often working alongside the same advocates who have brought discrimination and segregation claims against HUD. HUD has benefited enormously from strong civil rights advocacy, and many of HUD’s most important regulatory guidelines have emerged from this advocacy. We offer this selected timeline as a tribute to this ongoing history and, we hope, an inspiration to a new generation of civil rights and tenant activists.”
