House Judiciary Committee Hearings, 1971

The records of the NCADH’s efforts in two related fields, legislation and litigation, are documented within this series of files. The organization participated in the framing and enactment of several important pieces of federal legislation, including the major civil rights and housing legislation of the 1960s. Representatives of the NCADH wrote reports and letters, testified before congressional committees, and supplied legislators with sample bills and speeches.

Not content with producing legislation, the organization sought its enforcement as well. The legal documentation includes correspondence and reports to the White House, the Departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development, the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and other executive departments, Presidential commissions, and independent agencies.

Members of the federal government represented in the correspondence include Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Prominent legislators include Senators Jacob Javits, Phillip Hart, Clifford Case, Joseph S. Clark, Walter F. Mondale and Charles Percy; and Representatives Don Edwards, Ronald Dellums, and Shirley Chisholm. HUD secretaries Robert Weaver and George Romney are also represented.

The NCADH Legal Committee acted as a clearinghouse and information center for state governments and for municipalities as well. It provided legislatures with detailed reports and model fair housing laws. In several cases, especially that of New York state, the organization engaged in the same lobbying and reporting activities that it did on the federal level. The Legal Committee in the 1960s began engaging in actual litigation. The correspondence, briefs, and court documents of the most important housing discrimination cases to come before the United States Supreme Court in the 1960s and early 1970s are included within this portion of the collection. Prominent correspondents in the work of the Legal Committee include Charles Abrams, Norman Amaker, Richard Bellman, Margaret Fisher, Hortense Gabel, Aileen Hernandez, Frances Levenson, Sol Robin, Joseph Robinson, Edward Rutledge, and Jack E. Wood.

The arrangement of the files within the series is subdivided into three basic sections. First is federal legislation, which is further divided into Congress, executive, and independent governmental agencies. Next is state legislation, arranged alphabetically by state. Finally, there is a section on litigation. Collected materials are placed at the end of each section to which they pertain. For example, a report by the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights would be in the section on state legislation among materials on Alaska, rather than at the end of the series.