Our Living Bill of Rights Equality Under Law: The California Fair Housing Center

Year Published: 1969

Creator: Produced by Neal Ruben.

Complete Record: Dramatizes and illuminates the events leading up to the placement of Proposition 14 on the California ballot during the election of 1964. Shows how Proposition 14 symbolized the centuries-old conflict between human rights and property rights. Indicates the basic facts in the case of Reitman and Snyder vs. Mulkey and Prendergast. Points up the historical precedents leading to and the “essential elements of the Supreme Court’s majority and minority decisions. ________________________________ CU thru car windows of Black man and White woman. Camera angle above looking down, LS, family (Black man and White woman plus their two young children getting out of car). MS of a group of young men and women yelling and rabble rousing. They carry a sign that says “Keep the Darkies on the Plantation.” MS family sees trouble coming, and rushes into their house. MS the riotous young men and women yell and throw rocks. Good CU of individual faces grimacing with hate and obviously part of a vicious pack. Arms up in the air with fists and show of strength. Titles are set over portion of film in which police arrive and start trying to control the crowd. The police have to use force. Free of titles: Short MS of police trying to control crowd in a street. Footage: Reverend Martin Luther King at the Podium with microphone prominent, CU footage: “Segregation is Wrong. . . . Segregation is another form of slavery covered up with the niceties of complexity.” Footage: A variety of MS shots of people picketing because they think people are being denied the right of property. Signs that picketers carry relate to Civil Rights groups like NAACP. The anti-position is that realtors and other owners of property have the right to own property means to freedom from selling that property to minorities. Footage of a plaque, the Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that reads: “. . . No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges ... of citizens of the United States: Nor shall any state deprive any person of Life, Liberty, or Property, without du process of law; Nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” It poses the question: Which takes precedence, property rights or civil rights? Footage: LS and MS delivery man unloading documents from his van onto a push cart to take up the State of California steps. Busy street scene to inside of a busy County Clerk’s office. Fast shot of the belly of a policeman with pistol. MS inside the State of California County Clerk, Registration Department. Piles of documents on a counter. Citizens are signing petitions to put to the California voters to amend the California Constitution: The Amendment would allow property owners the right to refuse to sell or rent property. CU of Amendment 14 as it appears on a ballot. Footage: LS and MS of picketers as citizens take sides on Proposition 14. Various shots of signage held by individuals. Footage: L.H. Wilson, Supporter of Proposition 14 and realtor, CU sitting at his desk, makes the points for the Amendment. Many of these property owners disagreed with the Rumford Fair Housing Act, passed in 1963. Many felt that it was too restrictive and represented unfair interference by state government in private affairs. Thus, in 1964, the California Real Estate Association sponsored an initiative to counteract the effects of the Act.[1] The initiative, numbered Proposition 14 when it was certified for the ballot, was to add an amendment to the constitution of California. This amendment would provide, in part, as follows: Neither the State nor any subdivision or agency thereof shall deny, limit or abridge, directly or indirectly, the right of any person, who is willing or desires to sell, lease or rent any part or all of his real property, to decline to sell, lease or rent such property to such person or persons as he, in his absolute discretion, chooses. Following much publicity the proposition gained the endorsement of many large conservative political groups, including the John Birch Society and the California Republican Assembly. As these and other groups endorsed the proposal it became increasingly more popular and the petition to have the proposition added to the ballot garnered over one million signatures. This was more than twice the 480,000 signatures that were required. The initiative proved to be overwhelmingly popular, and was passed by a 65% majority vote in the 1964 California elections.[2] As soon as it was passed, the federal government cut off all housing funds to California. The fact that Robert C. Weaver, the first African American member of the U.S. Cabinet, was United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, may have had something to do with the government's response.[3] It is believed that this amendment helped to fuel racial tensions which erupted during the Watts Riots of 1965. Footage: MS and LS of Black American ghetto. Street scenes. Liquor Store, abandoned store fronts, etc. Empty lots, shiftless men, etc. Every stereotype that says ghetto. W. Byron Rumford is an opponent of Proposition 14. His Rumford Fair Housing Act was a law passed in 1963 by the state of California to help end racial discrimination by property owners and landlords who refused to rent or sell their property to "colored" customers. It was drafted by William Byron Rumford, the first African American from Northern California to serve in the legislature. The Act provided that landlords could not deny people housing because of ethnicity, religion, sex, marital status, physical handicap, or familial status Footage: CU of W. Byron Rumford speaking to the unfairness of Proposition 14. Footage: MS,MS, CU of Meeting of the California Fair Employment Practice Commission (1959) charged with enforcing Rumford’s 1963 Act. They are apparently hearing the case of a Black man (at the table) who was denied the right to rent an apartment (owner sitting at table). The California Fair Employment Practice Commission, supporters of Prop 14, said that the Commission denied them due process of law. Footage: CU of individual at his desk saying that Commission serves as investigator, prosecutor, jury, and judge. CU of woman on tv framed in the semi-oval manner of the old tv sets. MS and CU of advertising campaigns used by both sides to gain viewer support. Car bumper stickers, various tv spots framed as above in the old tv screen format (CU man, next a long section by a Black man, and then a reverend). Examples of print political cartoons. CU of asking people on the street for their opinions. MS view of lower halves of voting booths with the diversity of legs standing to vote. MS scene of voting station and women tearing off the edge for the voter, a Black woman. Proposition 14 passed, but immediately its constitutionality became challenged. Footage: Mrs. Carol Prendergast had been looking for an apartment for her self and her husband. She rented one in a predominately white neighborhood in Beverly Hills. Dramatization: Pendergast shown looking for an apartment. There is a scene with she and her husband in their living room explaining their situation at having received an eviction notice. Highly dramatic racism with apartment managers and owners who evoke Prop 14. Manager states a Negro will let the apartment “run down.” VCU law books. The Prendergasts brought a suit against the landlord saying that he violated State housing laws. After many years, the suit was brought to the Supreme Court of the United States. At issue was the constitutionality of Prop 14. VCU of hand going through a long drawer of micro film. MS of the two opposing attorneys sitting behind their desks, each separately presenting his case. A LS of the Supreme Court Justices at the time. The Supreme Court Justices would base their opinion on three precedent-forging cases: (1) Plessy vs. Ferguson, 1896, 14th Amendment gives equality before the law but no enforcement; (2) Buchanan vs. Warley, 1917 that prevents State discrimination in violation of US Constitution law; and Shelley vs. Kraemer, 1948 that denied minorities are to be given full protection of the law. Footage of the time and place of each of these decisions. Images of the South without enforcement (segregation) and largely East Coast clubs that restrict race and Jews. Reitman and Snyder vs. Mulkey and Prendergast, 1967: Prop 14 was ruled unconstitutional to the State of California’s constitution. LS footage of the clients, Mulkey and Prendergast walking down US Supreme Court steps. Dramatization: A black man and woman search for a new home in a housing tract. It is shown that discrimination still occurs in a covert way. There is no enforcement agency. Dramatization: Looks like a student filming project on a university campus. The question is posed to various young individuals why are people opposed to integration? LS of interviewing scene, camera on tripod, etc. This is a long segment with several individuals and groups interviewed. There are MS and CUs. The final shot is a long pull away to expose the campus more fully as ground on which this debate can rest. Can equality be enforced by legislation or judicial decree? Can the time-honored right to property be regulated by government? And which takes precedence in a modern society: Property Rights or Civil Rights?