Northern Referenda On Fair Housing: the Response of White Voters

• Author: Harlan Hahn
• Published date: 01 September 1968
• Date: 01 September 1968
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/106591296802100310
• Subject Matter: Articles

NORTHERN REFERENDA ON FAIR HOUSING:
THE RESPONSE OF WHITE VOTERS
HARLAN HAHN
University of California, Riverside
LTHOUGH
the exercise of political rights may provide an effective avenue
A
to first-class citizenship, Negro Americans seldom have acquired sufficient
~L ~- electoral strength to achieve their objectives without additional support.
As a minority group in most Northern localities, Negro voters frequently have
attempted to enlist the aid of whites in the pursuit of full equality and freedom.
The efforts occasionally have been successful, but there have been growing recent
indications that the responses of the white electorate to Negro political aspirations
may reveal opposition and resistance rather than cooperation and support.
Political ties between Negroes and whites frequently have occupied a promi-
nent role in the struggle for civil rights. In some Northern cities including Detroit,
for example, Negro organizations and white reform groups or labor unions have
joined to promote common political aims.’ Yet, relatively little attention has been
devoted to the positions on racial issues of various groups in the electorate. Perhaps
fewer studies have been conducted on attitudes or voting behavior regarding ques-
tions of discrimination or prejudice in Northern than in Southern cities.2
2
The gains that have been secured in the urban areas of the North often have
seemed to result from an aroused public conscience rather than from the vigorous
exertion of white voters. Frequently, moreover, advocates of civil rights have
encountered substantial resistance when proposals have been offered for equal
educational opportunities, integrated housing, and impartial police practices. On
such issues, the merged voting strength of Negroes and white liberals necessary to
attain desired electoral goals often has been either lacking or ineffective.
In recent years, at least eleven Northern cities and states have held referenda
on civil rights issues.3 In eight of these cities or states, proposals in the interest of
Negro citizens have been defeated by the voters. The results of recent ballots on
specific issues of discrimination, therefore, have provided little encouragement for
securing additional progress on civil rights by circumventing the legislative process
through direct appeals to the people. Even more importantly, the strength of civil
NOTE : Appreciation is acknowledged to the Michigan Department of Health for the support
which made the survey of Detroit voters possible, to officials of the United Auto Workers
who assisted in the sampling and interviewing, to Mark Fishman of Harvard University
who aided in the statistical analysis of the voting returns, and to Eugene Feingold for
his critical reading of the paper.
1
James Q. Wilson, Negro Politics (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1960), pp. 28-31.
2
See, for example, M. Kent Jennings and L. Harmon Zeigler, "A Moderates’ Victory in a
Southern Congressional District," Public Opinion Quarterly, 28 (Winter 1964), 595-
603; Norman I. Lustig, "The Relationships Between Demographic Characteristics and
Pro-Integration Vote of White Precincts in a Metropolitan Southern County," Social
Forces, 40 (March 1962), 205-8; James W. Vander Zanden, "Voting on Segregationist
Referenda," Public Opinion Quarterly, 25 (Spring 1961), 92-105.
3
Sol Rabkin, "Civil Rights Initiatives and Referendum," unpublished paper presented at the
California Conference on Fair Housing Laws, 1965.
483

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rights opponents in referenda has raised serious questions concerning the future
course of local politics in the North.
Despite the importance of white reactions to the political goals of the Negro,
little empirical data have been accumulated concerning the responses of white
groups in Northern communities to issues concerning Negro rights. Some evidence
has suggested that prejudice may be associated with decreasing socioeconomic
status.4 The association between social class and white attitudes regarding Negroes,
however, never has been totally clear or consistent.
An extensive investigation of national opinion data found that, when the
effects of education were controlled, the relation between social status and preju-
dice often was reversed. Low status respondents generally were more likely to
accept Negroes as neighbors, for example, then upper status whites at the same
educational level.’ Another survey in Detroit revealed no major differences between
occupational groups in the distribution of tolerant attitudes, but it did disclose that
white collar adults displayed fewer &dquo;strongly intolerant&dquo; feelings than blue-collar
respondents.
6
Perhaps more important than the discrepancies in prior findings,
however, has been the general absence of available information which would indi-
cate how attitudes regarding civil rights might be translated into poltical activity
or voting behavior on local issues.
Fortunately, some research has been conducted concerning voting on fair
housing issues in California, which has been the scene of several referenda on this
subject. One study of a 1963 referendum in Berkeley revealed that support for
fair housing tended to be concentrated among males, renters, Democrats, persons
with a postgraduate education, professional or semi-professional workers, and
younger voters. On the other hand, 71 per cent of the home owners, 87 per cent
of the Republicans, 81 per cent of the respondents with a high school education or
less, and 85 per cent of the retirees or housewives opposed the fair housing ordi-
nance.7 While the results clearly were skewed by the peculiar educational charac-
teristics of Berkeley which produced a higher proportion of advanced degrees than
might be found elsewhere, the data suggested that opposition to fair housing pro-
posals might be found among homeowners, Republicans, and the aged.
Another analysis of opinions regarding Proposition 14 in California found that
voting on the referendum was strongly influenced by education, party affiliation,
and regional differences within the state.8
8
Although the seemingly inconsistent
support for Proposition 14 provided by respondents with low educational attain-
4
Hazel Gaudet Erskine, "The Polls: Race Relations," Public Opinion Quarterly, 26 (Spring
1962), 137-48; Herbert H. Hyman and Paul B. Sheatsley, "Attitudes Toward Desegre-
gation," Scientific American, 211 (July 1964), 16-23; Paul B. Sheatsley, "White Atti-
tudes Toward the Negro," Daedalus, 95 (Winter 1966), 217-38.
5
Charles H. Stember, Education and Attitude Change (New York: Institute of Human
Relations Press, 1961), pp. 81-87, 102-3, 133-37, 152.
6
Bruno Bettelheim and Morris Janowitz, Social Change and Prejudice (Glencoe: The Free
Press, 1964), p. 22.
7
Thomas W. Casstevens, Politics, Housing and Race Relations: The Defeat of Berkeley’s
Fair Housing Ordinance (Berkeley: University of California, Institute of Governmental
Studies, 1965), pp. 90-94.
8
Raymond E. Wolfinger and Fred I. Greenstein, "The Repeal of Fair Housing in California:
An Analysis of Referendum Voting," American Political Science Review (forthcoming).

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485
ments and Republicans tended to confirm the findings of the Berkeley study, the
impact of regional factors on the distribution of attitudes in California underscored
the importance of comparative analyses of white reactions to local fair housing
controversies in the North.
While civil rights issues have arisen in numerous forms at various times and
in different localities, the questions that have been submitted to the electorate in
Northern referenda on fair housing have been remarkably similar. Proposition 14
to repeal the Rumford Act, which outlawed racial discrimination by real estate
agents and the owners of apartment houses and homes built with public aid,
appeared on the ballot in California as follows:
SALES AND
RENTALS OF
RESIDENTIAL REAL
PROPERTY
Initiative constitutional amendment. Prohibits State, subdivision, or agency thereof from
denying, limiting, or abridging right of any person to decline to sell, lease, or rent residential
real property to any person as he chooses. Prohibition not applicable to property owned by
State or its subdivisions; property...