The Housing Acts of 1949 and 1954 provided the foundation for slum clearanc
e and urban renewal. Despite efforts to finesse the issue, race remained ce
ntral to the formation and implementation of public policy. The Racial Rela
tions Service (RRS), an institutional remnant of the New Deal, tried unsucc
essfully to prevent local authorities from using the new federal resources
to reinforce existing "ghettos." Searching for a "sound Negro policy," the
RRS warned housing officials against pursuing such a course and offered bur
eaucratic resistance to individual projects deemed inimical to minority int
erests.
The coincidence of demographic and political change in the 1950s, the subse
quent dismantling of the RRS, the reaction to the Supreme Court's decision
in Brown v. Board of Education, and the passage of the Housing Act of 1954
all contributed to the use of urban renewal to create and sustain racially
separate neighborhoods even as the civil rights movement gained momentum.