ABSTRACT
The proponents of these segregation ordinances were generally white property owners who expressed concern about the effects of black families moving to their neighborhood, particularly the effects on the value of their homes. The struggle over the early twentieth century municipal segregation ordinances can illuminate some ways in which the social conflicts over group hierarchies and spatial conflict over urban geography are fought in local laws and state and federal courts. The chapter explores how property rights jurisprudence evolved in the decade following the adoption of Baltimore’s ordinance as these state courts considered similar segregation ordinances and weighed their encroachment on property rights against the maintenance of Jim Crow segregation. When the Georgia Supreme Court had struck down Atlanta’s previous ordinance in 1915, it carefully distinguished Plessy and emphasized how different any limitations of property rights were when compared to the regulation of social rights by other Jim Crow laws.
