Black pre-1968 homeownership depended on luck and white patrons rather than policy

Evidence

Before the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968, black homeownership was mostly achieved through a mix of luck and strategy. Take my parents, James and Dottie, who bought a three-family home at 1061 Morris Avenue in the Bronx in 1964. At that time, only 38 percent of black Americans (compared with 64 percent of white Americans) were homeowners, and the Fair Housing Act, which made race discrimination in housing illegal, was still four years away. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 1223