One black purchase across a racial boundary triggered mass white selling.

Evidence

Indeed, the Hightower Road boundary was soon crossed. As in countless other cases, a few whites living along the borderline decided to sell their homes the only place they could—the black real-estate market. “Because of [the] agreement that Hightower Rd would be used as a dividing line between white and black development,” a realtist with Alexander-Calloway recalled, “we refused to take listings.” But after a black buyer breached the boundary line, apparently without an EREB member’s help, white residents on Commercial Avenue, just behind the property, “called incessantly to list their homes.” The realty company waited until a strong majority along Commercial—fifteen out of seventeen—wanted to sell before taking the listings, and even then it demanded white homeowners issue “signed statements to the effect that the real estate firm had not solicited the listings, but were accepting them at the insistence of a majority of the residents.” — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 233

Categorization

• XREF: The wedge/tip dynamic closely mirrors the classic blockbusting pattern described elsewhere in this book and in the tipping-point literature on neighborhood change. — connects to: Early white sellers triggered a domino flight effect on the block — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 151; Incipient black home sales triggered cascading white panic driven by rumor — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 216; Whites who sold to blacks faced threats and harassment from their own neighbors — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 220 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Black economic success itself triggered hostile white-supremacist reaction #expands (0.90) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 268
• Whites who sold to blacks faced threats and harassment from their own neighbors #expands (0.88) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 220
• Black financial success provoked the harshest white violence #expands (0.82) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 902
• Blockbusting turned racial fear into profit for real estate speculators #expands (0.80) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 917
• Race-conscious homeownership remedies fail when white flight depresses resale values #expands (0.78) — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 483