White residents who could not remove a black neighbor instead sold and fled

Evidence

First, they tried to have Scott’s building permit revoked, but found no support at city hall. Next, they pleaded with him through the minister of a large local church. The pastor repeatedly called the young veteran, begging him to build elsewhere or, at the very least, turn his home around so it would not face Mozley Place. When that approach failed, fifty residents banded together to purchase the lot back from the black owner, in order “to keep them off the street,” as one of them later put it. Those negotiations fell through, but yielded an unexpected result. Scott informed them that “Negroes would pay much more for these lots than the whites thought they were worth.” Thus, unable to remove Scott, some whites instead decided to remove themselves, placing their homes on the black real-estate market. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 150

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s own article work on sacrifice/stabilizers and the broader theme of whites viewing their homes as investments whose value depended on racial exclusion. — connects to: Professional real-estate doctrine convinced white homeowners that black entry destroyed property values — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 148; White residents renamed their street to escape a ‘black’ address stigma — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 149; Whites who sold to blacks faced threats and harassment from their own neighbors — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 220 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• White neighbors terrorized Black families until they fled white neighborhoods. #qualifies (0.85) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 479
• Residential transition fractured white communities along proximity-based lines of flight versus fight. #expands (0.84) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 210
• Whites who sold to blacks faced threats and harassment from their own neighbors #expands (0.82) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 220
• Financial loss aversion outweighed racial solidarity in fleeing neighborhoods #expands (0.80) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 230
• Court-ordered removal of segregation barricades triggered immediate white abandonment of the neighborhood #exemplifies (0.78) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 23