The White Property Case

In 1920, two persons by the names of Kate Rau and Anna E. Jones, white, were owners of a tract of ground in the city of Huntington. This ground was divided into eleven lots. The lots were sold to various persons and the deed for each of these lots contained the following covenant or restriction: “and the said party of the second part (grantee) hereby covenants with the said parties of the first part that the property hereby conveyed shall not be conveyed to any persons of Ethiopian race or descent for a period of fifty years from the date hereof.”

When the case came before the Supreme Court, Judge Maxwell wrote:

We hold that a restriction on alienation to an entire race of people, when appended to a fee simple estate, is void as wholly incompatible with complete ownership…A fee simple title to real estate no longer would import complete dominion in the owner, if because of a restriction imposed by his grantor the market afforded by a whole race of the human family is closed.