Residence and Race

Davis McEntire’s Residence and Race offers a comprehensive examination of one of the most entrenched forms of discrimination in the United States: restrictions on where racial and ethnic minorities could live. Drawing on vivid case studies—from an African American physician barred from buying near his hospital in Iowa to a decorated Korean American army officer turned away from a suburban development in California—the book situates individual injustices within a national pattern. McEntire demonstrates that, by the mid-twentieth century, millions of Americans—African Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Asian Americans, and Jews—faced structural limits on their residential choices. He traces the evolution of these restrictions, showing how older mechanisms such as restrictive covenants intersected with postwar demographic shifts, including the migration of African Americans and Puerto Ricans into northern and western cities, where their housing needs collided with deeply rooted exclusionary practices.

As McEntire shows, the issue was not simply about the quantity or quality of available housing but about access to it—whether minorities would remain confined to segregated neighborhoods or be allowed entry into the broader housing market. He situates the debate within wider mid-century transformations: the rise of minority middle classes with the means and desire for better housing, the momentum of the civil rights movement, and expanding governmental interest in housing policy. For McEntire, residential segregation was not only a denial of a basic freedom but also a linchpin of broader inequality, perpetuating exclusion from schools, community institutions, and civic life. By framing housing as central to the struggle for equal rights, Residence and Race underscores how patterns of residence shaped—and continue to shape—the contours of American democracy.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1960.