November 20, 1962
President John F. Kennedy issued an executive order mandating an end to housing discrimination. The presidential order, which came in the midst of an upsurge in the civil rights movement, banned federally funded housing agencies from denying mortgages to any person based on race, color, creed or national origin. Although Executive Order 11063 was an important symbolic step in curbing de facto segregation in housing, it was left it up to the individual housing and funding agencies to police themselves resulting in noncompliance in states and localities with long histories of racial segregation. Not until President Lyndon Johnson signed Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act in 1968 were any legal teeth attached to the fair housing law.
