White Homeowners Defend Racist Housing Practices

Background: The following three interviews are excerpted from a radio special produced by San Francisco station KCBS in March 1952. The anonymous white residents are overtly prejudiced—describing African Americans as “their own species” and asserting that “coloreds” should live in their own communities—and are concerned with decreasing property values.

Unnamed Rollingwood Resident 1:

I’m a resident at Rollingwood, and I’d like to state that I am opposed to a colored moving into this section because it creates a lot of hard feelings—there are many rumors flying—and there is also the thought of property value going down. This has always been a white community, and we, myself, wish to keep it so. We have passed the word around the community not to harm the colored family—we don’t want any harm to come to them. All we are in hopes for is that they will leave, and leave us in peace. To my knowledge, no vote was taken [by the Rollingwood Improvement Association, or RIA] before they moved in, or attempted to move in, and none of us were asked our opinion. . . . There has been an offer made by the RIA to buy the home from the colored family. This I understand is to give him a nice settlement, a nice profit. This has been one way to settle the situation and bring back peace to the community. Then there are those who opposed to that: they claim that is legal blackmail, he is just out to make a fast thousand dollars. But I feel that if the man has been offered more than what he paid for the place, and if he is happy enough, let him take it.

Unnamed Rollingwood Resident 2: 

I don’t think it’s a question of race prejudice, I think it’s a question more that people want to be with their own—their own kind, their own species, for example. . . . It isn’t against the fact that they are colored, it’s more that they want their own kind—even animals, so to speak, want to be with their own. I would like to see the colored people realize that they wouldn’t be happy in this neighborhood. I know that I wouldn’t be happy if I moved over to one of their neighborhoods, and they resented my coming in. I’m sure I wouldn’t want to stay.

Unnamed Rollingwood Resident 3:

I fought in the Marine Corps during [World War II], I’m an American, and I have nothing against the colored family. But I believe that he should live in his own section, like the other coloreds do. And it’s going to cost me in the neighborhood of three thousand dollars if he stays.

Source: “Rollingwood, USA,” report by KCBS San Francisco, aired March 1952, https://pastdaily.com/2017/03/03/march-3-1952-living-black/, Gordon Skene Sound Collection.