HISTORY · HISTORICAL MARKER
Orsel McGhee House
History
5
In 1944, the Orsel McGhees, a black family, moved into this house in what was then an all-white neighborhood. A neighboring family obtained a court order revoking the McGhees’ purchase on the basis of a restrictive covenant forbidding non-white residents. Aided by the NAACP and represented by Thurgood Marshall, the McGhees appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, whose 1948 decision in their favor upheld the principle of freedom from discrimination in the enjoyment of property rights.
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