Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Place, race, and the law intersect in particularly explicit ways in the passage of early 20th century zoning ordinances requiring “the use of separate blocks, for residences, places of abode, and places of assembly by white and colored people respectively” State v. Gurry (1913). These laws were enacted as Jim Crow became entrenched in the rural South and African Americans moved in greater numbers to cities. As the black population in Southern cities increased and expanded into formerly all-white neighborhoods, white residents sought to draw racialized boundaries around their property. Baltimore enacted a comprehensive racial zoning ordinance in 1910 and 30 cities throughout the South quickly followed, adopting identical or similar segregation policies. The first three state courts to consider these policies, however, all struck them down and there was considerable uncertainty regarding the validity of these laws until the Supreme Court invalidated them in Buchanan v. Warley (1917). Roger Gould (2003) has suggested that social and political instability, especially instability that affects the social supports for established status relations, contributes to increases in violence. This interpersonal and intergroup conflict is especially likely where group solidarity is questioned or group status challenged, as was the case with the seeming inability of white residents to “protect” what they saw as “their” neighborhoods. This paper analyzes the relationship between racial zoning laws and racialized violence in the form of lynchings and race riots to test the applicability of Gould’s theory of conflict and explore its relationship to particularly territorial policies and conflicts.