FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OC Human Relations’ Legacy Awards to Honor Orange County’s Civil Rights Heroes on May 8
*Commemorating 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act*
(Santa Ana)— In 1966, Dorothy Mulkey, an African American Orange County resident, challenged Proposition 14 after a Santa Ana landlord refused to rent a vacant apartment to her family. Three years earlier, in 1963, the California State Legislature had passed the Rumford Act, also known as the “fair housing act,” which declared that racial discrimination in housing rental or sales was against the law. In response, the California Association of Realtors sponsored Proposition 14 to overthrow the Rumford Fair Housing Act. Proposition 14 passed in a vote of 3 to 1 in Orange County. The ACLU and the Orange County Fair Housing Council took her case all the way to the Supreme Court, and in 1967 the court declared Prop 14 unconstitutional. Landlords no longer could refuse to rent to people because of their skin color, religion or ethnicity. Continue reading