The Natick Fair Housing Practices Committee was founded in 1956 in order to combat discrimination against families of color in Natick’s housing market.
The Natick Fair Housing Practices Committee
A 1962 report by the NFHPC | NHS Collections
While the postwar suburban housing boom brought many white families to Natick in the 1950s, families of color faced widespread discriminatory practices in their attempts to move to the suburbs. Through a practice known as redlining, realtors regularly refused to sell or rent to people or color and banks refused to offer them mortgages. In the mid-twentieth century, these discriminatory housing practices were common throughout the United States; the Greater Boston area, including Natick, was no exception.
Black and white residents of Natick who witnessed families struggle in their efforts to move to Natick came together in 1957 to do something about it. They formed the Natick Fair Housing Practices Committee (NFHPC). Their goal was to “bring about the situation wherein all people of good character are welcome to live in Natick, and are not subject to discrimination because of race, religion or national origin.” The committee had five stated functions outlined in their by-laws:
This Committee shall study the problems associated with the acceptance of minority groups as residents in Natick.
This Committee shall strive to encourage other groups in Natick and in near-by towns to study and to work on the problems of the acceptance of minority groups.
This Committee shall be ready to lend its prompt support to help ease the difficulties of any family in Natick when these difficulties have arisen primarily from discrimination because of race, religion or national origin.
This Committee shall be ready to help individual families of minority groups find suitable homes in Natick when This Committee decides that it ought to be of assistance.
This Committee shall encourage the enactment of community, state and federal legislation on housing, when such legislation will help reduce discrimination due to race, religion or national origin.
An excerpt from the 1961 NFHPC report | NHS Collections
The NFHPC met weekly in members’ homes to discuss plans to assist families experiencing discrimination. They read books to stay informed about issues of racism and discrimination across the United States. Hosts invited their neighbors to attend the meetings and were always working to expand membership. The NFHPC even helped set up similar committees in neighboring towns. The NFHPC would essentially act as a middleman for families discriminated against by realtors: volunteers on the committee identified Natick residents willing to sell houses to non-white families and connected them with potential buyers, bypassing realtors in the process.
Beyond the work the organization did to counter discriminatory housing practices in Natick, they also took on advocacy roles, sponsoring events to educate the public about redlining and the damage it did to communities. In the committee bylaws statement of policies, they wrote, “While recognizing the right of individuals to live in areas of their own choosing, This Committee shall not encourage the clustering of minority groups in any particular areas.” In a 1961 report to the town, they wrote “The Natick Fair Housing Practices Committee has one primary objective: To prove to the doubters and the uninformed that discrimination in housing is not only contrary to the American ideal of fair play, but that it is not good sense either from a social or an economic point of view.” The committee also lobbied local realtors to sign pledges of non-discrimination.
The NFHPC was the first of its kind in the state and among the first across the country. Similar fair housing organizations emerged in the years following around the Boston suburbs. More than sixty existed by 1964, but Natick was first. Their work was crucial to combatting the effects of redlining in the Greater Boston area, especially as the federal Fair Housing Act did not become law until 1968. Decades of discriminatory housing practices by the federal government and private lending agencies created lasting wealth inequality among American families. The impact and legacy of these policies remains evident in Greater Boston and across the country today—and will for many, many years to come.
By: Rachel Speyer Besancon
Selected sources and additional reading:
Natick Historical Society collections
Phone interview with Harriet Fisher (early member of Natick FHPC), October 15, 2020
