On May 2, 1948, the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark civil rights ruling in Shelley v. Kraemer, declaring that courts could not enforce racially restrictive covenants in property deeds. These covenants, which were widespread across the country, barred Black families and other minorities from buying or occupying homes in certain neighborhoods. The decision did not outlaw the covenants themselves but prohibited state and federal courts from upholding them—effectively stripping them of legal power. The case was brought by the Shelley family, African American homeowners in St. Louis, Missouri, who challenged the systemic housing discrimination that had long excluded Black Americans from suburban homeownership and generational wealth. This ruling paved the way for broader challenges to housing segregation and remains a foundational case in the history of U.S. civil rights law.