Below is the contents of a letter PCR wrote to the Chairman of the District of Columbia Armory Board on February 21, 1961:
I am writing to you to express my very deep concern about one of the firms which is using the Armory during the current Home Show. I refer to the Page Valley Estates whose booth and literature blatantly advertise “A Restricted Development”, and whose salesmen blatantly brag that this means restricted to “The White Race.”
In view of the fact that this Armory is government property I feel it is a very serious matter that steps were not taken to avoid practices of this type. I think that it is very clear that — under the 5th amendment to the Constitution — the Federal government can not allow the use of its property to further discrimination.
In order to make my position explicitly clear, let me say that — while I might disagree with the philosophy or the emotions which lie behind these restrictions — I do not dispute the legal right of a developer to make sales on a restrictive basis. [The Fair Housing Act was still seven years in the future. – ed.] What I do strongly object to is this use of Government property to promote these sales. In this way the Government becomes a party to discrimination.
May I urge that you take immediate steps to see that this firm either end these practices or be removed from the show, that an investigation be made to assure that no other exhibitors now there are following similar practices, and that — in the future — all “Show” leases ere written in such a way as to make explicit that these practices will not be tolerated on the property of the Federal Government. As this show will be soon over, may I ask quick action.
Sincerely,
Peter C. Robertson
cc: D.C. Commissioners
Washington Postbcc: NAACP
