Johnson signs Fair Housing Act four days after MLK assassination outlawing racial discrimination

President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Title VIII of which is the Fair Housing Act, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in the sale, rental, or financing of housing. The bill had stalled in Congress for two years. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination on April 4 breaks the political deadlock. The law bans the racially-motivated redlining that the FHA institutionalized since 1934 and tasks federal regulators with enforcement. However, HUD's enforcement authority is weak, and discriminatory practices continue in new forms for decades.