Race and Real Estate in Mid-Century DC
Neighbors, Inc. was established by an interracial group of Manor Park residents in 1958, when their neighborhood citizens association refused to admit black members. Neighbors’ founders included Marvin Caplan, who later became a senior lobbyist for the AFL-CIO and directed the National Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Margery Ware, formerly a housing specialist for the National Urban League’s Washington bureau, was the organization’s longtime director.
With the goal of building a stable, integrated, urban community in the face of real estate practices and public policies that promoted segregation and white flight, Neighbors, Inc. initially defined its boundaries as the blocks surrounding four schools south of Missouri Avenue and extending north to the District line.