Our Legacy
THE HISTORY OF THE BEDFORD STUYVESANT REAL ESTATE BOARD
Seventy years ago, a small group of black real estate brokers met in the home of Bedford Stuyvesant real estate broker Jesse L. Vann. Mr. Vann had assembled the group to discuss issues of urgent concern to black real estate brokers. Uppermost in his mind was the determination to address the need for collaboration and the exchange of ideas among Black colleagues in the real estate profession. This was necessary because, at the time, black real estate professionals were not allowed membership in the National Association of Realtors.
The organization was originally named the United Real Estate Brokers and Salesmen. The founding group, led by Mr. Vann, included LeRoy F. Hill, Wilbert Blanche, Philip J. Manning, Benjamin Williams, Joseph Boyd, and Norman Johnson. The name became the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board when the organization was incorporated under New York State law in 1940. At the time of incorporation the first directors were: Jesse L. Vann, Wilbert Blanche, Garfield Davis, Oscar H. Wells, Philip J. Manning, Allen Jordan, Rufus Murray, Raymond R. Recard and John G. Brooks.
Through the years the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board led the fight for equality in housing accommodations and equal access to housing financing. As a result of persistent, organized pressure by the Board, the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) adopted a new policy, which had a dramatic effect on the availability of mortgage financing and home improvement loans in several Black neighborhoods.
BSREB and Homeownership in Brooklyn during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Prior to 1967, FHA had rejected application for mortgage on any home, which had interior rooms without direct access to natural light and ventilation. This policy excluded whole areas from FHA financing because most attached, row, one and two family homes that are predominant in Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, and Park Slope include such “blind” rooms.
Meetings between the Board and FHA were held. Finally, after three years of dialogue and negotiation, FHA State Director Fred Martin sent the following message to Board president, Hilliard L. Turnipseed: “In accordance with our telephone conversation of this date, you are authorized to disseminate the following information to the members of your board: The FHA Hempstead Insuring Office will no longer reject residential properties if the dwelling units contain interior habitable rooms without direct access to natural light and ventilation, provided the properties otherwise are found acceptable for FHA mortgage insurance!”
The blind rooms negotiations between FHA and the Board brought the executives of FHA into close contact with Black real estate professionals for the first time for many of them. These meetings provided an opportunity for State Director Martin and his staff to assess the knowledge, expertise and professionalism of Board members. As a result, in September 1967 Director Martin, in a letter to Board president Turnipseed, invited Board members to participate in two FHA programs; the FHA Property Disposition Area Management Broker Program and the Property Disposition Sales Program. He also invited Board members to qualify as fee appraisers.
Leo A. Dyce, a past president of the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board was a FHA staff appraiser. When the FHA finally appointed the first Black fee appraisers, Mr. Dyce offered to hold training sessions for them in his home. These first fee appraisers were Robert G. Buckner, Charles McLeod, Melvin Norris, and Hartwell Roberts. Their success as fee appraisers, due in no small part to Mr. Dyce’s tutoring, soon led to the appointment of another group of Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board appraisers. These newcomers were assisted and guided by the four original fee appraisers. One of the original four, Hartwell Roberts, held weekly training sessions in his office for the newly appointed appraisers.
Within three years there were twenty-three Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board members who had been appointed by FHA. Each had available to him or her the knowledge, experience and expertise of his predecessors. In fact, the Central Brooklyn Appraisal Society grew out of this networking and twenty years later continues to flourish.
Today this highly respected organization conducts accreditation courses as prestigious Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. It remains committed to training and providing information and assistance to real estate professionals who are actively involved in or wish to enter the appraisal field.
In 1968 several Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board members joined with other community businessmen to form Spartacus Securities, a mortgage lending institution. The company was financed by funds invested by the founders. In addition Board members Stanley Alexander and Hilliard Turnipseed raised $500,000. Mr. Turnipseed was able to obtain a commitment of $250,000 from Freedom National Bank and Mr. Alexander obtained an equal amount from Carver Federal Savings and Loan Association. The Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board members who were Spartacus Securities founders/investors were Robert O. Bowers, Pinkey O. Harris, Edison Nesfield, Hilliard Turnipseed, Melvin Norris, Phillip Rosenberg, Oscar Arcey, Earl Arrington and Hartwell Roberts.
The company maintained offices in Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn and in Buffalo, New York. Spartacus Securities provided mortgage loans and thus helped many Blacks become first time homeowners by providing mortgages in areas, which had been marked for disinvestments by local banks.
The search for homes by Blacks was not restricted to Bedford Stuyvesant and other traditionally Black areas. The sixty’s saw accelerating home purchasing by Blacks in traditionally White areas such as East Flatbush and Crown Heights. As the demand for homes in these areas increased many speculators and a few unscrupulous real estate salespersons began to use harassment and scare tactics to accelerate “white flight” and thus increase sales to Black purchasers.
Homeowners in East Flatbush and Crown Heights in Brooklyn and Laurelton and Cambria Heights in Queens organized to fight this blockbusting practice. The City Commission on Human Rights conducted public hearings. At a state hearing New York State Secretary of State John P. Lomenzo announced that a non-solicitation order would be imposed which would in effect bar all brokers from seeking home sales in the designated areas.
Immediate opposition by both Black and White real estate brokers met this announcement. However, it was the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board, which mounted a vigorous campaign to overturn the non-solicitation order. They realized the restraining order would impact most heavily on Black brokers because being barred from soliciting by mail or personal contact, the Black broker would not become know to White homeowners or Whites seeking homes in those areas. Furthermore, Black homebuyers would be forced to use White brokers because only White brokers would have listings in those areas. In effect, all sales and purchases would be handled by White brokers.
Led by its president Robert Buckner, the Board, through its attorney, Randolph Jackson, sought a restraining order enjoining Secretary Lomenzo from issuing the ban until a court hearing could be held. The Board was supported in its efforts by Assemblyman Vander Beatty (D-Bed-Stuy) who charged that the state hearings were “one-sided and racist” and were “polarizing” those communities.
President Buckner issued statements charging that the order would “perpetuate discrimination in housing” and drive many Black agents out of business. He stated that blockbusting “is not being practiced by 2,600 brokers in Brooklyn and Queens; only by one or two. And they alone should be punished”.
However, the Board’s efforts were not successful. On July 29th the Supreme Court in Brooklyn upheld the restraining order. It banned all solicitation “in any manner whatsoever, including but not limited to letter, post cards, telephone calls, door-to-door, window signs, billboards, advertisements by handbills or news publication…”
Ironically the non-solicitation order did little to slow the exodus of White homeowners from the affected areas. Today these areas, although still under the restraining order, are virtually 100% Black with almost all transactions having been handled by white Brokers.
BSREB and the fight against Red Lining by Lending Institutions during the 1970’s
In the early 1970’s concerned citizens gradually became aware of the existence of a pervasive banking policy, which was contributing to the rapid decline, and deterioration of certain neighborhoods in Brooklyn. It was the policy of ‘redlining’ selected areas.
Redlining was the name given to the savings banks’ practice of refusing mortgages and home improvement loans in certain designated areas. The redlined areas at first were areas of obvious deterioration such as East New York, Brownsville and Bushwick. But the redlining rapidly spread to include virtually all Bedford Stuyvesant and Brooklyn’s healthy, middle-class neighborhoods like Flatbush, Crown Heights and Park Slope.
The savings banks willingly accepted the money of local depositors but then exported that money to finance shopping centers and housing developments elsewhere – in the suburbs and as far away as the Florida Sun Belt.
In the mid seventies communities began to organize to flight this process which was destroying neighborhoods. In the autumn of 1976 residents of East Flatbush and Prospect Lefferts Gardens formed a group called Bank On Brooklyn (BOB) and launched a high-pressure campaign to change bank lending practices. Their movement spread; grass roots campaigns began in neighboring communities. Bank on Brooklyn soon had branch organizations in many other Brooklyn communities.
Under the leadership of its president, Darrell Shavers, the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board actively participated in the aggressive and well organized campaigns of two Bank on Brooklyn groups; Crown Heights and Bedford Stuyvesant. Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board member Pinky Harris assisted in organizing the Crown Heights Committee and served as the liaison from the Board. Board member Josephine Dismore headed the group, which worked with the Bedford Stuyvesant Bank on Brooklyn organization.
These groups were instrumental in demanding that the local banks become accountable to the neighborhoods from which they derived most of their revenue. One bank finally approved the first mortgage in Bedford Stuyvesant in twenty-five years.
To educate and to provide training has been objectives of the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate from its earliest days. In the mid seventies the Board helped organize and sponsor a Bedford Stuyvesant based division of the Realtist Educational Institute, which recruited and trained black and other minority young people to enter the real estate profession.
The institute’s sponsoring boards were; the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board, the Greater Harlem Real Estate Board, and the Allied Real Estate Board (Queens, NY) Each board provided two or more members to serve on the institute’s board of directors: Stanley Alexander, Robert Buckner and Hilliard Turnipseed from the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board; Edward Ellerbe and James Wheeler from the Greater Harlem Real Estate Board and J.J. Franklin Holmes and Paul D. Brown from the Allied Real Estate Board. The director of the institute was Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate member Charles Thomas. Judith B. Smith of the Greater Harlem Real Estate Board served as assistant director. The course instructors included Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board members Darrell Shavers, Leo Dyce and Robert Buckner; Greater Harlem Real Estate Board members Richard Granady and Ted R. Britton.
When FHA director Fred Martin invited Board members to participate in the FHA Property Disposition Area management Broker Program, Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board president Lillian W. B. Mitchell was the first Board broker to become an area manager. Several years later FHA found itself in possession of hundreds of repossessed one and two family homes. Most of these homes were located in Brooklyn. It was then that FHA turned to the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate board through its president, Robert Buckner. The result of that meeting was the selection and appointment of several Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board members: Darrell Shavers, Herbert Woods, Melvin Norris, William Turner and Robert Buckner.
As was the case with the newly appointed FHA fee appraisers, the Board member Area Management brokers banded together to give advice, assistance and training to each new appointee. The formation of the New York Chapter of the Management Brokers Institute in 1974 was the natural result of that networking. The first elected officers of the New York Chapter of the Management Brokers Institute were: Robert Buckner, President; Joseph McKenzie, Vice President; Darrell shavers, Secretary; William Turner, Treasurer. One year later the Management Brokers Institute conducted courses that met HUD certification requirements for multi-housing management. Today the New York Chapter of the Management Brokers Institute continues to be a supportive arm for local multi-family housing managers by disseminating and sharing resources.
The Real Estate Educational Society of Brooklyn, Inc. is another organization developed by the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board. The Board recognized the need for a community based, educational institute, which could provide supportive assistance and training to persons involved in a variety of real estate, related activities.
The institute would train and assist non-profit sponsors of housing cooperatives and condominiums; train housing superintendents; encourage tenants to acquire property of their own; recruit and train persons interested in real estate as a career and provide supportive assistance and training for practicing real estate professionals interested in appraisal, land acquisition, sales negotiating and management positions and related fields.
Incorporated in 1979 as a separate, independent organization the Real Estate Educational Society of Brooklyn, Inc continued to benefit from the diligence and commitment of Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board members who formed its first Board of Directors and who serve it today: Edward Corbett, President; Eric J. Pinnock, Secretary; John v. Ward, Jr., Treasurer; Robert Buckner, Charles Joshua, Oswald Lloyd, William Turner, Lillian W.B. Mitchell and Darrell Shavers, Directors.
Today the society is sponsoring a non-profit program, to be funded by New York City, which will provide practical, on-site training in real estate trades as young Black and other minority workers participate in the ‘rehabbing’ of a local building.
BSREB addressing the Challenges of Homeownership in Brooklyn during the 1980’s.
The Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board has always been dedicated to work for the betterment and preservation of Black communities where the majority of Board members live and operate businesses. In the early 1980’s the Board became aware of the pressing need for property tax assistance for senior citizens in Bedford Stuyvesant.
Under the leadership of Board president Noel Harris the Board obtained a grant to conduct a senior citizen tax assistance program. This program, funded by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HUD) continued under the leadership of Board presidents John V. Ward and Johnnie Thompson.
The program – Property Tax Assistance Service Project – sought to provide counseling and technical services to senior citizen homeowners with the ultimate goal of preserving and retaining their property. Senior citizens were helped to understand the importance of dealing effectively with the details of home ownership; making sure their deed was recorded; knowing where the deed was kept; keeping records of mortgage payments or the mortgage satisfaction; keep real estate taxes current; understanding the escrow account, etc. In addition they were referred for specific assistance to other programs such as the Minor Home Repair Program and the Real Estate Tax Exemption for Senior Homeowners Program.
Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board member Kermit Duran initially directed the Property Tax Assistance Service Project. Robert Buckner served as Program Chairman and Angelite Walker supervised day-to-day operations as Projector Director.
In the mid sixties the federal government developed a program to improve housing in the inner cities across the nation. This program was named the Model Cities Housing Program. In New York City, deteriorated or abandoned buildings were demolished and their sites were made available for development by community-based sponsoring organizations.
Site 112, located in Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant community was allocated to the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board for development. The Board was eager to see a modern, well built and equipped multi-family dwelling occupy a site that had lain dormant and unproductive for several years. An architect was hired and plans were drawn. However, before additional steps could be taken the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, the biggest non-profit community development organization in the United States, contacted the Board. They were acting on behalf of the International Business Machine Corporation (IBM) that also wanted to develop Site 112. Meetings were held; IBM presented their plan to use Site 112 to build a multi-storied hi-tech facility. Such a facility, they maintained, would provide employment for hundreds of Bedford Stuyvesant community residents.
The Board had two arguments to consider. On the one hand was the dire need for housing in the area. On the other was the economic development of Bedford Stuyvesant. Weighing the economic value of both projected uses the Board felt that the business facility would constitute the highest and best use of the site. Therefore, the Board conceded the site to IBM Corporation. The city of New York promised the Board a replacement site for Site 112. Unfortunately, this promised replacement site has yet to materialized.
The Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board is an active member of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers.
The National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) is the oldest and largest minority trade organization in America. It was founded in 1947 when a dozen Black real estate brokers from around the country met to discuss rampant housing discrimination and the apparent unwillingness of the National Association Realtors (NAR) to accept blacks as members. The group discussed the need to form an organization that focused its efforts on dealing with issues affecting Black real estate brokers. By meeting’s end the small group had created the National Association of Real Estate Brokers whose members call themselves Realtists to distinguish themselves from the members NAR whose members are known as Realtors.
Even though many Blacks are now members of the Realtors’ group, the Realtists continue to thrive, focusing on fair housing issues and providing training for their members. Although comprised principally of black and other minority real estate professionals NAREB is an integrated organization open to qualified practitioners of all races who are interested in achieving the ideals of the Realtists’ theme, “Democracy in Housing”.
Realtists have made substantial contributions to the cause of democracy in housing by working to provide housing for all without limitations or restrictions. They remain true to the dual mission of serving the unserved and developing creative and effective methods of providing such service. In this respect the Realtists have become the voice and conscience of the proponents of equal housing opportunities for all citizens. Thus NAREB is actively involved in working on civic programs at the local level through its local boards and in the state and national political arena as well as in the business world.
NAREB has seven major professional organizations as affiliates, which offer specialized training and confer recognized designations. These affiliates are: 1) The National Society of Real Estate Appraisers, 2) The Real Estate management Brokers Institute, 3) The United Developers Council, 4) Commercial Industrial Division, 5) Sales Associates Division, 6) Realtists Investment Division, and 7) The Women’s Council.
Over the years members of the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board have made significant contributions to NAREB’s leadership role in obtaining fair housing practices throughout the nation. Charles Warden and Robert G. Buckner both served as president; Realtist Warden from 160 to 1963 and Realtist Buckner from 1981 to 1983. Noel Harris was elected Third vice-President in 1979; Herbert Nelbett served four years as National Convention Chairman and William Turner has been treasurer since 1981. In additional several Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board members have served the national organization in the office of Regional Vice President; Freeman D. Mason, John Ward, Noel Harris, Darrell Shavers, Carl Morgan, and Lee Lawson. These Realtists, together with the other members of the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board continue to give active support to the National Association of Real Estate Brokers in its efforts to pave the way for all citizens to be decently housed and to make the cities and states of this nation better places in which to live.
The Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board has served as a role model for other Black business organizations and real estate boards. The Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board helped organize and continues to give support and encouragement to other Black real estate boards such as the Greater Harlem Real Estate Board, the Allied Real Estate Board, The Westchester Real Estate Board, and the New Jersey Foundation of Real Estate Boards.
Above all the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board strives to project a progressive outlook towards housing and the economic advancement of Black people. It is committed to securing equal opportunity in housing for all and to providing guidance and encouragement to young people who enter the real estate profession.
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