Racial Discrimination In Housing (In A Mid-Sized Northern City)

Filmmaker

Hanisch, Stuart, 1932-2002

Date

• 1961

Summary

• The Bureau of Audio-Visual Information, a part of UW Extension, specialized in producing educational films. This film was created to educate viewers on housing discrimination. Between September and December of 1961, Stu Hanisch, Lloyd Barbee, George Allez, and their team of actors recorded 13 encounters between renters and landlords across the city of Madison. Using undercover filming techniques and hidden microphones, Barbee and Hanisch were able to capture the reality of housing discrimination in the city, where white residents regularly denied housing to Black residents based solely on their race. During a preliminary viewing of the film by university administrators, concerns were immediately raised that the use of undercover footage had violated the right to privacy of the individuals who were filmed. University administrators decreed that the film’s undercover footage could not be released. In April of 1962, the film “Racial Discrimination In Housing (In A Mid-Sized Northern City)” was restricted in the UW Archives. In 2019, the restriction on the film was lifted. It was digitized with support from Wisconsin Public Television.