“In November of 1945, Ada Reeves bought a charming little bungalow at 1303 Kearny St. NE in Brookland. She expected to move in without any problems, but instead was sued by her neighbors. The cause? The color of her skin. Ada Reeves was African American, and her new home’s deed contained a covenant that said the house was not to be sold to a black person.”

While running a Google search for Fred R. Randall, I happened upon a blog dedicated to the history of Brookland, a neighborhood in northeast Washington DC. A December post on racially restrictive covenants opened with the sentences above. Further down: “As for the case of Ada Reeves: her father, Fred Randall, contacted Charles Hamilton Houston in 1945 to look into the case,” and copies of a letter from Randal to Houston. Charles Hamilton Houston, called “The Man Who Killed Jim Crow” was an early African-American civil rights lawyer and mentor to Thurgood Marshall. And Fred Randall is Cousin Fred.

Many thanks to Bygone Brookland, and for the full post, see here.