The Springfield Business Journal commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Fair Housing Act with its April cover story, “Bicentennial Plaza: Illinois REALTORS® lead the way.”

On the site of Bicentennial Plaza, a REALTOR® Community Partnership: (l to r) Gary Clayton, Illinois REALTORS® CEO, Sue Massie, president of Massie Massie & Associates, landscape architect of the plaza, and City of Springfield Ward 2 Alderman Herman Senor. PHOTO BY TERRY FARMER PHOTOGRAPHY, INC.

Illinois REALTORS® CEO Gary Clayton says the association has commissioned the construction of a Fair Housing monument for “Bicentennial Plaza – A REALTOR® Community Partnership,” just north of Illinois REALTORS® headquarters. The six-foot tall granite monument will remind Springfield visitors that the Fair Housing Act made it illegal to discriminate in renting or selling property based on race, color, religion or national origin.  The law has been part of mandatory REALTOR® training for more than 25 years.

Bicentennial Plaza is designed to provide a historic and walkable link between the Lincoln Home to the east and a renovated Governor’s Mansion and state Capitol to the west along the historic Jackson Street corridor.

The Fair Housing Act was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on April 11, 1968, a week after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Read the Springfield Business Journal story.