Shelley v. Kraemer was a landmark legal case in Black history that was decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1948. The case concerned racially restrictive housing covenants, which were agreements among property owners to not sell or rent property to individuals of certain races, typically African Americans.

J.D. Shelley, an African American man, had purchased a property in St. Louis, Missouri, that was subject to a racial covenant restricting the property from being sold to non-white individuals. When the previous owner attempted to enforce the covenant in court to prevent Shelley from taking possession of the property, the case ultimately made its way to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court held that state courts could not enforce racially restrictive housing covenants under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits states from denying any person equal protection of the laws. The decision was a significant victory for civil rights and marked a crucial step towards dismantling legal segregation and discrimination in housing.

Shelley v. Kraemer is considered one of the key cases in the legal battle against housing discrimination and segregation in the United States, and it helped pave the way for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.