After World War II, white working-class neighborhoods in Detroit redoubled their efforts to organize and keep African-American residents out. Their protests were violent. For example, as blacks began to build and buy property around Conant Gardens and Sojourner Truth Homes on the Northeast Side, violent white homeowners associations organized vandalism, physical attacks, and riots. Homebuyers and brokers were attacked on the street, and houses were burned.

Attacks were often made when blacks crossed invisible boundaries, often defined by major roads or parish lines, adding an element of religion to the protests. Dequindre, Seven Mile, and Mound became defacto borders in the 1950s.

Some of the organizations included: De Witt-Clinton, Ruritan Park, States-Lawn, the Wyoming Corridor, Seven Mile-Fenelon Improvement Association.

The Detroit Urban League attempted to document the attacks.