This urban strategy pits newly mobile African American families—as buyers—against entrenched white and often ethnic neighborhoods. These neighborhoods sometimes received new black families without incident, but realtors profited from both fear of civil rights and the need of blacks to escape urban ghettos, while mass media hyped the drama of destroying community. Blockbusting as a practice of purposely unsettling residents and exacerbating racial tensions was made illegal by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, although few enough ever admitted doing it. Osser’s Blockbusting in Baltimore (UK Press 1995) provides a detailed study of one such movement.