After the war, black workers were paid less than white workers and tended to be employed in menial positions. In 1950, of the 109,000 black workers in the state, more than 100,000 were employed in service, menial labor, or unskilled industry. Blacks often could not obtain white collar jobs or promotions, and they were frequently fired first in layoffs. In 1950, wages for St. Louis blacks were 58 percent of average wages for whites, while unemployment for blacks in St. Louis was 15 percent in 1954, 2.5 times higher than rates for whites. Several black Missourians made some progress in social status during the postwar period. The National Park Service dedicated the birthplace of George Washington Carver as a national monument in 1943, making it the first national monument dedicated in honor of a black person. In 1945, Oscar Ficklin, a St. Louis chemist, became the first black named foreman of a jury. Also in 1945, St. Louis elected J.C. Castron, the first black man on the Board of Aldermen. The next year, the city elected William A. Massingale to the General Assembly, and in 1948, Kansas City elected J. McKinley Neal, the second black person from that area to the legislature. President Dwight Eisenhower named St. Louisan J. Ernest Wilkins, Sr. to be U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor in 1954. Black scholars working in Missouri also began to achieve greater fame during the 1940s and 1950s, including Lorenzo Greene and Oliver Cox. The employment discrimination of the postwar period continued well into the 1950s and 1960s. Housing discrimination also affected the black population of Missouri after the war. Blacks found it difficult to obtain loans for housing, and real estate agents colluded to prevent blacks from purchasing homes in predominantly white neighborhoods. In St. Louis, a landmark civil rights case related to housing discrimination emerged from a lawsuit filed in the late 1940s. In August 1945, the black Shelley family bought a house at 4600 Labadie in St. Louis, despite a restrictive covenant prohibiting its purchase by blacks. A neighbor family filed suit to prevent the sale; an initial court ruling refused to evict the Shelleys, followed by a Missouri Supreme Court ruling that called for the enforcement of the covenant. Finally, in May 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in "Shelley v. Kraemer" that restrictive covenants violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Despite this landmark ruling, Missouri continued to encourage restrictive covenants because of a state court ruling that allowed lawsuits for damages due to violation of the covenants (this practice continued until 1953).