CHRONOLOGY

1980: Three black women in Texas who were refused public housing sue the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development for discrimination. Now known as Young v. Cisneros, the case requires HUD to integrate 70 public-housing complexes in 36 East Texas counties.

1985: US District Judge William Wayne Justice finds HUD guilty of intentional discrimination. HUD loses an appeal but does not take action.

1991: Judge Justice orders HUD to begin integration. HUD chooses Vidor as a pilot project.

1992: The Orange County Housing Authority announces plans to integrate Vidor's housing project. Competing branches of the Ku Klux Klan visit Vidor but attract fewer than 200 people to their rallies. More than 2,000 people assemble for a prayer-for-harmony rally sponsored by 16 local churches. A Klan drive to recall Vidor's pro-desegregation mayor fizzles.

February 1993: John DecQuir becomes the first black to move into Vidor's public-housing project.

March 1993: William Simpson moves into project.

July 1993: Brenda Lanus, Alexis Selders, and five children move into project. They move out two weeks later, complaining of racial taunts.

September 1993: Mr. Simpson and Mr. DecQuir move out. Black assailants murder Simpson the same day in a robbery in nearby Beaumont. In Vidor, HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros announces that HUD is taking control of the Orange County Housing Authority.

December 1993: Klansmen from out of town hold ``Klana Klaus'' sale in Vidor.

Jan. 13, 1994: HUD moves the first of an expected 10 black families into the Vidor public-housing project under tight security. They are welcomed by 18 white residents. HUD announces plans to spend $2.1 million to upgrade the complex.

Jan. 17: In Austin, Klansmen protesting Martin Luther King Day promise rallies in East Texas against further integration. President Clinton signs an order strengthening the Fair Housing Act and announces: ``We ended an ugly chapter in discrimination in Vidor, Texas.''

Feb. 1: HUD must submit a plan for desegregating housing projects in 36 East Texas counties. A hearing is scheduled for April.