I ran across a startling deed recently. In the May 1927 record, Monroe and Robert B. Warren, of Washington, DC, sell land to Harry E. Mockbee. After the typical legal language comes this (click to enlarge):
1927 deed
“…Subject to the further covenant that said land and premises shall never be rented, leased, sold, transferred or conveyed unto or in trust for or occupied by any negro or colored person or any person of negro extraction.”
This is the first time I’ve come across a racial covenant, a product of Jim Crow segregation laws that flourished across the country. A racial covenant is defined as a legally enforceable contract imposed in a deed upon the buyer of the property.
Recommended Books
I knew a little about the history from a few books: Not in My Neighborhood, by Antero Pietila (focusing on Baltimore) and Family Properties, by Beryl Satter (focusing on Chicago).
They were frequently used against African-Americans and Jewish people and others deemed “undesirable.”
The play A Raisin in the Sun portrays a black family attempting to move into a white neighborhood.
But an even better introduction to the topic can be found in the 2004 National Book Award Winner, Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age, by Kevin Boyle.
The book tells the riveting true story of Dr. Ossian Sweet, whose purchase of a home in Detroit in 1925 resulted in attack by a white mob.
If you read any book on this subject, read this one first. You will not put it down, especially since the author does such a beautiful job with Ossian’s history.
A Brief History
Initially, covenants became popular in response to the large migration of Southern blacks to Northern cities. States and localities responded by creating laws that segregated cities by race. In a 1926 case, Corrigan v. Buckley, the U.S. Supreme Court tacitly affirmed the legality of these covenants. Their use skyrocketed.
The result was that blacks could only live in certain “black” areas, whether they could afford to live elsewhere or not. In other words, federal, state and local policy created segregation by race. It was not a natural occurrence.
The Federal Housing Authority institutionalized this racism with their Underwriting Manual. The FHA would not guarantee loans for black families unless they bought in areas marked red in their maps. This began the ugly practice called redlining.
Part of a 1939 LA County redlining map
In 1930, a black man named J.D. Shelly bought property in St. Louis in a neighborhood covered by a racial covenant. He convinced a white owner to sell the property to him anyway. A different neighbor sued, and the case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The resultant ruling, Shelley vs. Kraemer, held that these covenants could not be enforced without violating the 14th Amendment.
However, it only meant that states could not enforce the covenants. People could and did privately continue to make them and voluntarily follow them.
Still, the 1948 Shelley ruling put racial covenants on the road to ending. NAACP lawyers Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston conceived a legal strategy to fight these cases all over the country. Still, their use wasn’t completely outlawed until The 1968 Fair Housing Act .
Missing History
There is so much important history that is left out of the “official” story of America. A generation of people are continuing to come of age without important aspects of US history like this.
The people who placed their lives at risk by challenging the system (like Ossian Sweet) are nothing less than civil rights heroes. There is a historic marker at the house now that you can see here.
One of the beauties of genealogy is the history we learn. Let’s keep learning and sharing others the little-known aspects of American history.
I am an engineer by day, but my true passion lies in genealogy. I have been a researcher, writer, lecturer and teacher for over twenty years. This blog is where I share family history methods, resources, tips and advice, with an emphasis on slave research, slavery and its aftermath. This lifelong quest has helped me to better know my family’s past. I’ve taken back– reclaimed– some of that lost memory, especially that of my enslaved ancestors. I hope you’ll sign up to receive my posts—if you do, you’ll get a free PDF with some of my favorite tips! And please do share posts that interest you.
Yes, reading these deeds, and there are probably 100s of thousands of them, is shocking. “Red-lining” was also official policy of governments and insurance companies and many other institutions.
One major story was the City of Chicago’s policy of segregating the Housing Authority. While the lawsuit to end this was occasionally mentioned in the newspapers, most of the story is buried in the record of the court suit, Gautraux, et al. vs. Chicago Housing authority, which was an effort of many years. Not to mention the “urban renewal” projects in so many places, and the practice of placing expressways to separate and remove neighborhoods.
This was done in Des Moines also. My husband lived there at the time. He was a small child but his grandparents lived near the area, and they lost the church their family had been going to for years. The church congregation never recovered. My grandmother was from Des Moines and they also lived in the sweep from east to west. It completely divided the city north and south. There are two rivers in Des Moines and that did enough dividing. But it is nice though to get from one side to the other now, but I can imagine the grief it caused.
I bought a house that was built in 1940 Phoenix and it have a covenant against selling to Jews.
Hello Msualumni, I have been wanting to write you for sometime now! I wanted to say thank you for all the information that you have been sharing! I got your website from my cousin Greg Gillis. My father is from Savannah Tennessee and we are connected though your Harbor,Holt , Cherry, side of your family.
I thought it was cute how you wrote about blacks from Mexico because my mother’s family were Blacks from Mexico and I am working very hard trying to understand why three sibling would leave Mexico to take the journey, to Mississipi during slavery! The only possible thing that I could come up with is that they were part of the 75,000 nationals that were aloud to become critzens during the Mexican America war. I have written to professor Louis Gates for a possible answer. Please keep up the good work because family history is my passion too!
Interesting. I had heard of it, but never really understood the term redlining. We had a lot of trouble getting a mortgage of a house in our city years ago. They told us it was near the redline district and it would not be a good house for us. It was a block from a grade school, six from a middle school and nine from a high school, fenced in yard and airconditioning. We had to go thru a lot of hoops to get it. We finally did and lived there 15 years. I am white. I thought at the time, that they were discriminating against us because they thought we did not have enough money, as I was working two jobs. Now, I am thinking they were discriminating because I was not a person of color? Interesting, how times change. I did not discriminate because it was a mixed neighborhood, it did not matter to me. Makes me think.
Hey Carolyn, yes I feel like I never stop learning about sad episodes of history. My mom’s parents migrated to Dayton, Ohio and pretty much did not have trouble buying a home. She said they lived amongst mostly Eastern European immigrants, and Ohio did not have legal segregation. She was fortunate. Some of these stories about what transpired in cities just breaks my heart. Seeing that phrase in the deed was surreal. I just keep thinkign: how did anyone even think this stuff up?
Redlining came from the fact that they would mark a map in “red” to show areas where they did not want blacks to live. Your experience might have been that you were tryign to buy /too close/ to blacks or other minority groups (Jewish) lived maybe? Read one of nthe books I recommend. They opened my eyes.
Thanks for your comments & continued reading! Robyn