(Image Credit: Now and Then)
“Black people...were largely cut out of the legitimate home-mortgage market.”
-Ta-Nehisi Coates, national correspondent for The Atlantic
In 1925, neighborhood organizations began to pressure property owners into writing racially restrictive covenants into their deeds. These deed restrictions were legal agreements that were difficult to repeal and only allowed houses to be sold to white Americans. According to Richard Rothstein, restrictive covenants were created to replace previously integrated neighborhoods with white-only suburbs and prevent black Americans from purchasing houses in white communities. Since deeds remain with property for generations, racially restrictive covenants stayed with the houses they were originally enforced on and were imposed on future buyers. Generations of black Americans were prevented from buying these homes.
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“It’s less than a slap on the wrist...it takes me to the back of the bus. Again, I’m looking at the white and colored water fountains.” |
By using deed restrictions to segregate neighborhoods, "a favorable condition
is apt to exist."
-The 1936 FHA Underwriting Manual
is apt to exist."
-The 1936 FHA Underwriting Manual
“The restrictive covenant became so fashionable that in 1937 a leading magazine of nationwide circulation awarded 10 communities a 'shield of honor' for an umbrella of restrictions against 'the wrong kind of people.’” |
Racially restrictive deeds appeared on signs in front of property and in catalogs of homes for sale. Although discriminatory covenants are illegal to enforce, “this house is going to be sold to whites only... not [to] colored” and “Ownership by Negroes Prohibited” are common phrases you can still find in deeds today.
“The Federal Housing Administration’s [1939] Underwriting Manual recommended the use of restrictive covenants as they ‘provide the surest protection against undesirable encroachment and inharmonious use.’” |