Racial Covenants

For most of the 20th Century, racial covenants were an insidious tool used nationwide by a growing real estate industry, business and planning academia, and the federal government to segregate whites from blacks in America's burgeoning residential neighborhoods and suburbs. Racial covenants were clauses inserted into property deeds to prevent non-Whites from buying or occupying land. Although no longer valid or enforceable, they can still be found in the land deeds of almost every American community. 

Local governments first used racial covenants in the Western United States against Chinese immigrants in the mid-19th Century. They became a mainstay of the high-end residential suburban developments of the early 20th Century. In 1928, a Chicago Real Estate Board member told the Hyde Park Kiwanis Club that restrictive covenants were "like a marvelous delicately woven chain of armor ... [excluding] any member of a race not Caucasian."

The 1930s New Deal federal housing programs made them mandatory for anyone seeking a federal subsidy or loan guarantee. By 1940, 40% of Chicago and Los Angeles homes were covered by a racial covenant. Racial covenants were made illegal in 1968 with the federal passage of the Fair Housing Act. Nevertheless, their impacts were pervasive and are still with us today. This presentation will expand upon the story the exhibit introduces you to by providing additional context and background.