Throughout the early to mid-1900s, racial covenants were written into property deeds across the United States to control who could own or occupy homes. The deed to my own home contains one such clause, stating that no “Negro or person of Negro extraction” could live on the property. These covenants enforced segregation, limited access to wealth-building through homeownership, and shaped the racial makeup of neighborhoods for generations. Although they were deemed unenforceable in 1948, their remnants remain visible in property records and in patterns of residential inequality that persist today.
While the covenant on my home specifically targeted Black and multiracial people, similar restrictions were also used to exclude ethnic white immigrant groups and other immigrant populations.
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-Natalie Gillard
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The subheading "NO NUISANCES" is the same subheading for no negro/negro extraction.
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“At no time shall the land included in said tract or any part thereof or any building erected thereon, be occupied by any negro or person of negro extraction. This prohibition, however, is not intended to include the occupancy by a negro domestic servant...”
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