States grapple with racist language in real estate deeds

Visions of America/Joseph Sohm/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

 

Connecting state and local government leaders

Some states let homeowners erase language. One state wants to erase its effects.

This story is republished from Stateline. Read the original article.

Lisa Boccetti is horrified by the restrictive covenant that is in the deed to her 1950s ranch house in Raleigh, North Carolina: It states that the land cannot be sold or occupied by Black people.

The property “shall not be sold to negroes or to any person or persons of negro blood, and said premises shall not be occupied by negroes or persons of negro blood, except domestic servants and their families, employed by the occupants of the premises,” the original deed states.

She and her husband, Bob Williams, would like to remove the offensive language, which hasn’t been legally binding for more than half a century, but North Carolina doesn’t have a process to do so. In 2021, two state senators filed legislation to give homeowners a way to erase such covenants, but the bill was sent to a committee and died.

“It’s infuriating, because unless your state has a process in place through legislation to remove or repudiate the contract, there’s nothing you can do to make it go away,” Boccetti said.

In recent years, more than a dozen states have passed laws repudiating historical, racially restrictive covenants embedded in property deeds that prohibited the sale of those homes to Black residents or, depending on the community, to immigrants from certain countries such as Poland or Ireland, or to Jews or Asian Americans.

In some states, new laws now allow the historical wording to be removed altogether.

Lawmakers have touted the new laws, passed with bipartisan support, as a formal rebuke to segregationist housing policies and the symbolic closing of a dark chapter in American history. The U.S. Supreme Court declared the covenants unconstitutional in 1948; the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlawed them.

We can’t erase history because it makes white people uncomfortable.

– Michael Corey, a researcher for the University of Minnesota’s Mapping Prejudice project

Covenant clauses that prevented non-whites from buying or occupying land were a tool that enforced segregation in U.S. communities across the country in the early to mid-20th century, led to discrimination by banks and, researchers note, have lingering effects today.

“I emphasize all the time that efforts to discharge the language in these covenants needs to be the start of a conversation, not the end of a conversation,” said Michael Corey, a researcher for the Mapping Prejudice project at the University of Minnesota, which focuses on the causes of segregation in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

“We can’t erase history because it makes white people uncomfortable,” Corey said in an interview. “We have to understand how this history has disadvantaged minority populations from access to wealth building.”

Historians and researchers praise one state’s covenant law for looking to the future as well as the past: Washington state’s measure not only recognizes the harmful effects of past real estate discrimination but also seeks to rectify it, at least in part.

The law, which Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee signed in May, levies a fee of $100 on all real estate transactions to fund a so-called covenant homeownership account.

That account will provide down payments and closing cost loans to certain first-time homebuyers who were, or would have been, prevented from buying properties prior to April 11, 1968, when the Fair Housing Act became law.

The descendants of people who were or would have been harmed by the covenants also are eligible. All recipients must have incomes at or below 100% of an area’s median income, however. The fee is projected to generate between $75 million and $100 million annually, according to a legislative analysis.

Washington has yet to determine how much assistance qualifying homebuyers will receive, and under what conditions, but the new fund is supposed to begin disbursing money next July.

Upon House passage of the bill, sponsor state Rep. Jamila Taylor described it as a “focused and thoughtful” approach to help “right the wrongs of the past.”

“The deliberate and harmful barriers preventing Black homeownership impact intergenerational wealth and housing security,” Taylor, a Democrat, said in a statement on her legislative site. “Because this racial discrimination was targeted, the solution must also be targeted.”

The homeownership rate among Black, Hispanic, Asian and Indigenous people in Washington state is 49%, 19 percentage points lower than that of non-Hispanic white households, according to a state report released last year. Only 31% of Black households own their homes, the report said.

“History has taught us that it took generations of systemic, racist, and discriminatory policies and practices to get to where we are today,” the report states.

It cites restrictive covenants but also redlining, or the denial of loans to people residing in poor or minority neighborhoods. It also blames so-called blockbusting, in which real estate speculators preyed on white fears by introducing a Black family to a neighborhood, persuading fleeing white homeowners to sell at below-market rates, then reselling those homes at high prices to new Black families.

During the debate over the Washington state bill, at least one Republican argued that the $100 transaction fee would harm the first-time homebuyers and lower-income people the legislation was designed to help.

But James Gregory, a history professor at the University of Washington, said paying for compensation “is a central piece of what the model legislation would look like if states were actually trying to restore the harms of these covenants.”

“These covenants not only caused segregation, but it limited homeownership opportunities for generations of people,” Gregory said. “If you’re trying to undo those harms, you need to take measures to reopen those opportunities that were never available.”

Richard Rothstein, whose 2017 book, “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America,” documented how federal, state and local policies explicitly created racially homogenous neighborhoods, told Stateline that merely removing racist covenants won’t address current housing disparities. He described the covenants as “the least important of these policies affecting systemic barriers in housing, especially after they lost enforcement power.”

But Rothstein, a fellow at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, praised the Washington bill as “a justifiable measure to restore harm done through those covenants.”

Washington’s law is the exception, however.

In Nevada, which enacted a law renouncing racist covenants earlier this year, sponsor Sen. Dallas Harris said she would have liked to emulate Washington state’s approach. Harris said the covenants “created systemic barriers to homeownership and capital” in her state, and that while she knew they had existed before she began pushing her bill, she didn’t realize how extensively they were used.

But Harris said a bill similar to Washington’s was a nonstarter in Nevada, which has a Republican governor.

“It was important for me to find a way to strike hurtful and harmful language, without making attempts to erase what the damage that these covenants caused,” she told Stateline. She said a law such as Washington’s is “the ultimate goal.”

“Taking action steps and providing actual compensation for the harm that’s done is good policy,” she said. “But it may be hard to do that in some states, financially or politically.”

In the Raleigh area where Lisa Boccetti and Bob Williams live, nearly 74% of white residents own their homes, while less than 46% of Black residents and about 47% of Hispanic residents are homeowners, according to census data.

Boccetti and Williams, who are white, are voluntarily leading a project to pore through property record books and catalog racial covenants to create a searchable database for the Wake County Register of Deeds, where Raleigh is located.

Tammy Brunner, a Democrat and the register of deeds, told Stateline the project can help explain how today’s neighborhoods were shaped.

“We strongly believe that once we pull out all of the restrictive covenants, we will create a map of redlining in the county and we’ll find that the underserved communities were created by these covenants,” she said.

Boccetti hopes the effort helps to spur covenant legislation in the GOP-controlled legislature.

Discovering the restrictive covenant in her deed and the struggle to remove it “has been a learning experience,” she said.

“It’s allowed us to see the ways why our neighborhood has been shaped the way it is,” she said. “It’s something we must grapple with, even if it makes us uncomfortable.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.