True Left

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Fred Ware and his son were researching the history of the home he’s owned in the Hartford suburbs since 1950 when they discovered something far uglier than they expected.

Tucked in a list of rules on the home’s original deed from the developer was a provision that said: “No persons of any race other than the white race shall use or occupy any building or any lot,” with the exception of “domestic servants of a different race.”
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While the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948 ruled such racially restrictive housing covenants unenforceable, many remain on paper today and can be difficult to remove.
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The restrictive language was written into property documents in communities throughout the U.S. during the early- to mid-20th century amid the Great Migration, which saw millions of African Americans move from the rural South to the urban Northeast, Midwest and West.

These restrictive covenants were a tool used by developers, builders and white homeowners to bar residency by Blacks, Asians and other racial and ethnic minorities. Even after they became unenforceable, according to historians, people privately abided by the covenants well into the 1960s.