[Durham INC] ICYMI: Interesting article about how racial discrimination in housing is still among us

[Mimi Kessler]

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article281596273.html?ac_cid=DM873574&ac_bid=229629440

‘I just cried’: When restrictions kept Black people out of Wake County
neighborhoods. By Chantal Allam Updated November 13, 2023 1:35 PM

[Photo of neighborhood]

Caption: Developed in the early 1910s to attract upper-middle-class
residents, Cameron Park is one of the Raleigh’s most prominent
neighborhoods. Residents have until Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021 to cast their
vote on whether to change its name referencing the family that once was one
of the largest holders of enslaved people in North Carolina. Developed in
the early 1910s to attract upper-middle-class residents, Cameron Park is
one of the Raleigh’s most prominent neighborhoods. Residents have until
Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021 to cast their vote on whether to change its name
referencing the family that once was one of the largest holders of enslaved
people in North Carolina. Travis Long tlong at newsobserver.com


In a 1914 sales brochure for a house in Raleigh’s former Cameron Park
neighborhood, developers appeal to upper middle-class white residents eager
to leave the more racially mixed downtown. They boast of housing
restrictions that “properly safeguard” their interests.


“Premises shall not be occupied by negroes or persons of negro blend,” one
passage states, except if the person is “employed for domestic purposes.”

The next line restricts “pigs and hogs,” adding further insult. It’s a
cruel reminder of the county’s racist past. Today’s residents have renamed
their neighborhood Forest Park, cutting ties with its slave-owning
namesake. But it’s also a truth that leaders and amateur historians want
people to remember.


The brochure is now part of a growing collection being archived under a new
Wake County Register of Deeds initiative called the Racially Restrictive
Covenants Project.

Organizers plan to create a searchable and interactive map of historic
racial restrictions that once prevented people from buying or living on
land in Wake County.

“Sadly, these racially restrictive covenants can be found on the books in
nearly every county and city,” said Register of Deeds Tammy Brunner. “Wake
County is not unique.”


[lot and street diagram]

Caption: An example of a 1935 Raleigh subdivision map with racially
restrictive covenants. An example of a 1935 Raleigh subdivision map with
racially restrictive covenants. Wake County Register of Deeds


Although the Supreme Court ruled these kinds of covenants unenforceable in
1948, and the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act outlawed them, the
painful, offensive language still exists in hundreds of deeds of homes,
neighborhoods or cemeteries across the county, she said.


Most were written to keep Black people from moving into certain
neighborhoods or to keep them from being buried in certain cemetery plots,
but others may target ethnic or religious groups. In many cases, it
resulted in nearly all-white neighborhoods for decades to come.


“A lot of people don’t know about them, and many are shocked when they
learn their property or the neighborhood HOA where they live still includes
such racial restrictions,” Brunner said.



*Wanted: Armchair historians *


Husband-and-wife team and long-time volunteers, Lisa Boccetti and Robert
Williams, are leading the year-long effort, which launched last month.
They’re now calling on volunteers to help dive into its archives: some
hundreds of thousands of deeds from about 1920 through 1950 containing
instruments, easements, and leases. To get involved, volunteers are asked
to go to wake.gov/covenants and fill out the interest form.


Boccetti said they’re hoping to help people understand how the transfer and
ownership of property “have shaped, and continue to shape our community.”

Though she can’t put a number on how many “hidden covenants” she expects to
unearth, Boccetti predicts it will fluctuate from year to year. “Post-World
War II, during the boom years, we’ll expect to see more,” she said. “We’ll
have to wait and see if our predictions are accurate.”


For Carol-Veronica Reeves, who has worked in the industry for nearly 25
years, it’s long overdue. As a Black Realtor, she still remembers the pain
of a coming across her first restrictive covenant as part of a deal.


“At first, it didn’t sink in, then after a few minutes I just cried,” she
recalled. “I was the only female agent with brown skin in that office. A
sense of distrust sank in at the reality of how we were — and still are —
viewed as non-human by some.”


Now running her own firm, The Reeves Team, out of Knightdale, she said it’s
important to raise awareness “as uncomfortable as it may be for some.”



*Enslaved Persons Project *


This new project follows the Register’s Enslaved Persons Project, launched
in 2021 with the help of Shaw University. That project served to unlock
human stories of slavery through the register’s archives.


Volunteers helped to catalog, transcribe and make public the records from
more than 30 deed books containing bills of sale and property exchanges for
people. As enslaved people were not issued birth certificates or marriage
certificates, property deeds and bills of sale were sometimes the only
written records of the lives of these men, women and children.


Those records are now accessible and searchable in an online portal,
allowing hundreds of people to track the history of their families at
wake.gov/enslavedpersons.



Read more at:
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article281596273.html#storylink=cpy

-- 
Mimi Kessler
919-599-2892
"Democracy is not a spectator sport" - John Deen
Please vote every chance you get.
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