Racist deeds still echo

Throughout the 20th century, housing discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity was rampant. In 1911, Baltimore enacted an ordinance specifying where Black people could and could not live. Other cities followed Baltimore's lead, enacting racial zoning laws. These laws remained in force until 1917 when they were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as unconstitutional in a case known as  Buchanan v. Warley .

Even after the Supreme Court ended racial zoning, thousands of deeds filed in courthouses throughout the United States contained explicit language prohibiting specific ethnic and racial groups from buying or renting property. Many of these covenants also explicitly allowed property owners to have Black live-in domestic workers as an exception. Racially restrictive deed covenants, along with redlining, contributed to concentrating wealth and poverty in cities and suburban neighborhoods.

As a result of deeds like these, subdivisions throughout the United States became segregated neighborhoods. The National Association of Real Estate Boards in the 1920s began distributing  model covenant  documents that included racial restrictions. In the 1930s, the newly created Federal Housing Administration encouraged the use of restrictive covenants for properties covered by federally protected mortgage insurance. The agency published guidance for covenants in its widely distributed mortgage underwriting manual.

Racially restrictive deed covenants, combined with other Jim Crow practices such as segregated eating and shopping establishments, parks and entertainment venues, created all-white communities called " sundown towns ." Located mainly in Northern states, these were communities where Black people could work during the day, but could not live.

In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in  Shelley v. Kraemer  that racially restrictive deed covenants were unenforceable in the courts. Despite the decision, discrimination in housing continued. In the 1950s and 1960s, states and cities enacted open housing laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race and other factors. Pittsburgh in 1958 enacted a sweeping civil rights law that prohibited discrimination in employment and housing. The law, which became effective in 1959, consolidated other municipally legislated efforts to reduce discrimination in Pittsburgh, including the 1955 ordinance creating the  Commission on Human Relations .

On the heels of major civil rights court decisions and the passage of the  Civil Rights Act  in 1964, Congress passed the  Fair Housing Act  four years later. The law prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing.

Despite decades of civil rights advances in the courts and legislatures, housing discrimination persists. In 1988 and 1989, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a  sweeping investigation  into mortgage lending discrimination (redlining) in the United States. The paper ranked Pittsburgh banks second in the nation for rejecting Black homebuyers' mortgage applications.

Developers and single-family home sellers attached racially restrictive deed covenants (many of them containing language explicitly excluding Black people) to properties throughout the Pittsburgh area. PublicSource identified 18 racially segregated subdivisions created between 1900 and 1948. This virtual tour shows some of the neighborhoods in and around Pittsburgh where deeds acted as barriers to entry for Black homebuyers and renters.

Pennsylvania is one of 23 states with  laws  addressing racially restrictive deed covenants. In a bipartisan vote on Dec. 13, 2023, the General Assembly approved House Bill 1289, "providing for the repudiation of discriminatory real estate covenants." Gov. Josh Shapiro signed the bill into law the following day. The law allows property owners to repudiate racially restrictive deed covenants by filing a form with a Recorder of Deeds.

For more information about racially restrictive deed covenants in other U.S. communities:

•  Mapping Inequality: Pittsburgh 
•  Chicago Covenants 
•  Mapping Segregation in Washington, D.C. 
•  Segregated Seattle 
•  Mapping Segregation in Montgomery County, Maryland