I found out fairly recently that some San Francisco properties still have racial covenant laws— laws that, when the residence was built, attempted to restrict who was allowed to live there. Most covenants involved historically marginalized people and are racially and antisemitically charged. Because of this, I found Mapping Prejudice, which shows racial covenant laws in Hennepin and Ramsey counties through a time lapse from 1910-1955.
You can also click “see all covenants” to see them statically.
I had heard that, due to past racial covenant laws, Minneapolis is less diverse than St. Paul. While this is not true per Best Neighborhood data (Minneapolis is ~76% white, while St. Paul is ~88% white), it was true that Minneapolis has more covenant laws.
Per the “About Mapping Prejudice” page, a team of “historians, geographers, librarians, digital humanists and community activists seeking to expose structural racism,” created the project, using decades worth of property records as their source. The data was then transcribed: Penny Peterson, one of the project’s cofounders, identified thousands of deeds through her work as a historical consultant. The team then began crowd sourcing for deed-transcription help. Together, they transcribed over fifteen thousand documents. Finally, a geospatial technician, Michael Corey, mapped this data.
You can also download the animated Ramsey county map, the animated Hennepin county map, or various static maps from the project’s website. The static maps show the Black population of Minneapolis from 1910-1940 as well as redlining maps. The availability of this data makes me wonder what a racial covenant map overlaid with a Black population map would look like.
Mapping Prejudice aims to “expose the history of structural racism and support the work of reparations.” The website physically shows where racial covenants were in Ramsey and Hennepin counties, later explaining how such structures, when combined with segregation practices such as redlining, manufacture house ownership inequality. The site argues that racial covenants lead to various inequalities that continue to today.
Mapping Prejudice suggests acknowledging and teaching history, listening to people at the center of the struggle, challenging structural racism, and advocating for reparations, among other actions listed on the site as steps users can take to repair the harm done by covenants.