The new data map from the "Welcoming the Dear Neighbor?" faculty and student team outlines the locations of racial covenants, legal clauses found in housing deeds to help keep neighborhoods segregated.
Since 2017, Íæż½ã½ã students and faculty have been engaged in an interdisciplinary research effort initiated by the Center for Community Work and Learning, partnering with the University of Minnesota’s project to address structural racism in home ownership. On June 15 in Rauenhorst Ballroom, members from these teams unveiled new data from Ramsey County.
"Welcoming the Dear Neighbor?"’s team of faculty and students research, map, and analyze racial covenants in Ramsey County housing deeds. Racial covenants are discriminatory clauses stipulating that a house cannot be sold to specific racial or cultural groups — specifically targeting African Americans, and often other racial groups. Covenants date to the early 1900s and were only ruled unenforceable in 1968, under the Fair Housing Act. In 2020, Mapping Prejudice released a map of racial covenants in Hennepin County, and "Welcoming the Dear Neighbor?" partnered with them to expand this critical work and research to Ramsey County.