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​Racial Covenants in the Twin Cities

2/10/2020

1 Comment

 
PictureKirsten Delegard
Wellspring Wednesday presentation, January 28, 2020
By Merrill Aldrich, Unity Church Member
​

Tracing the genesis and the effects of structural racism can be arduous and labor intensive work. Recently, Kirsten Delegard, director of the Mapping Prejudice Project at the University of Minnesota shared with us a glimpse of the data, visualizations, painstaking research and personal anecdotes that she and her colleagues have combined to tell the sad history of racial covenants in the Twin Cities.

Racial covenants were real estate contracts -- clauses inserted into warranty deeds--used by real estate developers and agents to enforce unlawful segregation and prevent people of color from buying or occupying property. With geographic maps, showing specific blocks and years, the Mapping Prejudice project details the areas of Hennepin County where segregation was reinforced by these clauses in property deeds that reserved land and structures for white people. The maps are backed by exhaustive research into the title history of lots where phrases prohibited the sale, using a variety of terms, to non-whites.

Delegard’s personal interest in this subject came from several generations of her family living in Minneapolis, and a discomfort with what she described as “the dissonance” she observed in the lore of her home town. A certain set of mythologies we have in the twin cities about civic virtue, with stories like Hubert Humphrey’s efforts to end racial segregation and Walter Mondale’s Fair Housing Act, while true, seemed to her to obscure other narratives that are explicitly racist and should be told. She “resolved to lead my home town through a process of remembering” by reconstructing the history of racial covenants and their effect in creating de facto segregation in Minneapolis.

If you missed this talk, much of the content is available in the film Jim Crow of the North, available to stream online.

Volunteer Opportunity
Because of the nature of the source data for the Hennepin County mapping project, a large contingent of crowd-sourced volunteers came together to review the historical deed documents. Almost 3,000 volunteers read about 177,000 deed-related documents to compile the data. Coming up in a few weeks -- specific date TBD -- the project will formally expand to enable volunteers to gather this data for Ramsey County, including Saint Paul. We’d like to encourage anyone at Unity with an interest in this work to pitch in and assist in expanding the map. To find out more, sign up to receive the Mapping Prejudice Project electronic newsletter (scroll to the bottom of the page and locate the "Stay connected with Mapping Prejudice" box).

​

1 Comment
Shelley Butler
2/21/2020 03:47:21 pm

Thanks Merrill. I missed this so am happy to read about it!

Reply



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    ​In 2016, the Beloved Community Staff Team was formed at Unity Church to strengthen and coordinate Unity’s anti-racism and multi-cultural work, and to share the stories of this journey with the wider community. We commit to sharing the struggles, the questions, and the collaborations here at Unity and in the wider world of our faith and city. The current members of the team include Rev. Janne Eller-Isaacs, Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs, Rev. KP Hong, Barbara Hubbard, Drew Danielson, Ahmed Anzaldúa, Laura Park, Karen Hering, Angela Wilcox, Pauline Eichten, and Erika Sanders. 

    Additional Resources

    Unity Justice Database
    As a “next right action,” the Racial and Restorative Justice Team asked the Library and Bookstall Team to team up to search for, vet, and organize resources related to anti-racism, defunding/reforming police, legislation around policing, etc.  The Unity Justice Database is your one-stop location for information about and links to books, articles, news, podcasts, films, events, organizations, and more. If you know of a good resource that is not already in the database, please do request that we add it. 
    Anti-Racism/Racism Resource in Unity's Library Collection
    White Supremacy Teach-in 2017
    Graphic: How to be a racial transformer

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