“No part of said premises…
…shall be sold, given, conveyed or leased to any negro or negroes.”
So said the restrictive covenant agreements signed and filed with the Cook County Recorder of Deeds for properties in neighborhoods around Chicago and suburban residences.
Racially restrictive covenants and deed restrictions were legal instruments used to promote racial segregation in the first half of the twentieth century.
They were first created and deployed by individuals, but then were embraced by real estate leaders and economists, who led national organizations based in Chicago. Covenants and restrictions became so widely used in Chicago that it was estimated that 80% of the city’s homes were covered by racial covenants.
These records have been buried in the files of Cook County, but a new collaboration is unearthing the documents to illustrate how racial segregation in Northern cities such as Chicago was not accidental. It was a system that was intentionally created, house by house, block by block, and subdivision by subdivision, across the city and across the country.