For decades, racially restrictive covenants were a common part of Milwaukee-area home deeds. These covenants prohibited the sale of properties to non-white people. They have been illegal since the Fair Housing Act of 1968, but their legacy has contributed to the high segregation we see throughout the Milwaukee area today.
UW-Milwaukee professors Derek Handley and Anne Bonds are mapping out where these covenants were, and where they remain in some property deeds. Sifting through documents with help from a team of 5,000 volunteers, they found that, between 1910 and 1960, Milwaukee properties saw around 32,500 racial covenants.
“One interesting thing to note about that: between 1920 and 1930, there were three times as many covenants as there actually were Black people in Milwaukee,” says Handley…