The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

Many White property owners believed that segregation would protect property values. One method of enforcing segregation was “restrictive covenants” (78) that established a set of obligations that purchasers had to honor. Restrictive covenants included stipulations like the trees that could be planted or the paint colors that could be used. They also restricted property owners from selling or renting to African Americans. Exemptions were granted for African American childcare or household workers. For instance, Brookline, Massachusetts, “forbade resale of property to ‘any negro or native of Ireland’” (78) as early as the 19th century. In the 1920s these stipulations became a common method of evading the Supreme Court’s Buchanan ruling on racial zoning. One example from New Jersey in 1925 describes that

There shall not be erected or maintained without the written consent of the party of the first part on said premises, any slaughter house, smith shop, forge furnace, steam engine, brass foundry, nail, iron or other foundry, any manufactory of gunpowder, glue, varnish, vitriol, or turpentine, or for the tanning dressing or preparing of skins, hides or leather, or for carrying on any noxious, dangerous or offensive trade; all toilet outhouses shall be suitably screened, no part of said premises shall be used for an insane, inebriate or other asylum, or cemetery or place of burial or for any structure other than a dwelling for people of the Caucasian Race (78).