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Related guides
Welcome to this guide
This is a companion resource guide for the Mapping Prejudice project. Mapping Prejudice is a community action research project housed in the University of Minnesota Libraries which works with community partners to identify and map racial covenants and clauses in property deeds. These covenants and clauses were inserted into property deeds to prevent home owners from selling or renting to people who were not White. Through this work of exposing structural racism, reparative action can begin.
In this guide you will find resources, tips, and strategies to learn more about racial and ethnic discrimination and segregation in housing. The guide is intended to provide an overview of the topic area and possible pathways for diving deeper into several facets of the topic.
Where possible the links provided are easily accessible and open to the public. For resources that are not free and open to the public, strategies for finding and gaining access have been provided.
This is such a big topic, we cannot possibly list all of the resources you will find useful in this guide. Instead of trying to provide a list of everything, the guide contains good places to start. The guide is organized in a way that starts with gaining a basic understanding of the topic. The focus shifts to finding and using different types of resources (academic article databases, newspapers, archives) as you scroll down the page.
Key terms and definitions
Structural racism
A system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity. It identifies dimensions of our history and culture that have allowed privileges associated with “whiteness” and disadvantages associated with “color” to endure and adapt over time. Structural racism is not something that a few people or institutions choose to practice. Instead it has been a feature of the social, economic and political systems in which we all exist. - The Aspen Institute
Historical and present day housing discrimination and segregation is one of those structures that reinforce and perpetuate racial and ethnic inequity.
Housing discrimination and residential segregation
Housing discrimination is the historical and current barriers, policies, and practices that prevent people from renting, selling, or buying a property based on their race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including gender, gender identity, sexual orientation), familial status, and disability. While housing discrimination is currently illegal it still happens and discriminatory practices of the past have left a lasting legacy of geographic segregation. The effects of housing discrimination and segregation result in inequality in education, wealth distribution, and health disparities.
Research on this topic spans many traditional disciplines and interdisciplinary fields using methods and theories from areas such as economics, geography, law, medicine, history, sociology, social work, public policy, urban studies, and arts and humanities.
This guide focuses on housing discrimination based on ethnic and racial identity.
Racial covenants and redlining
Racial covenants are clauses inserted into property deeds to prevent people who were not White from buying or occupying the land. Racial covenants led to residential segregation which in turn laid the groundwork for redlining practices.
Redlining is a blanket term widely used to describe a constellation of discriminatory lending practices. It is the practice of withholding financial and mortgage lending services from people residing in neighborhoods classified as "hazardous" to investment.
Background resources and entry points
- The Case for ReparationsArticle by Ta-Nahisi Coates in The Atlantic published June 2014. Provides a brief history of housing and lending policies resulting in residential segregation and makes the case of reparations.
- Jim Crow of the NorthSeason 1, Episode 20 of the Twin Cities PBS Minnesota Experience. Why does Minnesota suffer through some of the worst racial disparities in the nation? One answer is the spread of racist, restrictive real estate covenants in the early 20th century. Jim Crow of the North charts the progression of racist policies and practices from the advent of restrictive covenants after the turn of the last century to their final elimination in the late 1960s.
- The Geography of InequalityTEDxMinneapolis talk by Kevin Ehrman-Solberg.
- Why are US cities still so segregated?Ted-Ed lesson by Kevin Ehrman-Solberg and Kirsten Delegard, directed by Sofia Pashaei.
- The Pruitt-Igoe Mythdocumentary available as a streaming rental that introduces the complexities of urban renewal. Students, staff, and faculty have access to this film through the UMN Libraries. Non-affiliates can watch it for free from a public computer station in one of the campus libraries. Bring headphones.
- Long Shadow of Racial Discrimination: Evidence from Housing Covenants in MinneapolisOpenly available research article by Aradhya Sood, William Speagle, and Kevin Ehrman-Solberg.
- Race: The Power of an IllusionExcerpts and supporting materials for episode 3 of the PBS documentary series.
Watch the entire series at a UMN campus library or (if UMN affiliate) from your own computer.
- Reparations SyllabusA collection of resources including primer texts on racial inequality and reparations in the U.S., arguments for and against reparations, and restorative justice models.
Research projects uncovering racial covenants
These community action research projects are doing work similar to Mapping Prejudice. By using geographic information system software (GIS) to map racial covenants and make plain the impacts of housing discrimination practices they hope to build a path to reparations.
- Chicago CovenantsCommunity action research project to find racial covenants in property deeds in Cook County (Chicago) Illinois.
- Just DeedsCoalition members provide free legal and title services to help property owners find discriminatory covenants and discharge them from their property titles. The Coalition also provides education opportunities to help communities acknowledge this racist history and pursue reconciliation and anti-racist solutions. Our member organizations share responsibility for creating and correcting systemic racism in housing. We acknowledge the racist systems that exist in our communities, and we are working together to dismantle them.
- Mapping PrejudiceMapping Prejudice identifies and maps racial covenants, clauses that were inserted into property deeds to keep people who were not White from buying or occupying homes. From our base in the University of Minnesota Libraries, our interdisciplinary team collaborates with community members to expose the history of structural racism and support the work of reparations.
- Mapping Racist CovenantsLaunched in September 2022, the MRC project explores the geography of racial covenants across neighborhoods and subdivisions in Tuscon, AZ, focusing on those enacted between 1912-1968.
- Mapping Segregation in Washington DC"Mapping Segregation is a resource for historians, activists, educators, students, and journalists, and provides essential context for conversations around race and gentrification in DC. The project's maps unveil historical patterns that would otherwise remain invisible and largely unknown. The ongoing, lot-by-lot documentation of racial deed covenants is set in the context of DC's demographic transformation over the course of several decades. Primary documents, archival news clippings, photographs, and oral testimony also contribute to the stories these maps tell."
- National Covenants Research CoalitionA group of researchers and community members working to document the history of the use of racially restrictive covenants and reckon with their legacy.
- Race and Segregation in Washington Cities and Counties 1940-2020Maps exploring the dimensions of race and segregation history for Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Spokane, Vancouver, and the Tri-Cities as well as each county in Washington State from 1940 to the present. The maps are one of 13 projects bringing together oral histories, photographs, documents, and newspaper articles on the civil rights and labor history of the state of Washington.
Digital projects, exhibits, and educational materials
- Unvarnished: Housing Discrimination in the Northern and Western United StatesVirtual exhibit and teachers’ resource guide are the result of an almost five-year journey from 2017 to 2022 undertaken by a learning community of five museums and one cultural organization. Together, we crossed the northern and western US to convene at each location and learn from thought leaders, scholars, and each other, dig into archives, and listen to community members share their experiences.
- Roots, Race, & Place: A history of racially exclusionary housing in the San Francisco Bay AreaA digital publication and other resources from the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California-Berkeley.
- Confronting Racial Covenants: How they segregated Monroe County and what to do about themA guide created as a result of a partnership between City Roots Community Land Trust and the Yale Environmental Protection Clinic.
- Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal AmericaFederal housing maps created between 1935 and 1940, ostensibly to help mortgage lenders avoid risky loans, served to deepen the segregation process that housing covenants began. They relied on local developers and realtors to identify “hazardous” neighborhoods—a determination frequently based on race. As a result, people in minority neighborhoods found it difficult, if not impossible, to get a mortgage. The federal programs codified and standardized local knowledge, Connolly said: “Covenants were the critical foundation.”
Selected books
Accessing books on this list
The links below the description of each book will take you to either the WorldCat entry for the specified format of the book or the UMN library catalog.
If you are not a UMN affiliate you can use the WorldCat link to find the closest library to you with the book. If there are no copies owned by your public library or another library you are affiliated with you can request a print copy* using interlibrary loan through your local library. Another option is to visit the UMN Libraries to access and use books onsite.
*Note that audio and e-book formats may not be available through interlibrary loan due to licensing restrictions.
Unjust Deeds by ISBN: 1469625466Publication Date: 2015-08-26In 1945, six African American families from St. Louis, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., began a desperate fight to keep their homes. Each of them had purchased a property that prohibited the occupancy of African Americans and other minority groups through the use of legal instruments called racial restrictive covenants--one of the most pervasive tools of residential segregation in the aftermath of World War II.
The Color of Law by ISBN: 9781501976872Publication Date: 2017-09-01In this history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein explodes the myth that America's cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation-that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation-the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments-that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.
Race for Profit by ISBN: 9781469653662Publication Date: 2019-10-21Race for Profit uncovers how exploitative real estate practices continued well after housing discrimination was banned. The same racist structures and individuals remained intact after redlining's end, and close relationships between regulators and the industry created incentives to ignore improprieties.
Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the fate of the American city by ISBN: 9780812291506Publication Date: 2014-09-12Mapping Decline examines the causes and consequences of St. Louis's urban crisis. It traces the complicity of private real estate restrictions, local planning and zoning, and federal housing policies in the "white flight" of people and wealth from the central city. And it traces the inadequacy--and often sheer folly--of a generation of urban renewal, in which even programs and resources aimed at eradicating blight in the city ended up encouraging flight to the suburbs.
The Arsenal of Exclusion and Inclusion by ISBN: 9781940291345Publication Date: 2017-11-15Who gets to be where? The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion examines some of the policies, practices, and physical artifacts that have been used by planners, policymakers, developers, real estate brokers, community activists, and other urban actors in the United States to draw, erase, or redraw the lines that divide.
Colored Property by ISBN: 9780226262758Publication Date: 2007-08-01Northern whites in the post-World War II era began to support the principle of civil rights, so why did many of them continue to oppose racial integration in their communities? Challenging conventional wisdom about the growth, prosperity, and racial exclusivity of American suburbs, David M. P. Freund argues that previous attempts to answer this question have overlooked a change in the racial thinking of whites and the role of suburban politics in effecting this change. In Colored Property, he shows how federal intervention spurred a dramatic shift in the language and logic of residential exclusion--away from invocations of a mythical racial hierarchy and toward talk of markets, property, and citizenship.
How the suburbs were segregated : developers and the business of exclusionary housing, 1890-1960 by ISBN: 0231542496Publication Date: 2020Paige Glotzer offers a new understanding of the deeper roots of suburban segregation. The mid-twentieth-century policies that favored exclusionary housing were not simply the inevitable result of popular and elite prejudice, she reveals, but the culmination of a long-term effort by developers to use racism to structure suburban real estate markets. Glotzer charts how the real estate industry shaped residential segregation, from the emergence of large-scale suburban development in the 1890s to the postwar housing boom.
The Suburb Reader by ISBN: 9780415945936Publication Date: 2006-08-07Employing over 200 primary sources, illustrations, and critical essays, The Suburb Reader documents the rise of North American suburbanization from the 1700s through the present day. Through thematically organized chapters it explores multiple facets of suburbia's creation and addresses its indelible impact on the shaping of gender and family ideologies, politics, race relations, technology, design, and public policy.
Search terms and strategies
Search terms and keywords
The resources provided in this guide are only a starting point. You can find more information, specific to the concepts or approaches you are most interested in, by searching databases and the internet.
Whether you are searching in library databases, the library catalog, Google Scholar, or just plain Google, creating a good search query will help you to find relevant information. General terms work well when starting your research. Be sure to take note of additional terms and concepts that come up in your search results. You can try these in future searches.
*Please note that some terms used to describe racial and ethnic concepts and related areas, especially historical and older resources, may be offensive and outdated.
- Housing segregation
- Residential segregation
- Restrictive covenants
- Gentrification
- Redlining
- Discriminatory mortgage lending
- Federal Housing Administration
- Department of Veterans Affairs
- Segregated cities
- Zoning policies
- Reverse redlining
- Predatory lending
- Racial wealth gap
- Black homeownership gap
- Discrimination and appraisals - devaluation
- Housing inequality
- Property ownership
Subject Headings
Subject headings are specific terms in databases and catalogs used to categorize concepts and topics. They can be particularly helpful when searching library catalogs, archives, databases, and digital collections. You can pair a subject heading search with additional topics, events, and concepts like education, law, history, health care, and policy.
Each item on the bulleted list below links to the UMN Libraries Search by subject heading.
- Housing discrimination
- Mortgage discrimination
- Racial discrimination
- Segregation
- Residential segregation
- Housing-statistics & numerical data
- African Americans - statistics & numerical data
- Asian Americans - statistics & numerical data
- Indigenous peoples - statistics & numerical data
- Discrimination in housing -- United States
- Housing authorities
- Housing policy
- Housing subsidies
Creating a search query
For databases and search engines (Google, Google Scholar, Safari, DuckDuckGo) you can combine search terms using specific rules to write a search query that will improve your search results. These rules are:
- Use quotation marks to search multiple words together as a phrase, ex. "housing discrimination"
- Use the word AND to link together concepts, ex. "housing discrimination" AND race
- Use the word OR to search for synonyms, ex. "housing discrimination" OR "residential segregation"
Academic articles
Finding research articles can be done a few different ways. Start by using Libraries Search (anyone can search the UMN Libraries catalog) or Google Scholar.
Using a specific database can help to focus your search results. Most of the databases listed below are paid for by the UMN Libraries. Licensing for subscription databases restricts off-campus access to UMN students, faculty, and staff. The general public can access these databases by using a public computer at one of the UMN campus libraries.
More ways to find and access articles:
- Check with your local public library (Hennepin Country Public Library, Ramsey County Public Library, Saint Paul Public Library), nearby state-funded university, or affiliated institution to learn what article databases you may have access to.
- Use Google Scholar to run searches and access openly available copies of articles.
- Use the UMN Libraries Search to find articles (anyone can use it). While it is limited to items in the UMN catalog, it has advanced search and filtering capabilities beyond Google Scholar. Once you find the title of an article you want, go to Google Scholar to try to find an open version or click the Unpaywall link in the UMN catalog record to find an openly available version.
- If all else fails, send an email to the lead author on the article and ask for a copy.
Openly accessible databases
- Google Scholar (Setup connection to get to PDFs)Use Google Scholar to find articles from academic publishers, professional societies, research institutes, and scholarly repositories from colleges and universities. If you are using from off-campus access, change the "Library Settings" to University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Look for the "FindIt@U of M Twin Cities" links in your Google Scholar search results to access full text and PDFs. View this tutorial to learn how to go from a general idea to a very precise set of results of journal articles and scholarly materials.
- PubMedSearches MEDLINE, which is the primary source of journal articles for the health sciences (fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, public health, health care systems, and basic sciences). Coverage is from the 1940s to the present. View this tutorial to learn how to go from a general idea to a very precise set of results of journal articles and scholarly materials.
Subscription databases requiring on-campus use or UMN affiliation for off-campus use
- Academic Search PremierA great place to start your research on any topic, search multidisciplinary, scholarly research articles. This database provides access to scholarly and peer reviewed journals, popular magazines and other resources. View this tutorial to learn how to go from a general idea to a very precise set of results of journal articles and scholarly materials.
- America: History and LifeAmerica: history and life provides historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present with over 2,000 journals including all key English-language historical journals. Limited to 6 simultaneous users.
- JSTORFind full text articles in academic journals or books on the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences. JSTOR provides articles from the journal's first issue. In some cases the most recent 2-5 years may not be available. View this tutorial to learn how to go from a general idea to a very precise set of results of journal articles and scholarly materials.
- PAIS Index (Political Science and Public Policy)PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service) searches journals and other sources on issues of political science and public policy. This includes government, politics, international relations, human rights and more.
- Race Relations AbstractsDiscover articles covering essential areas related to race relations, including ethnic studies, discrimination, immigration studies, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline.
- Sociological AbstractsThis core database for the field of sociology contains information on sociology and social policy worldwide. Sociological Abstracts includes citations from the 1952-present. It provides abstracting and indexing of articles and book reviews drawn from thousands of journal publications, plus books, book chapters, dissertations, conference papers, and working papers.
Newspaper databases
Similar to article databases, newspaper databases also require the library to pay a subscription fee and meet licensing requirements which prevent us from providing access to these databases for the general public from off-campus. If you are not affiliated with the UMN you can access the subscription databases from a public computer in one of the campus libraries.
Newspaper articles can be particularly useful when researching local events and opinions. For this reason, it is often useful to look at newspapers operating in a specific locality. Often public libraries in the same geographic area covered by the newspaper will have past issues that can be accessed (either via a database, CD ROM, or microfilm).
Openly available digital collections of newspapers
- Minnesota Digital Newspaper HubDigital reproductions of historical newspapers from Minnesota cities. Includes the Minneapolis Tribune from 1867-1922 and the Minneapolis Spokesman from 1934-2000.
Subscription databases requiring on-campus use or UMN affiliation for off-campus use
- U.S. Newsstream This link opens in a new windowSearch the most recent premium U.S. news content, as well as archives which stretch back into the 1980s featuring newspapers, newswires, blogs, and news sites in active full-text format.
- Minneapolis Star Tribune (1867 to 2001) This link opens in a new windowHistorical run of full-text digital replicas of daily Minneapolis newspaper. Includes news articles, editorials, advertisements, classified ads, obituaries, cartoons, notices, illustrations and photographs and all other full image content. (via ProQuest Historical Newspapers)
- Minneapolis Star Tribune (1986 to present) This link opens in a new windowFull-text articles from the recent issues of the Star Tribune. Does not include wire stories, ads, photos, or other non-textual article content from the paper. (via ProQuest Newsstream). Note: There is a one-day embargo on content.
- St. Paul Pioneer Press (1948 to present) This link opens in a new windowSearch and browse historical and current issues of the St. Paul Pioneer Press and related titles. Full-page digital images of the complete paper are available for the historical archive (1948 to 1987) as well as the most recent issues (2018 to present). Articles from 1988 to 2018 are available in full-text, but without page images. (via Access World News)
- Black Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new windowAfrican American newspapers that are included in the ProQuest Historical Newspaper collection: Atlanta Daily World (1931-2010), Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988), Chicago Defender (1909-2010), Cleveland Call and Post (1934-1991), Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005), Louisville Defender (1951-2010), Michigan Chronicle (1939-2010), New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993), Norfolk Journal and Guide (1916-2010), Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2010)
- African American Periodicals, 1825-1995Features more than 170 wide-ranging magazines by and about African Americans.
Primary sources and archival materials
Mapping Prejudice and many of the other projects looking at racially restrictive covenants draw upon archival sources in the form of property deeds. You may want to use archival sources in your research or project.
What can you find in an archive?
Archival collections include meeting minutes, correspondence, financial records, photographs, digital files, video recordings, memorabilia, and other historical materials that describe or belong to a place, institution, or group of people. Many items in an archival collection may not be digitized and will require you to visit them in person. Often an appointment is required or recommended.
UMN Archives and Special Collections
The University of Minnesota has several special and archival collections that may relate to your specific topic. The UMN archives and special collections are open for anyone to use. Appointments are required. Contact ascref@umn.edu with questions and to schedule an appointment.
Complete the Start Your Research in the Archives with Primary Source Documents tutorial to learn more about how you can find and use archival materials.
Some collections at UMN that may be useful:
- Givens Collection of African American Literature
- Northwest Architectural Archives
- Upper Midwest Jewish Archives
- Kautz Family YMCA Archives
- Social Welfare History Archives
Learn about and search all UMN Archives and Special Collections.
- UMedia ArchiveUMedia searches digitized collections from the University of Minnesota Libraries, Archives and Special Collections.
Digital and print archives
The archival collections and search engines below are listed from having the most broad level (national/U.S.) to the most narrow level of coverage (county/community). This list is not exhaustive but hopefully, gives you ideas of where to look for archival collections that fit your research needs.
- African American Heritage: The National ArchivesDigitized archival resources, subject portals, articles, and more from the National Archives.
- Black Archives of Mid-AmericaThe mission of the Black Archives of Mid-America in Kansas City, Inc. is to collect, preserve and make available to the public materials documenting the social, economic, political and cultural histories of persons of African American descent in the central United States, with particular emphasis in the Kansas City, Missouri region.
- A conversation with James BaldwinVideo recording of WGBH interview with James Baldwin from the American Archive for Public Broadcasting.
- Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)A searchable online catalog with millions of digitized items to browse, including photos, maps and books, from libraries, archives, museums, and cultural institutions around the United States.
- Hallie Q. Brown Community ArchivesThe Hallie Q. Brown Community Archives (HQBCA) is a volunteer-collaborative initiative that began in 2017. A digital archive of print and analog materials documenting the history of Rondo community in Saint Paul.
- Hennepin County Library Digital CollectionsThese collections feature a variety of digitized materials related to the history of Minneapolis and Hennepin County. The collections can be searched or browsed, and all of the content can be viewed online and downloaded.
- Minnesota ReflectionsSearch a collection of thousands of historic documents and images from across Minnesota contributed by libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies from all corners of the state.
- W. E. B. Du Bois Papers, 1803-1999 (bulk 1877-1963)Collection of W.E.B. DuBois' correspondence, speeches, articles, newspaper columns, nonfiction books, research materials, book reviews, pamphlets and leaflets, petitions, novels, essays, forewords, student papers, manuscripts of pageants, plays, short stories and fables, poetry, photographs, newspaper clippings, memorabilia, videotapes, audiotapes, and miscellaneous materials housed at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst. Much of the collection has been digitized.
Organizations
- Minnesota Historical SocietyThe Minnesota Historical Society preserves Minnesota's past through historic collections, exhibits, locations, events and more. It is a private, non-profit educational and cultural institution established in 1849.
- Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and GalleryThe Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and Gallery (MAAHMG) preserves, documents and highlights the achievements, contributions and experiences of African Americans in Minnesota. The museum is free and accessible to all.
- UMN Center for Urban & Regional AffairsCURA research page with openly accessible final reports.
Includes The Diversity of Gentrification: Multiple Forms of Gentrification in Minneapolis and St. Paul and The Illusion of Choice: Evictions and Profit in North Minneapolis. For even more from CURA view the CURA collection in the University Digital Conservancy.
Your public library
Local public libraries have books, newspapers, magazines, reference materials, historical collections and archival materials (typically focused on the surrounding community) and more!