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Paragraphs inserted into property deeds, typically for suburban houses, that prevented the property from being sold to or occupied by anyone who was not white. Real estate agents, neighborhood associations, government agents like the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and elected officials like President Herbert Hoover actively promoted restrictive covenants in order to prevent African Americans from moving into all-white suburban neighborhoods. In the landmark 1948 case Shelley v. Kraemer, the Supreme Court ruled that restrictive covenants, while not technically unconstitutional in themselves (since they were private agreements among individuals), could not be legally enforced by the government (which would violate the Fourteenth Amendment). Although the government’s top attorney then ordered the Federal Housing Administration to stop promoting these restrictive covenants, which in many cases it required in order to provide buyers with mortgage insurance, the FHA openly ignored the ruling. Although restrictive covenants were never actually enforceable, then, they still played an important part in both private and public campaigns for segregation during the 20th century. Even today, the deeds to many homes still include restrictive covenants from several decades ago, and at the end of his book Rothstein offers advice for homeowners who wish to remove or modify the restrictive covenants on their properties.
Restrictive Covenants Quotes in The Color of Law
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Chapter 5
Quotes
The Supreme Court decision in Shelley v. Kraemer, banning court enforcement of restrictive covenants, had been unanimous, 6-0. Three of the nine justices excused themselves from participating because their objectivity might have been challenged—there were racial restrictions covering the homes in which they lived.
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Restrictive Covenants Term Timeline in The Color of Law
The timeline below shows where the term Restrictive Covenants appears in The Color of Law. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 5: Private Agreements, Government Enforcement
In Part I of the chapter, Rothstein explains that property deeds frequently included “ restrictive covenants ” barring the resale of homes to African American people and mandating that all future...
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In Part II, Rothstein looks at how governments “promot[ed] and enforc[ed] the restrictive covenants ” of neighborhood and community associations. More than a dozen state supreme courts affirmed these...
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In Part III, Rothstein explains that the FHA also gave better ratings to homes with restrictive covenants that banned selling to African American people, and explicitly supported such language in its Underwriting...
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In Part IV of this chapter, Rothstein explains that the Supreme Court finally declared restrictive covenants unconstitutional in the 1948 case Shelley v. Kraemer, because enforcing them required government involvement and...
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...the United States (the federal government’s top lawyer) formally ordered the FHA to stop including restrictive covenants on its mortgages, and the FHA publicly announced it would ignore these orders and privately...
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Chapter 6: White Flight
...have “prevented property values from falling” in itself. In fact, a federal court ruled that restrictive covenants made property values fall by preventing African American people from paying more for the same...
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Chapter 7: IRS Support and Compliant Regulators
Churches were particularly grievous offenders. They often sponsored neighborhood associations that wrote restrictive covenants into housing deeds, as in the Shelley v. Kraemer case first mentioned in Chapter Five,...
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Chapter 9: State-Sanctioned Violence
...and in the 1948 Shelley v. Kraemer case, the Supreme Court had already decided that restrictive covenants could not be enforced. So Gary bought his friend’s house and moved in, even though...
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