Discriminatory housing policy in the Raleigh metro area
Buying a house is one of the most important purchases many Americans make. It’s a safe, stable place to call home, as well as an important way to build wealth. However, not all families in America have had equitable access to homeownership due to racial discrimination in housing.
Historical housing policies created racial disparities in homeownership that still persist today. These practices shaped our communities, and they are reflected in the current makeup of our neighborhoods.
Intentional Segregation
In the early 1900s, discriminatory policies were actively enforced and Raleigh grew into an intentionally-segregated city. While white families moved into well-resourced neighborhoods north and west of downtown, Black families were explicitly prevented by discriminatory policies from moving into those areas of high opportunity.
One of these policies was redlining. Historically, banks designated certain neighborhoods as having a higher concentration of people who were more likely to default on their loans. This practice, called redlining, classified Black applicants as “high-risk borrowers” based solely on race and where they lived, and denied them loans to buy or renovate their homes.
Racial Convenants
Racial covenants also shaped where Black families could live. Covenants were written into the deeds of homes in certain neighborhoods prohibiting the sale of the home to Black or non-white homebuyers. See a list of identified covenant areas in Wake County below. This list merely reflects the covenants we know existed and may not represent the full extent of covenants that were once in place in this area. Racial covenants are now illegal but the residential segregation patterns still persist.
Before schools were desegregated through the Brown v. Board of Education court decision, access to particular schools played a large role in creating neighborhoods with a larger concentration of Black families. Karen Benjamin, a historian at St. Xavier College in Chicago, found that in the early 20th century the Raleigh School Board decided to transfer all the schools in the city that Black students were allowed to attend to the southeastern section of the city. Simultaneously they designated the newest and best-equipped schools to be whites-only and located them in the far northwestern neighborhoods.
While restrictive covenants, redlining, and segregated schools are now outlawed, our communities still see the impacts today. Housing patterns across Wake County illustrate the influence of these discriminatory practices.
Identified Covenant Areas in Wake County
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Book-Page |
Date |
Location |
|
1946 |
Hillside Park, Fuquay Varina |
|
|
1940 |
Sasser Homes Addition, Raleigh |
|
|
1947 |
Anderson Heights, Raleigh |
|
|
1947 |
Sunset Hills, Raleigh |
|
|
1940 |
Longview Gardens, Raleigh |
|
|
1948 |
Dennis Ave, Raleigh |
|
|
1948 |
Belvedere Park, Raleigh |
|
|
1946 |
Project Spotlight: Wake County’s Racially Restrictive Covenant Project
For a deep dive into racial covenants in Wake County, check out the County’s volunteer-led research project that uncovered thousands of deeds with racial covenants still attached. This project was sponsored by the Wake County Register of Deeds office, with a goal of cataloging and mapping restrictive covenants. The project is still ongoing and will result in a searchable, interactive map to foster understanding of how these historical practices still impact our community today.