Library Guides: Mapping historic race-based property covenants in Jefferson County, Colorado: Resources &amp; readings

Colorado Resources

Mapping Prejudice in Denver -- Denver Public Library project
Jefferson County, Colorado Clerk & Recorder web-based information -- limited access without an account
Ku Klux Klan Ledgers of the Greater Denver area, 1920s scanned by History Colorado. Documents membership from 1924 to 1926.
- "“They were just everywhere”: Map of Denver Ku Klux Klan addresses in 1920s shows members in every corner of city KKK members were a minority in Denver, but for a few years they wielded immense political power" by The Denver Post, September 14, 2021.

Readings

[book] The color of law : a forgotten history of how our government segregated America by Richard Rothstein. "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 it 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." AVAILABLE in most libraries & through most booksellers.
Man on crusade to expose Colorado's racist property records: 'This is so appalling!' Battles over racism continue to rile the country. The latest is hitting Colorado where a longtime resident in a popular tourist town discovered several neighborhoods that only welcomed white people. Does that bother you? He says it should and he wants you to join him in taking a stand. The Denver Channel, Channel 7, KCDO--ABC, October 13, 2017.
'Legacy of Shame': How Racist Clauses in Housing Deeds Divided America by Clare Trapasso. An article from Realtor.com that outlines the history of race-based covenants.
Make Better Deeds : A Research Project for Repairing Broken Neighborhoods A project in Virginia to eliminate race-based language from deeds & covenants
How Black cartographers put racism on the map of America written by 2 professors from the University of Tennessee, and Penn State University.
State lawmakers work to strip old ‘whites only’ covenants A story from the Associated Press (AP), July 28, 2021

Videos & podcasts

The Segregation Myth: Richard Rothstein Debunks an American Lie -- (8 minutes) -- "The racial segregation in every metropolitan area in this country was created by racially explicit government policy, designed to create racial boundaries."
Adam Ruins Everything (S1, E43): The Disturbing History of the Suburbs (6:19 minutes) -- "Redlining: the racist housing policy from the Jim Crow era that still affects us today."
Redlining and Racial Covenants: Jim Crow of the North -- (8 minutes) by PBS
How Redlining Shaped Black America As We Know It -- (8 minutes) -- Here's how the racist legacy of redlining still works today.
Jim Crow of the North - Full-Length Documentary -- (57 minutes) -- by PBS. Roots of racial disparities are seen through a new lens in this film that explores the origins of housing segregation in the Minneapolis area. But the story also illustrates how African-American families and leaders resisted this insidious practice, and how Black people built community — within and despite — the red lines that these restrictive covenants created.
How Housing Discrimination Work‪s‬ -- (59 minutes) -- by Stuff You Should Know podcast. Owning a home in the US is a way to pass wealth down from one generation to the next and lift families into a comfortable life down the road. But there have been barriers to buying homes that Black Americans have faced from the time of slavery to today.
Racial covenants, a relic of the past, are still on the books across the country -- (6 minutes) -- by Cheryl Thompson NPR

Mapping race websites

Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America -- scanned images of redlining maps and accompanying texts.
The Legacy or Redlining: Residential Segregation in 147 American Cities -- scanned images of redlining maps are overlaid on current maps. Some economic data included.
Not Even Past: Social Vulnerability and the Legacy of Redlining
Living Together / Living Apart : Geography of Segregation in the 21st Century
Mapping Inequality Collection at the Boston Public Library Leventhal Map & Education Center
Land-Grab Universities: How the United States funded land-grant universities with expropriated Indigenous land by High Country News.
The Mapping of Race in America : Visualizing the Legacy of Slavery & Redlining, 1860-Present -- created as part of the 2022 Junior Fellows Program at the Library of Congress and was inspired by the work of the Geography & Map Division in support of the U.S. House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth.
Land Acquisition and Dispossession : Mapping the Homestead Act, 1863-1912

Resources for teaching

“The Most Insidious Legacy”—Teaching About Redlining and the Impact of Racial Residential Segregation" by Mark Pearcy. The Geography Teacher, 17:2, 44-55 (2020), DOI:10.1080/19338341.2020.1759118

Other related projects

National Covenants Research Coalition -- A group of researchers and community members working to document this history of exclusion and reckon with its legacy today.
Mapping Prejudice -- Visualizing the hidden histories of race and privilege in the built environment in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Mapping Inequality -- redlining maps throughout the US
Renewing Inequality -- racial & social inequities of urban renewal
Mapping Racist Covenants -- Tucson, Arizona
Mapping Segregation in Washington DC
Redlining Louisville, Kentucky
Mapping Racism -- Hyattsville, Maryland
Justice InDeed -- Washtenaw County, Michigan
Mapping Racial Covenants, Property Ownership & Equity -- Charlottesville, Virginia
Eastern Washington State Racial Restrictive Covenants Project -- Spokane, Washington
Segregated Seattle, Washington