Citations

I have been most interested in restrictive covenants because while they seem the most overt and blatant in their racist language, their residual effects still lingered and still do. The first article I found interesting caught my eye because the notion that Houston, Texas is the largest city in the United States without any zoning laws was surprising.[1] Therefore, restrictive covenants were will used in lieu of zoning laws although they do not pertain directly to race. Whether explicit or implicit, many restrictive covenants are tied to race and are interesting and relevant to consider. The second article I discovered in the Hartford Courant has to do with the fight against restrictive covenants in conjunction with church groups. The article was written in March of 1948 and encouraged church groups to become involved in non-segregated housing and churches. This is interesting to me because to this day, Church still seems segregated and this articles shows the movements early on to de-segregate religious life.[2]

In the article titled “Restrictive Covenants” from the Encyclopedia of Chicago, the actual definition of restrictive covenants is written.[3] The part that I found the most interesting was the part talking directly about Chicago, IL. This stuck out to me because Chicago was a major urban center for many dialogues surrounding race relations. The final article I chose was interesting because it directly relates to Hartford and has more to do with businesses, but equally interesting.[4]