Arc of the Covenants

"Racially restrictive covenants first came into vogue in the years after World War I as blacks began migrating in large numbers from the South to jobs in the North and West.
"After some attempts at racially restrictive zoning were outlawed as unconstitutional, developers hit upon covenants--in which buyers signed private contracts pledging not to sell their house to blacks as a condition of purchasing their home. Some covenants also excluded Jews, Italians, Russians, Muslims, Latinos and Asians from buying.
"They were widely used in many areas, but particularly in Los Angeles County because so much of its housing was built in the 1920s through the '40s, the heyday of covenants.
"The covenants were not enacted by the government but were private contracts between homeowners. Owners who sold their house to a black family, for example, could be sued for damages by other homeowners in the neighborhood. Black home buyers could also be sued.
"In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Shelley vs. Kraemer that covenants were unenforceable.
"But although it has been six decades since they were outlawed, historians and policymakers argue that covenants are no mere historical artifact."

Jessica Garrison in the Los Angeles Times reports on efforts by state Assemblyman Hector De La Torre to eliminate remaining racial covenants from deeds in California.