Racist deeds still echo
A history and virtual tour of some racially restricted neighborhoods in the Pittsburgh-area.
Pittsburgh subdivisions with racial covenants identified by PublicSource. Use the tools in the upper right corner to show the full extent and the lower right corner to zoom in and out.
Introduction
Throughout the 20th century, housing discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity was rampant. In 1911, Baltimore enacted an ordinance specifying where Black people could and could not live. Other cities followed Baltimore's lead, enacting racial zoning laws. These laws remained in force until 1917 when they were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as unconstitutional in a case known as Buchanan v. Warley .
1915 Decatur, Georgia, racial zoning ordinance. Source: DeKalb History Center archives.
Even after the Supreme Court ended racial zoning, thousands of deeds filed in courthouses throughout the United States contained explicit language prohibiting specific ethnic and racial groups from buying or renting property. Many of these covenants also explicitly allowed property owners to have Black live-in domestic workers as an exception. Racially restrictive deed covenants, along with redlining, contributed to concentrating wealth and poverty in cities and suburban neighborhoods.
Racially restrictive deed covenant executed in Montgomery County, Maryland, May 18, 1904. Montgomery County Land Records, Deed Book 178. Source: Maryland State Archives.
Racially restrictive deed covenant executed in Washington, D.C., Aug. 1, 1955. This deed was filed seven years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racially restrictive deed covenants were unenforceable. District of Columbia Land Records, Deed Book 10487. Source: District of Columbia Recorder of Deeds.
Restrictive deed covenant filed in Montgomery County, Maryland, executed June 16, 1947. Montgomery County Land Records, Deed Book 1082. Source: Maryland State Archives.
Racially restrictive covenants included in an Erie County deed filed in 1924. Erie County Land Records, Deed Book 604. Courtesy of Marshal Granor.
As a result of deeds like these, subdivisions throughout the United States became segregated neighborhoods. The National Association of Real Estate Boards in the 1920s began distributing model covenant documents that included racial restrictions. In the 1930s, the newly created Federal Housing Administration encouraged the use of restrictive covenants for properties covered by federally protected mortgage insurance. The agency published guidance for covenants in its widely distributed mortgage underwriting manual.
Racially restrictive deed covenants became part of federal mortgage insurance policy in the 1930s. The Federal Housing Administration included them in the agency's Underwriting Manual. Source: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1938 Underwriting Manual: Underwriting and Valuation Procedure Under Title II of the National Housing Act , pp. 979-980.
Racially restrictive deed covenants, combined with other Jim Crow practices such as segregated eating and shopping establishments, parks and entertainment venues, created all-white communities called " sundown towns ." Located mainly in Northern states, these were communities where Black people could work during the day, but could not live.
U.S. Supreme Court Shelley v. Kraemer decision. Source: U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Shelley v. Kraemer that racially restrictive deed covenants were unenforceable in the courts. Despite the decision, discrimination in housing continued. In the 1950s and 1960s, states and cities enacted open housing laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race and other factors. Pittsburgh in 1958 enacted a sweeping civil rights law that prohibited discrimination in employment and housing. The law, which became effective in 1959, consolidated other municipally legislated efforts to reduce discrimination in Pittsburgh, including the 1955 ordinance creating the Commission on Human Relations .
Classified advertisements published in the Pittsburgh Press, Nov. 10, 1957. The offer for "low down payments, balance like rent" was another form of housing discrimination that targeted Black people. Like later subprime mortgages, these schemes known as contract buying , often resulted in families losing their homes. Source: The Pittsburgh Press via newspapers.com.
1958 Pittsburgh Open Housing Law. Source: City of Pittsburgh Archives.
On the heels of major civil rights court decisions and the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act four years later. The law prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing.
Public Law 90-284, Civil Rights Act (Fair Housing) of 1968. Source: Library of Congress.
Despite decades of civil rights advances in the courts and legislatures, housing discrimination persists. In 1988 and 1989, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a sweeping investigation into mortgage lending discrimination (redlining) in the United States. The paper ranked Pittsburgh banks second in the nation for rejecting Black homebuyers' mortgage applications.
The Pittsburgh Press, Jan. 23, 1989. Source: The Pittsburgh Press via newspapers.com.
Segregated Subdivisions
Developers and single-family home sellers attached racially restrictive deed covenants (many of them containing language explicitly excluding Black people) to properties throughout the Pittsburgh area. PublicSource identified 18 racially segregated subdivisions created between 1900 and 1948. This virtual tour shows some of the neighborhoods in and around Pittsburgh where deeds acted as barriers to entry for Black homebuyers and renters.
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1
Charette Homes
Charette Homes is located in Sewickley between Ohio River Boulevard and the Ohio River. The real estate firm Ackley and Bradley created the 20-lot subdivision in 1940. Harry Ackley was a builder, and Harold Bradley was an architect. They built several home styles in this subdivision, including a model that advertisements published in 1941 touted for its "garage door porch."
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Charette Homes Covenants
Charette Homes is one of several Sewickley subdivisions located between Ohio River Boulevard and the Ohio River.
Charette Homes also had two racially restrictive deed covenants. One prohibited selling or renting properties in the subdivision to anyone other than whites. The other, as if to underscore the first, offered an exception by allowing "bona fide domestic servants of another Race employed on the premises."
3
Cedarhurst Manor
The Cedarhurst Manor Land Company created the Cedarhurst Manor subdivision in 1929. The Mt. Lebanon subdivision sits behind a stately stone gatehouse. The earliest homes built in Cedarhurst Manor's 111 acres included diverse architectural styles popular at the time: Cape Cods, Tudor Revival and Colonial Revival. Newspapers touted the development's rural setting. "Twenty-one acres will be devoted to a natural park with two small lakes," wrote the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph in 1931.
4
Cedahurst Manor Covenant
Histories of Pittsburgh describe Mt. Lebanon as one of the metropolitan area's most segregated communities. The Sun-Telegraph wrote about Cedarhurst Manor in 1931: "The building restrictions in the Manor rank with the highest of any in the Greater Pittsburgh district." Unlike Mt. Lebanon's other residential subdivisions, which used high home prices and architectural reviews to exclude non-white buyers, Cedarhurst Manor's deeds contained an explicit racial restriction: "The premises ... shall in no event be sold to any person not of the White or Caucasian Race."
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Highland Manor
The Highland Development Company bought 100 acres of McCandless farmland and laid out the Highland Manor subdivision in 1924. Homes in Highland Manor include bungalows, period-revival cottages and ranch houses.
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Highland Manor Covenant
The Highland Development Company included four restrictive covenants in its deeds. The first prohibited the sale or rental to Black people. The final three related to building setbacks from property lines, set minimum costs for new homes and prohibited the introduction of "nuisances."
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Perrysville Manor
Also in McCandless, the Perrysville Land Company created this subdivision in 1922. Its housing stock is very similar to Highland Manor: bungalows, ranch houses, and a type known as the American Small House .
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Perrysville Manor Covenant
Perrysville Manor deeds included the same covenants as those used in Highland Manor.
9
Mount Royal Village
Mount Royal Village, Inc., created the first section of its Mount Royal Village subdivision in 1940. Located in Shaler, the subdivision covered about 185 acres of former farmland.
Targeted at higher income brackets than many contemporaneous Pittsburgh area subdivisions, the homes in Mount Royal Village include full two-story Colonial Revival styles, foursquares and period revival homes amid private parks.
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Mount Royal Village Covenant
Mount Royal Village deeds included 10 restrictive covenants. Most of these related to land use (no "noxious trades" or other nuisances), lot setbacks and minimum prices for new homes. Black people could live in the subdivision only if they were employed by the property owner.
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Schenley Farms
The Schenley Farms Company in 1906 began selling homes in a subdivision carved from former farmland once owned by Mary Schenley in what is now Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood.
The Schenley Farms Company targeted higher income homebuyers and the large homes built there reflect high-style architecture popular at the time.
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Schenley Farms 'Easement'
The Schenley Farms Company held easements on all lots sold. These easements gave the company veto power over potential buyers. This essentially acted as a barrier to entry to the neighborhood. Through nine restrictions covering architectural standards (including a list of approved architects who could design new homes) and land uses (single-family homes only), the company could ensure that only people it wanted living there could buy homes.
13
1947 Congressional Investigation
In 1947, Congress held hearings in cities throughout the United States to investigate housing. Pittsburgh hosted one of the hearings. Pittsburgh Urban League Executive Secretary R. Maurice Moss testified on the challenges the city's Black residents faced finding safe, decent and affordable housing. Moss singled out Schenley Farms for its approach to excluding Black people without explicitly discriminatory deed covenants.
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Schenley Farms Historic District
In 1983, Schenley Farms was listed in the National Register of Historic Places and it is a City of Pittsburgh historic district. Preservationists made the case that Schenley Farms is historically significant for its architecture, community planning and ties to the early 20th century City Beautiful movement. The 1947 congressional investigation and the neighborhood's segregated past are missing from the historic preservation documents and other published histories.
15
Melrose Park
In 1927, the General Realty Company bought the assets of several subdividers, including the Highland Development Company. Originally part of the Highland Development Company's Highland Manor, the General Realty Co. carved out Melrose Park to the north.
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Melrose Park Covenant
Properties in Melrose Park had three restrictions included in their deeds: racial restrictions, lot setbacks and minimum costs for new homes.
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Mifflin Manor
The Homestead real estate firm Hahn & Skyrmes (Fred J. Hahn and Albert W. Skyrmes) laid out the first Mifflin Manor lots in 1939. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on April 12, 1940, reported, "The new subdivision is located within a four mile radius of important industrial plants employing close to 100,000 persons."
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Mifflin Manor Covenant
Hahn & Skyrmes attached five restrictions to their Mifflin Manor deeds. These included requirements that all buildings be single-family homes with specified lot setbacks and minimum costs. They also excluded all non-white people from living there unless they were employed as domestic servants.
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Oak Ridge Park
Founded in 1936, the Barone & Lind Co. in 1939 created the Oak Ridge Park subdivision in Baldwin, east of Whitehall.
Following a common pattern, Barone & Lind added to the initial plan and expanded the subdivision. Besides naming the community, the developers also named streets. Founder Anthony Barone moved his family to Barone Drive.
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Oak Ridge Park Covenant
Barone & Lind attached 10 restrictive covenants to the subdivision. Instead of attaching covenants to individual deeds, the company filed a restrictions document with the Allegheny County Recorder of Deeds. New homes were required to cost a minimum of $5,000 and sit on minimum lot sizes. The restrictions limited uses (no "noxious or offensive" activities) and only whites people could live there, except for "domestic servants of a different race domiciled with an owner or tenant."
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Sampson Acres
In the 1920s, members of the Sampson family began subdividing the former family farm in Penn Township. Brothers Orin, Glenn, Stanley and Harold formed several companies to buy, develop and sell homes in the Pittsburgh region. In 1927, the family laid out a subdivision called Sampson Farms in part of the former farm. They later resurveyed a portion of the earlier subdivision and called it Sampson Acres.
Homes in Sampson Acres include substantial two-story stone and brick residences and the central street, Orin Street, is named for one of the brothers. Nearby streets are named Howard and Sampson.
After World War II, the Sampson brothers developed some of the region's largest subdivisions, including Garden City and Eastmont. They also were among the first commercial developers in Monroeville.
Not all of the family's developments included racial restrictions. In the 1950s, the Sampson brothers acted as straw buyers for Charles E. Davis , a Black former subcontractor. They purchased properties from white landowners and subsequently sold them to Davis to be developed into residential subdivisions where many Black families bought homes.
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Sampson Acres Covenant
The restrictions attached to Sampson Acres included a ban on "noxious trades," lot setbacks and architectural standards including that no buildings be more than two stories. They also explicitly prohibited Black people from living in Sampson Acres unless the individuals were "servants" employed by owners or tenants.
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Baldwin Manor
Located in Baldwin Township, Baldwin Manor was first platted in 1935 by the Foundation Realty Company. The company converted a 114-acre farm into 300 home sites. Proximity to the South Hills Country Club was a big selling point.
In 1937, Foundation Realty's president was arrested (and subsequently convicted) for selling more than $200,000 in bogus stocks. The company went into receivership in July 1937 and Barone & Lind became the new sales firm for Baldwin Manor.
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Baldwin Manor Covenant
The Foundation Realty Company attached 12 restrictive covenants to its Baldwin Manor properties. These restrictions prohibited apartment buildings, boarding houses and entertainment venues. Residents were restricted to persons of "pure blood of the Caucasian race."
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Highview Park
The Highland Development Company created Highview Park in Ross in May 1925. Ads for lots in the new subdivision appeared in local newspapers that summer. They touted low prices and proximity to the city.
Highview Park was one of nine Highland Development Company subdivisions the General Realty Company acquired in 1927. Sales stalled during the Depression and picked up again in 1938.
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Highview Park Covenant
Like the Highland Development Company's McCandless subdivisions, Highview Park was "restricted." Highview Park restrictions excluded "any negro or colored person or persons of Negro blood." They did not make exceptions for live-in domestic workers.
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Hampton Heights
The Hampton Heights Company was formed in 1941 by realtors Franklin West, C.A. West and E.A. Kopas. Franklin West also developed subdivisions in Penn Hills and Wilkinsburg, including Pennridge and Blackridge Estates. The Wests offered what the Post-Gazette described as "' department store' variety in residential real estate."
Work on Hampton Heights began in March 1941. The Sun-Telegraph reported that the subdivision included land for a new elementary school and a new high school. Ads touted the new schools and homes in a "high class neighborhood" free from smog and dirt.
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Hampton Heights Covenant
The Hampton Heights deed covenants restricted properties to white ownership and occupancy. They underscored the permanence of this restriction by noting, "...this shall be a covenant running with the land."
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Blackridge Estates
Realtor Franklin West formed Blackridge Estates, Inc., in February 1937. One month later, the company created the first of several Blackridge Estates subdivisions in Wilkinsburg and began construction on new homes. The earliest homes built before World War II included two-story brick colonial and period-revival styles.
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Blackridge Estates Covenant
Soon after construction began on Blackridge Estates, the Sun-Telegraph newspaper reported, "Building restrictions in force have proved both popular and sound, according to C.A. West of the developing company."
Among the restrictions recorded in deeds for the properties included the line, "all parties ... agree that no property in this plan shall be sold to any person not of the White or Caucasian Race."
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Fox Ridge Farms
The Kerrwood Corporation, founded in 1941, was another business partly owned by realtor Franklin West. The company created Fox Ridge Farms in O'Hara farmland that shared a border with Fox Chapel Borough.
Selling points for Fox Ridge Farms included an adjacent elementary school and bridle paths winding through the neighborhood. The developers promised "unspoiled countryside ... and almost every home will enjoy a view which includes the downtown and Oakland districts."
Its developers created Fox Ridge Farms for wealthy buyers. The Sun-Telegraph newspaper reported in 1941, "This plan is designed to meet the land needs of people who want to spend $9,000 to $30,000 for a home" ($198,000 to $660,000 in 2024 dollars).
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Fox Ridge Farms Covenant
Like West's other subdivisions, Fox Ridge Farms excluded non-white people in perpetuity. Deeds included this covenant, "The grantee agrees that this property shall not be sold to or used by any person not of the White or Caucasian Race, and agrees that this shall be a covenant running with the land."
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Stanton Heights Manor
The Stanton Land Company developed hilltop lots in several subdivisions platted in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Most of the homes built were ranch- or rambler-style. In 1977, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described the area as a "prototype post-World War II community of the 50s, a Life magazine cover story type of neighborhood."
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Stanton Land Company Contract
The Stanton Land Company did not attach racially restrictive covenants to Stanton Manor but it did execute contracts with homebuyers. These contracts restricted the sale of properties in the subdivision to "those persons whom the Company believed would contribute to the homogeneity, mutual enjoyment, stability and well-being of the Development." Those contracts effectively created a barrier to Black families buying homes there. Dr. Oswald Nickens was an obstetrician on staff at Magee Women's Hospital and West Penn Hospital in 1962 when he tried to buy a home in the Stanton Manor subdivision. Nickens and his family were living in a home on North Graham Street, a few blocks away in Garfield.
The family had outgrown the home they had owned since 1955. Nickens wanted to buy a home close to work that would also allow his children to remain in their schools. Unable to meet the Stanton Land Company's requirements for "referrals" from existing owners, Nickens filed the first complaint with the Human Relations Commission under Pittsburgh's 1958 Open Housing Law. The Human Relations Commission found in Nickens' favor, ruling that the Stanton Land Company violated the city's law. The company appealed in Allegheny County Court. The case was settled in 1965. An existing homeowner, one block away from the lot that Nickens originally wanted to buy, sold the family a home in 1964. Nickens died in 1995 and his widow sold the property in 2005.
Repudiating Covenants
Pennsylvania is one of 23 states with laws addressing racially restrictive deed covenants. In a bipartisan vote on Dec. 13, 2023, the General Assembly approved House Bill 1289, "providing for the repudiation of discriminatory real estate covenants." Gov. Josh Shapiro signed the bill into law the following day. The law allows property owners to repudiate racially restrictive deed covenants by filing a form with a Recorder of Deeds.
Links and Resources
For more information about racially restrictive deed covenants in other U.S. communities:
