U of M’s Mapping Prejudice Project reveals racist deeds around Sherburne County lakes
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The University of Minnesota's Mapping Prejudice Project says its research uncovered hundreds of racist property deeds in Sherburne County, northwest of the Twin Cities.
Racial covenants barred people from certain racial or ethnic groups from owning homes or land. They were commonly used in Minnesota from about 1910 through the early 1960s, although they became illegal in 1953.
The Mapping Prejudice Project has been accessing property records in counties across the state to search for racial covenants. Sherburne County is its latest effort.
Much research of racial covenants nationwide has focused on urban areas, said the project’s associate director Michael Corey while presenting its findings to the Sherburne County board on Tuesday.
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“I think there's been a misconception that racial covenants and segregation are a thing that only happens in bigger cities,” he said.
However, researchers found 356 properties with racist restrictions in Sherburne County. Nearly all were properties clustered around lakes, which reflects where development was taking place in the county at the time, Corey said.
An example of a typical racial covenant stated, “No portion of said premises shall be conveyed or leased to any other than the Caucasian race.”
What’s notable about Sherburne County’s racial covenants is how late they were drafted, Corey said. More than 90 percent of the racial covenants researchers found in Sherburne County were added after 1948, the year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled they were unenforceable.
"Our interpretation is that people do want to send a message that people might not necessarily be welcome in these spaces,” he said.
Some of the racist language was crossed out with a single line in the documents — probably after the covenants were ruled unenforceable, Corey said.
The Mapping Prejudice Project recently finished researching Olmsted County. It’s also wrapping up work in Washington County and will be releasing data from Stearns County soon, Corey said.
The Sherburne County data is available on Mapping Prejudice’s website. Michelle Ashe, Sherburne County recorder, said property owners who have a racial covenant can file a document disavowing the restriction for no charge.
Two years ago, students at the College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University uncovered 95 racial covenants in St. Cloud, St. Joseph, Cold Spring and Sauk Centre, proving that attempts to prevent people of color from owning property extended well beyond the Twin Cities.
Brittany Merritt Nash, a history professor at CSB/SJU, said students there and at St. Cloud State University will be doing more research on the covenants, including who the developers were and how the properties were advertised.
Their findings will be posted on the Great River Covenants Project website, she said.
