A Research Paper on Segregation in the Golden State

12.18.15

     An essential part of the American Dream is the unalienable right to private property. Unfortunately, America has often failed in providing this right to all. From treating humans as property to denying them access to acquiring their own, the nation’s history is fraught with moral debts that affect it to this date. Even in California, where one might like to believe that racism wasn’t as prevalent, minorities were segregated through the use of legal instruments such as the restrictive covenant. A long battle over these widespread, racist policies ensued, in which the court finally ruled them illegal. Although some may argue that doing so infringed upon the property rights of white Americans, the historical effect of this judgement has proved that valuing equality over property rights was the correct decision to make.

     Restrictive covenants were a legal device that white homeowners added to a house’s deed in order to prohibit people of color from purchasing or renting it. In the early 1900s, their implementation became more and more frequent. In southern California, they most often excluded African-Americans, but ethnic Mexicans, Asians, and Jews were also sometimes excluded. They expired after a set period, but were able to keep white-owned properties white for decades at a time, up to about fifty years.  

     This era of court-approved residential segregation began in San Francisco in 1890, when the Bingham Ordinance ordered all Chinese residents to move into a certain area within six months or face six months of imprisonment. This was ruled unconstitutional; in response, restrictive covenants began to be used against immigrants. Furthermore, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson “implicitly approved residential racial segregation”, according to historian Joan Jensen. Thus, the Bingham Ordinance allowed a pattern of isolating minorities to form, making California a pioneer in residential segregation.

     The Great Migration, a period of rapid urbanization of people of color, was the main factor that contributed to the rise of the restrictive covenant. While some argue that this rise was solely a response to the Supreme Court’s ban on racial zoning in 1917, such a conclusion fails to account for the major changes brought about by the Great Migration.  For black southerners, the 1910s were the perfect time to leave their states to find work in northern and western cities. Staying where they were was a bleak prospect, what with the failing sharecropping system, rampant discrimination resulting in lynchings, and meager chances of social advancement. Additionally, pulling them away was the desperate need for labor in the absence of over a million men who were overseas fighting in World War I.    As hundreds of thousands African-Americans began settling in cities, tension over housing and public space ensued. The demographic transformation and labor competition they brought peaked in riots across the nation. Amongst these were the Chicago Riots of 1919. Such violent outbreaks of racial unrest prompted institutions to take preventative measures, further promoting the use of the restrictive covenant.

     The influx of people of color into white cities made threats and violence ineffective in maintaining social norms. Especially in Los Angeles, harassment was rendered an unreliable strategy, as black Angelenos overcame informal attempts at resistance to their moving in. Therefore, white communities increasingly turned to neat bureaucratic processes to keep their neighborhoods segregated. White Californians did everything they could to  “severely curtail the directions in which blacks could move”, motivated much more by racial prejudice than by a need to keep their property values up (Bound for Freedom, 69). The integrated middle-class Central Avenue area was proof that African-Americans settling in did not make a neighborhood a ghetto or slum, invalidating the claim that falling property values were the sole reason to segregate neighborhoods. Had this claim been valid, it would still demonstrate the racist ideologies that pervaded white California because it meant that the presence of African-Americans was deeply undesirable to white homeowners.

     The intensity of such antiblack sentiments was manifest in the dogged efforts of  white neighborhoods to stay white. Restrictive covenants applied to each house individually; therefore, their functionality depended on the compliance of every homeowner in an exclusively Caucasian neighborhood. In order to convince those who did not wish to cooperate, neighborhood associations were formed. Such associations, with the help of lawyers and real estate agents, determinedly persuaded unwilling residents to comply in adding covenants to property titles. Their efforts extended to surrounding neighborhoods as well, and were bolstered by housing developers, who were able to add covenants to all their property before sale. In sum, there was a lot of unfair pressure brought to bear on white property owners, which contributed to the crisis of residential segregation.  In that context, the only viable solution was for African-Americans to urge an intervention by the California Supreme Court.

     Further evidence that legal reform was necessary comes from the fact that blacks were not only hemmed in by restrictive covenants, but also targeted by government-backed organizations such as the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation. Created in 1934 as a response to the strain on white homeowners during the Depression, the HOLC offered low-interest, long-term mortgages and save millions of Americans from foreclosure. However, despite its seemingly good intentions, it became another contributor to discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities. It graded neighborhoods based on their characteristics and used these as criteria to determine whether or not loans would be offered there. Unsurprisingly, race was a decisive factor in how a neighborhood would be graded, from “A” to “D”. The presence of Mexicans or Jews automatically signified a “C”, and the presence of African-Americans, a “D”. The use of the red in color-coded maps when illustrating D-grade neighborhoods became known as redlining. Redlining became a way to keep blacks from benefiting from mortgage-assistance initiatives, showing them once again that they were second-class citizens. The Federal Housing Administration, which long outlasted the HOLC, only continued its practices. Douglas Flamming, historian and author, argues that “blacks were thus stuck in districts that were… determined to go downhill.”

     African-Americans fought against restrictive covenants as early as 1915, frustrated at being denied the rights granted to white citizens. Two important cases in 1919 were Title Guarantee & Trust Co. v. Garrott and Los Angeles Investment Co. v. Gary. Both involved similar situations in which blacks were sued by property owners for trying to buy a home with a covenant. In the former, the Supreme Court ruled in Garrott’s favor, citing the California Civil Code in that restrictions against the freedom to sell and occupy property as one wished were invalid. This ruling was wonderful news for the black community. However, the perplexing ruling in Gary somewhat negated the positive effects of Garrott. Because the title of the house Alfred Gary tried to buy had a covenant that included an occupancy clause, the court had two decisions to make. It eventually decided that “covenants could not prevent black people from buying a home, but they could prevent black owners from living in it” (Bound for Freedom, 156). Other cases fought by individuals and the NAACP also resulted in such ambiguous rulings.

     True progress did not come about until the early 1950s. A 1948 case, Shelly v. Kraemer, ruled that “the enforcement of restrictive covenants.. was violative of the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1866” (Los Angeles: Biography of a City, 388). Still, white segregationists persisted, unable to accept that they could no longer continue with their racist agenda. They argued that a damage suit could be entertained when a white homeowner violated a covenant and sold to a person of color. The 1953 case Barrows v. Jackson closed this loophole, ending litigation over covenants in Los Angeles.

    Neighborhood integration did not just allow people to have a chance at better houses. It was another step in corroding white privilege and prejudice, and securing more political power for blacks and other minorities. Furthermore, it ensured that the foundations of American property rights were preserved. Unencumbered alienation, or the freedom to sell or give away property however one wanted to, was threatened by the use of the restrictive real estate covenant. More importantly, the State’s decision took a stand against discrimination against blacks and other racial minorities. Restrictive covenants, although private arrangements, should never have been allowed to function, because they contradicted the fundamental rights given by the Constitution to all citizens. The fact that they were sanctioned by the state and federal government is a disgrace to the history of California, which promised a brighter future to so many, but ended up keeping all of its non-white citizens half-free for a major portion of its history.