Mapping Prejudice in Contra Costa: Uncovering Racist Housing History One Deed at a Time

JB Quinnon
6 days ago
2 min read

Racially Restrictive Covenants:

These were legal clauses written into property deeds or neighborhood agreements.
They explicitly banned people of certain races (usually Black, Asian, Latino, Jewish, etc.) from buying, renting, or occupying homes.
Example: “No property shall be sold or rented to any person of African or Asian descent.”
These covenants were private agreements between property owners and were enforced through homeowner associations or neighbors.
Outlawed by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, but the language still appears in some deeds.

Redlining:

A government-backed and banking practice where neighborhoods were marked as high-risk for mortgage loans based on the racial makeup of residents.
Originated from maps created by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the 1930s.
Areas with Black or immigrant populations were outlined in red and deemed risky, making it nearly impossible for people there to get home loans or insurance.
This led to widespread disinvestment and segregation.

Connection:

Both worked together to enforce racial segregation in housing.
Covenants kept people out, while redlining cut off resources to the neighborhoods they were allowed in.

Contra Costa County is taking a bold step toward confronting its hidden housing past. Through a new initiative titled “Mapping Prejudice in Contra Costa County,” officials are joining forces with the University of Minnesota’s Mapping Prejudice project to identify and expose racially restrictive covenants buried within millions of property records.

These covenants, which explicitly barred non-white individuals from buying, renting, or occupying property in certain neighborhoods, were once standard practice in American real estate. While they’ve been outlawed since the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the language still lingers in property records, serving as a haunting reminder of the structural racism that shaped California’s communities.

The project is rooted in Assembly Bill 1466, passed in 2021, which requires county recorders across California to find and redact discriminatory clauses in official housing records. Contra Costa County’s Clerk-Recorder’s Office has already scanned more than 9 million documents and flagged thousands for review.

But this isn’t just a government task—it’s a community effort. Volunteers will be trained to review historical deeds through a digital portal, helping transcribe and map racist language that helped define segregated neighborhoods.

“Mapping Prejudice in Contra Costa County is about more than finding discriminatory language in old documents—it’s about community education and engagement,” said Kristin Connelly, the county’s Clerk-Recorder. “By confronting this hidden history, we can better understand its lasting impact on our neighborhoods.”

Residents interested in volunteering or learning more can visit www.contracostavote.gov or email Volunteers@cr.cccounty.us. To explore the broader work behind this initiative, visit mappingprejudice.umn.edu.

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