Ever wonder why Ballard, Green Lake and other north Seattle neighborhoods are so white, and the Central District and the Rainier Valley are so diverse? Blame housing prices for a start; whiter neighborhoods tend to be more expensive, and white people tend to have more money than African Americans, Hispanics and some Asian groups.

But also blame history.

Racist housing covenants once restricted where people of color could live in Seattle, largely in the northend. Ballard didn’t want “Ethiopians” (blacks), Magnolia had a problem with “Malays” (Filipinos), and Broadmoor shut out “Hebrews” (Jews).

Popular in the early 20th century, such contracts – once enforceable by a developer or homeowners’ association – have long been illegal. But one look at the colorful, racial “dot maps” going around online shows that Seattle is still largely segregated.

“The covenants themselves have left a lasting imprint on the city,” said James Gregory, a University of Washington history professor who researched the covenants with students as part of his website, the Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project.

‘This is not history’

“North Seattle is still very largely white,” he said. “And that certainly can be traced to the restrictive covenants that kept African Americans and Asians from buying, renting or inhabiting houses in most North Seattle neighborhoods.”

Many people of color ended up living in the Central District and what’s now the International District.

The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated racial covenants in 1948, but white neighborhoods still excluded minorities, by refusing to sell to them. Or they used subtle intimidation; many older African Americans who grew up in Seattle can remember being afraid in areas north of the Lake Washington Ship Canal after dark.

It wasn’t until the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1968 that housing discrimination became illegal.

Although racism has faded over time, economic barriers have not. Seattle’s disproportionate number of blacks, Hispanics and many Asians who are low-income means wealthier neighborhoods that were once “whites only” have continued to remain largely white. (Check out the map below).

Also, a few years ago, a city of Seattle investigation uncovered a pattern of modern-day discrimination against African American renters.

“Racial discrimination is still a significant problem today in housing,” said UW history professor Gregory. “This is not history.”

Racial covenants by Seattle neighborhood

Was your neighborhood racist? Check out the slideshow above for a look at racial housing restrictions by neighborhood, based on research by Gregory and UW students who combed through more than 400 housing deeds in King County. Racial covenants may no longer be legal, but they still exist in many original deeds.

And guess which Eastside neighborhood didn’t just like things white, but white supremacist and “Ayran”? The answer is in the slideshow.

More info here at the Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project.

Race in Seattle today: Where people live

This City of Seattle map shows a city still segregated by race, in a pattern fuzzily similar to the days of racial covenants. To see a bigger version of the map, based on 2010 U.S. Census data, go here.

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