Discussion event tackles racism in the modern day

On Wednesday, the history department hosted Black History Month Racial Covenants Transcription Event to celebrate Black History Month. The event explained what racial covenants are and how they impacted different groups in Minnesota. Participants transcribed these covenants so that Minnesota historical maps can now showcase the racist segregation in the history of Minnesota, how it impacts people to this day and the work that can be done to undo these harmful lasting effects.

History professors Brittany Merritt Nash and Shannon Smith led this event, which was sponsored by the Multicultural Center. This event also counted as a Race and Ethnicity event for the Integrations Curriculum.

According to Merritt Nash, this event would explain how racial covenants restricted certain groups (non-white people) from home ownership, with focus on how Minnesota’s harmed those groups. She also emphasized the importance of transcribing these covenants into historic property deeds.

“By transcribing racial covenants,” Merritt Nash said, “their efforts will directly contribute to the creation of maps that document the history of housing segregation in different counties in Minnesota, which can be used by those communities to better understand and redress current racial inequalities in housing and wealth.”

Malik Stewart, director of Multicultural Services, explained how this event is part of a state-wide project called “Mapping Prejudices” which aims to uncover racial covenants throughout Minnesota. Stewart shared how honors students under Merritt Nash’s teaching had worked on this project in Stearns County and presented on it in 2023.

During the event, Merritt Nash shared that four counties have been completely mapped in Minnesota, and several more are in progress in Minnesota as well as in Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina. The project, Mapping Prejudice, has over 11,000 volunteers and has mapped over 50,000 racial covenants. As of 2022, the Twin Cities metro home ownership demographics show that 75% of homeowners are white families, while 33% are Black families. In St. Cloud, about 72% are white families while only 8% are Black families. Racial covenants have been illegal since the 1968 Fair Housing Act but still have impacts today.

While the platform used to map racial covenants was unfortunately down for unforeseen site maintenance during the event, students were able to learn about what racial covenants were and the work that Merritt Nash and her students are doing and have done through a documentary series. Students also learned how to register to volunteer to do this work themselves.

“I’m already familiar with racial covenants, but I like being able to participate in helping improve things when I previously thought I couldn’t,” senior history major Ken Mersch said. “It’s important to do the ‘small things’ even when the problem seems large — every little bit counts.”

Merritt Nash said that because this history of racial covenants largely impacted the Black community, the history department decided to hold this event during Black History Month.

“[I hope] that students can learn more about the history of housing segregation, which existed across Minnesota (including here in Stearns County) and take concrete steps by volunteering with Mapping Prejudice to build data sets that can be used to inform equitable housing initiatives,” Merritt Nash said.

Stewart echoed these sentiments.

“First, it’s an action students can take to actively contribute to racial justice because ultimately homeowners will be able to remove the racist language from their housing deeds. Second, it highlights the ubiquity of racism in law in our recent history,” Stewart said. “Many people aren’t aware of just how pervasive explicit racism was in their own communities and we must understand our history so that we don’t repeat it.”

The organization uses the platform Zooniverse for volunteers to map racial covenants by visiting the site for Mapping Prejudice. Anyone can volunteer to do this, and it can be done at one’s own pace.