Just Deeds Program
The City of Minneapolis is accepting new applicants for its Just Deeds Project, which provides Minneapolis homeowners with the opportunity to learn about, acknowledge and discharge racial covenants recorded against their properties and reclaim their homes as equitable spaces.
The Field, Regina and Northrop neighborhoods were shaped by racial housing covenants that impact racial disparities in our communities today.
About racial housing covenants
Racial covenants were legal documents recorded against a property’s title, which prohibited all future owners of the property from selling it, renting it or allowing it to be used by people of certain races or ethnicities. Although the discriminatory language used in these covenants varied, Black people were always one of the groups targeted by racial covenants, and by far the most frequent target.
Thanks to the work of the U of M’s Mapping Prejudice, we know that more than 8,000 properties in Minneapolis contain racial covenants.
The impact of covenants are felt today
Racial covenants were popular in Minneapolis in the 1910s through the 1940s. The use of racial covenants and other discriminatory housing practices forced Black people, Indigenous people and people of color in our community to live in racially segregated areas of the city.
The enforcement of racial covenants was outlawed by 1968, and racial covenants are no longer legally binding against property owners. Despite this, the inequities created by racial covenants still exist today. The racial homeownership gap in the Twin Cities is the highest in the nation and it has only widened over the past two decades. Photo credit: Mapping Prejudice
Apply for the Just Deeds Program
If the property you own once had a racial covenant, you can apply to remove it through the City’s Just Deeds Project. Look up your address here.
Staff in the City Attorney’s Office will help you record a discharge form against your property title, free of charge. Hennepin County has also waived all fees typically associated with this process.
Participation in the Just Deeds program is first come, first served, subject to staffing availability. Click here to apply or learn more below.
Residents of neighboring cities can find information about the racial covenant discharge process in their cities by visiting JustDeeds.org. Photo credit: Twin Cities Public Television and Free the Deeds
Resources
Ready to learn more? Check out these resources:
Jim Crow of the North, a Twin Cities Public Television free documentary that discusses racial covenants in the Twin Cities, including the FRN neighborhoods.
Free the Deeds, a Minneapolis-wide public project that illuminates our common history and offers a path to repair.
Race and the Streetcar Hub, a history of Shenandoah Terrace in the Northrop neighborhood, which was founded with racial covenants.
Photo credit: Mapping Prejudice