“Congenial Neighbors”: Restrictive Covenants and Residential Segregation in Portland, Oregon

Abstract

Greta Smith, one of three presenters at a public history roundtable at the Oregon Historical Society commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, describes her research on restrictive covenants used as early tools in Portland, Oregon, to segregate neighborhoods. In this record of her talk, Smith describes how restrictive covenants written into property title deeds were designed to protect “neighborhoods from the encroachment of economically undesirable features,” such as types and locations of buildings on a property and, in the early twentieth century, the kinds of people who could inhabit a property. Enforcement of these covenants “took the work of private citizens with state support,” citing quality of life concerns to maintain homogenous neighborhoods through “redlining.” Smith concludes by discussing how covenants and redlining may have protected white and wealthier homeowners' property values, but they affected generations of African Americans through disinvestment and exclusion.