Housing Segregation

How would reparations work in St. Louis? A city commission is taking public comments and preparing a report.

Missouri would join handful of states that have recently enacted laws to remove racially restrictive covenants from property records.

University of Iowa history professor Colin Gordon found that more than 70,000 St. Louis County homes are located in subdivisions that once barred people of color from living in them.

Racial covenants made it illegal for Black people to live in white neighborhoods. Now they're illegal, but you might still have one on your home's deed. And they're hard to remove.

Unlike some states, Missouri doesn’t have a process laid out for homeowners to amend racially restrictive covenants. But some lawyers passionate about the issue are helping homeowners amend them and pushing for lawmakers to do more.

The covenants, widely used in the early- to mid-1900s, shut Black St. Louisans out of white neighborhoods for decades and had long-lasting impacts on communities. Many homeowners have no idea these legal documents still are associated with their deeds.

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones is one of a dozen U.S. mayors calling for local reparations to address the racial wealth gap by ending racist policies.

St. Louis Public Radio is partnering with NPR to investigate racially restrictive covenants and deeds — agreements meant to keep Black St. Louisans out of white neighborhoods. Your home records could contain clues.

On Tuesday’s St. Louis on the Air, executive producer Alex Heuer led a discussion about local efforts to address segregation in neighborhoods near and…

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 2, 2009 - Missouri has been at the heart of the nation's story of race from the first chapter.…