The Wedgwood Community Council, Racially Restricted Covenants Project at UW, Our Lady of the Lake Church, and Homestreet Bank are excited to share an upcoming public meeting and work session to educate the community on racially restricted covenants and assist home owners in removing racist langauge from your property deed and other documents.
While currently unenforcable and illegal, these racial covenants persist on many deeds and homes throughout NE Seattle and beyond. Particularly on those homes platted between 1910 and 1960. This ugly practice of embedding racism and bigotry into the legal contracts and deeds of properties was just one element of a systemically biased real estate industry that has divided our communities and kept so many of our Black and Brown neighbors from benefiting from the wealth building that real estate ownership has afforded white familes throughout our country for more than 100 years. And Albert Balch, the developer of Wedgwood, View Ridge, and many other communities around Seattle, was one of Seattle’s most notorious land developers who utilized racial covenants and proudly marketed his communities as “restricted neighborhoods.” NE Seattle certainly isn’t the only part of Seattle with these covenants, but we certainly have a large number as indicated in the image below.
Interested in whether your property likely has a racially restricted covenant on it? Click here for an interactive map by the Racially Restricted Covenants Project at UW
So join us, on Monday, September 16th at 7PM in the Jubiliee Hall at Our Lady of the Lake Church (8900 35th Ave NE) to learn more about these racial covenants, get assistance filling out the paperwork to remove these covenants from your property, and get them notarized by Homestreet Bank! A one stop shop event to remove hateful language from your property and our community. More information on the event can be found here (LINK).
The event will generally go as follows:
7-8PM: Presentation about racial covenants
8-9PM: Work session
We are so grateful to share our neighborhood with so many groups working to ensure that everyone in Wedgwood is welcomed.
Wedgwood Welcomes All –
Wedgwood Community Council’s Apology and Affirmation of Black Lives Matter
Wedgwood Community Council’s Statement of Support for our neighbors of Asian and Pacific Islander descent
Wedgwood Community Council’s Statement of Support for our Jewish neighbors
Wedgwood Community Council’s Statement of Support for our Islamic and Arab neighbors
Glad to see this finally on the agenda!
Hi, unfortunately I was not able to make this meeting. Is there anyone available that I can ask some questions to as I make the update for my property?
Bother. I just found this FB post – 3 weeks after the event. Is there an easily-found document that describes what to do to change the racial/ancestry-restriction wording for a particular deed? I know that our plot has such language, and it would be great if there were a way to get rid of that language.