St. Louis homeowners want to get rid of racial covenants. But in Missouri, it's complicated

Kalila Jackson has a big goal written on her vision board: End racially restrictive covenants.

The senior attorney at the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council wants to make sure homeowners don’t get the same shock she did reading a covenant for the first time.

“To see ‘no Negros,’ or ‘no Jewish people allowed,’ that does a certain violence to one’s spirit,” said Jackson, who is Black. “I knew I had to do something about it.”

The legal documents were widely used in St. Louis in the early- to mid-1900s to keep Black families out of white neighborhoods. St. Louis Public Radio reported Thursday that there are roughly 30,000 properties in the city with restrictive covenants tied to their deeds that specifically bar selling or renting to Black people, among other racial, ethnic and religious groups.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/culture-history/2021-11-19/st-louis-homeowners-want-to-get-rid-of-racial-covenants-but-in-missouri-its-complicated