Multi-Racial but not
Multicultural
 By early 1900 the city's
population became increasingly
diversified. Scandinavians came
for fishing and lumbering,
African Americans as railroad
porters and waiters, Japanese
for trucking, gardening and
hotels.; and communities of
Italians, Chinese, Jews, and
Filipinos. The International
District, home to several Asian
ethnic groups, was largely
developed during this period.
Segregated Seattle
What's In Your Deed?
 The language of segregation still haunts Seattle. It
lurks in the deeds of tens of thousands of
homeowners living in neighborhoods outside of the
Central Area and the International District. Look deep
in the fine print. Many Queen Anne residents, have
this clause in their deeds:
 "No person or persons of Asiatic, African or
Negro blood, lineage, or extraction shall be
permitted to occupy a portion of said property.“

http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/UrbanForestryCommission/201
4/2014docs/covenants_print.pdf
Racial Restrictions Grew With the City
 World War II sparked an economic
rebound - The Boeing Company, a
modestly successful airplane
manufacturer founded in 1916,
increased its workforce more than
1,200 percent and its sales from $10
million to $600 million annually. The
war's end, , brought an economic
slump -When Boeing successfully
introduced the 707 commercial jet
airliner in the late 1950s, it heralded
another burst of optimism.
Between 1935 and 1944,
 Bill Boeing and his wife
Bertha set aside a massive
tract of land north of
Seattle city limits for
subdivision, including the
future communities of
Richmond Beach,
Richmond Heights, Innis
Arden, Blue Ridge and
Shoreview. As they plotted
those developments, Bill
and Bertha added racial
restrictive covenants to
property deeds.
W.E. Boeing Neighborhood
Developments
 “No property in said addition shall
at any time be sold, conveyed,
rented, or leased in whole or in part
to any person or persons not of the
White or Caucasian race. No
person other than one of the White
or Caucasian race shall be
permitted to occupy any property
in said addition or portion thereof
or building thereon except a
domestic servant actually
employed by a person of the White
or Caucasian race where the latter
is an occupant of such property.”
Restrictive Covenants: Boeing Development 1940

http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/covenants_report.htm
Trust Companies Restricting
Shoreline and Lake Forest Park
 The Seattle Trust
Company, another large
developer which
developed large areas of
Shoreline, parts of Lake
Forest Park, and the Bryant
and Haller Lake areas,
likewise allowed only
members of the White or
Caucasian race to purchase
or rent their restricted
properties.
 A set of 1946 restrictive
covenants established by
the Puget Mill Company for
the Lake Forest Park area
listed Hawaiians as a
restricted race. The Puget
Mill Company also named
specific Asian countries in
covenants applied to
Sheridan Park, prohibiting
Chinese and Japanese
individuals from moving to
that neighborhood.
Greenwood
 “That neither the said
premises or any house
building or improvement
thereon erected shall at
any time be occupied by
persons of the Ethiopian
race or by Japanese or
Chinese or any other Malay
or Asiatic race save and
except as domestic
servants in the employ of
person not coming within
that restriction”
South Seattle Land Company

Developers like the South
Seattle Land Company often
listed the specific races
restricted from purchasing their
properties. For example,
covenants established by the
South Seattle Land Company
frequently maintained that
 no “part of said property
hereby conveyed shall ever
be used or occupied by any
person of the Ethiopian,
Malay, or any Asiatic race.”[
Madronna
 “The parties hereto signing and
executing this instrument ...
hereby mutually covenant,
promise and agree each with the
others, and for their respective
heirs and assigns, that no part of
said lands owned by them as
described following their
signatures to this instrument,
shall never be used, occupied by
or sold, conveyed, leased, rented
or given to Negroes, or any
person or persons of the Negro
blood. “
Sandpoint (Westhaven)
 “No part of said property
hereby conveyed shall ever
be used or occupied by any
person of the Ethiopian,
Malay, or any Asiatic race.”
 Richard Ornstein, a Jewish
refugee from Austria,
contracted to purchase a
home in the Sand Point
Country Club area of Seattle
in late 1952. The property’s
deed contained a restrictive
covenant barring the sale or
rental of the home to nonWhites and people of Jewish
descent. In spite of the U.S.
Supreme Court ruling that
deemed racial restrictive
covenants unenforceable in
1948,
(Laurelhurst, Victory Heights,
Green Lake Circle)
October 31, 1947 - No
person of other than the Caucasian
race shall use or occupy any building
or lot except as servants
domesticated with any owner or
tenant.
In 1960 only 27 African Americans
lived in Wallingford or Fremont,
along with 21,823 Whites and 335
persons identified in the census as
“other races.” This can be seen on
the residential distribution maps on
the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor
History Project’s website.
Financial Incentive for
Restrictive Covenants
The National Housing Act of 1934 passed
during the Great Depression to protect
affordable housing, introduced the
practice of “redlining,” or drawing lines on
city maps delineating the ideal geographic
areas for bank investment and the sale of
mortgages - to ensure that banks would
not over-extend themselves financially - it
encouraged land developers, realtors and
community residents to write racial
restrictive covenants to keep
neighborhoods from being redlined. ”
The Seattle Civic Unity Committee
In February 1948, the Seattle Civic Unity
Committee denounces restrictive
covenants which deny housing to
minorities, principally African Americans.
These restrictions effectively confine
African Americans to the Central Area and
a corridor along South Jackson Street, and
prevent them from moving to
neighborhoods such as Mount Baker,
Capitol Hill and Broadmoor
(Capitol Hill Homeowners Organize)
November 1927 – “The parties...
 Capitol Hill Community
agree each with the others that
Club. In a letter written 20
no part of the lands owned by
years later, Martha B.
them shall ever be used or
Cook, a club leader, stated
occupied by or sold, conveyed,
that “a small group of
leased, rented or given to
interested people worked
Negroes or any person of Negro
and kept 90 blocks [of
blood.”
Capitol Hill] safe through
racial restrictions.”
Matthews Beach
“No lot or portion of a lot
shall be sold to , leased
to or occupied by any
person other than of the
Caucasian race, but this
restriction does not
prevent occupancy by
domestic servants of a
different race or
nationality actually
employed in good faith
by the owners or
tenants.”
Racial Restrictive Covenants Followed
non-Whites to the Grave
Several Seattle cemeteries enforced “White Only” policies, with
the racial restrictive covenants written into the deeds for
individual grave-sites. According to a 1948 investigation by the
Christian Friends for Racial Equality (CFRE), this practice “made it
difficult or impossible for non-Caucasians to purchase burial
plots.” … Acacia Memorial Park in the Shoreline neighborhood of
Seattle was one of the cemeteries preventing two JapaneseAmericans from purchasing burial plots, having made use of a
restrictive covenant from 1929 through 1947. The Acacia
Memorial Park covenant stated:
“the grantee agrees that no transfer of said (lot) or
portion thereof shall be valid unless conveyed to a
member of the Caucasian race”
In 1948, the Supreme Court held that restrictive
covenants were illegal and that government
could not help to enforce them (Shelley v.
Kraemer). This left open the possibility of
voluntary agreements between realtors and
homeowners which allowed housing
discrimination to continue. In 1964, Seattle
voters rejected a referendum that prohibited
housing discrimination.
In April 1968, the city council passed an open
housing ordinance, making restrictive
covenants illegal.
http://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=191
7&context=sulr
Segregation Through the Civil Rights Era and Beyond