Racial Covenants Restrict Black Residents to Specific Neighborhoods in Los Angeles

Racial housing segregation was not limited to the South. In Los Angeles, racially restrictive deed covenants — private agreements among white homeowners to never sell or rent to Black (and often Asian) buyers — became standard practice by the 1910s, confining Black Angelenos to specific neighborhoods. Real estate boards, the California Real Estate Association, and developers like those building the San Fernando Valley wrote racial exclusion into deeds as standard practice. Similar covenants existed throughout the North and West. The legal structure of Northern and Western residential segregation was built in this period.