This 1947 deed for a property in Soap Lake specifies that the buyer may not sell the property to any member of a racial minority. The Supreme Court would make such covenants unenforceable that same year, but the documents remain part of the official record. (Note: The original image contained white text on a black background. It has been modified for legibility.)
January 26, 2023
Stories this photo appears in:
Facing the past
Racial restrictions still on the books in some Basin neighborhoods
MOSES LAKE — When you buy a home, there are often neighborhood covenants that come with the property. Sometimes you have to have your house set a certain distance back from the street, or you can’t put up a shed as a second residence, or you can’t run certain kinds of business out of the house. And on paper, at least, sometimes you have to be white to live there. “Starting in the mid-20th century in eastern Washington, and earlier in some other places, developers began adding racial restrictions,” said Dr. Larry Cebula, a professor of history at EWU and managing director of the project. “These typically read ‘only members of the white or Caucasian race will live here.’ There’s usually a kind of codicil saying ‘excepting servants thereof.’ So if you had a servant who was a person of color, they could live there. Most of the racial covenants we find in eastern Washington reads like that. Sometimes there’s a list of who can’t live there: ‘No Negros may live here,’ ‘no members of the Asiatic race,’ – something like that. The language varies, but it’s usually only whites.” ...