UID:
almafu_9958351914302883
Format:
1 online resource(304p.) :
,
illustrations.
Edition:
Electronic reproduction. : Harvard University Press. Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Edition:
System requirements: Web browser.
Edition:
Access may be restricted to users at subscribing institutions.
ISBN:
9780674073685
Content:
Saving the Neighborhood tells the charged, still controversial story of the rise and fall of racially restrictive covenants in America, and offers rare insight into the ways legal and social norms reinforce one another, acting with pernicious efficacy to codify and perpetuate intolerance. The early 1900s saw an unprecedented migration of African Americans leaving the rural South in search of better work and equal citizenship. In reaction, many white communities instituted property agreements—covenants—designed to limit ownership and residency according to race. Restrictive covenants quickly became a powerful legal guarantor of segregation, their authority facing serious challenge only in 1948, when the Supreme Court declared them legally unenforceable in Shelley v. Kraemer. Although the ruling was a shock to courts that had upheld covenants for decades, it failed to end their influence. In this incisive study, Richard Brooks and Carol Rose unpack why. At root, covenants were social signals. Their greatest use lay in reassuring the white residents that they shared the same goal, while sending a warning to would-be minority entrants: keep out. The authors uncover how loosely knit urban and suburban communities, fearing ethnic mixing or even "tipping," were fair game to a new class of entrepreneurs who catered to their fears while exacerbating the message encoded in covenants: that black residents threatened white property values. Legal racial covenants expressed and bestowed an aura of legitimacy upon the wish of many white neighborhoods to exclude minorities. Sadly for American race relations, their legacy still lingers.
Content:
Saving the Neighborhood tells the still controversial story of the rise and fall of racially restrictive covenants in America, which bestowed an aura of legitimacy upon the wish of many white neighborhoods to exclude minorities. It offers insight into the ways legal and social norms reinforce one another, to codify and perpetuate intolerance.
Note:
Frontmatter --
,
Contents --
,
1 Introduction --
,
2 Before Covenants --
,
3 The Big Guns Silenced --
,
4 Pushing Down the Ghosts --
,
5 The Calculus of Covenants --
,
6 The Emergence of the Norm Breakers --
,
7 The Great Dilemma for Legal Norms --
,
8 After Shelley --
,
9 Changing Games in the Twilight of Covenants --
,
10 Conclusion --
,
Notes --
,
Acknowledgments --
,
Index.
,
In English.
Language:
English
DOI:
10.4159/harvard.9780674073685
URL:
https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674073685
URL:
https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674073685
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