From the early 1900s through the late 1960s, a combination of racially restrictive covenants and federal redlining systematically dictated where people of color could and could not live. These covenants legally barred Black residents from buying homes in specific Washington neighborhoods until the late 1960s. 

This Black History Month, HomeSight is looking back at the history that shaped our neighborhoods into the Seattle we know today.  

1. The Invisible Walls: Racially Restrictive Covenants (1910s–1960s) 

Long before federal maps were drawn, private developers and homeowners used racially restrictive covenants to ensure neighborhoods remained “whites only.” 

• How They Worked: These were legal clauses written directly into property deeds. They barred anyone of “Asiatic, African or Negro blood” (and often Jewish families) from buying or renting the property. 

• The Scale: The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project has identified over 37,000 properties in King County with these restrictions. 

• The Impact: Neighborhoods like Capitol Hill were largely built as exclusive enclaves, forcing people of color into a small, L-shaped district, largely comprising the Central District and Chinatown-International District. 

2. Mapping Inequality: Federal Redlining (1930s)

During the Great Depression, the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation created “Residential Security Maps” to guide mortgage lending. 

• The “Red” Zones: Neighborhoods were color-coded by “risk.” Areas with even small populations of Black, Asian, or immigrant residents were colored red (marked “hazardous”), making it nearly impossible for residents there to get home loans. 

• Reinforcing Segregation: While covenants were private agreements, redlining was government-backed discrimination that institutionalized the racial wealth gap by denying homeownership—the primary engine of American wealth—to non-white residents. 

3. The Fight for Change

The battle to dismantle these systems was long and hard-fought by local activists: 

• The Open Housing Campaign: Throughout the 1960s, civil rights groups pushed for “open housing” laws. In 1964, Seattle voters rejected an anti-discrimination ordinance by a 2-to-1 margin. 

• Turning Point (1968): Three weeks after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Seattle City Council finally passed an Open Housing Ordinance, led by Sam Smith, the council’s first Black member. 

• Closing the Door (1977): Washington State passed House Bill 323, officially outlawing redlining by financial institutions. 

4. The Shadow Today

Though these practices are now illegal, their shadow remains. Today, the very neighborhoods residents were once redlined into are displacing the communities that built them. Also, Black homeownership in King County remains significantly lower than the national average, a direct result of decades of denied equity. 

In 2023, Washington took a new step toward justice with the Covenant Homeownership Account Act, which created the Covenant Homeownership Program (CRP) to provide down payment assistance to those impacted by these historical restrictions. HomeSight offers CRP assistance. Learn more about this, and HomeSight’s other down payment assistance programs, here.