“Unjust Deeds” Racial Covenants Exhibition Coming to Madison Public Library’s Sequoya Library in October 2025
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MADISON, WI – Unjust Deeds, an exhibition sharing the history of racial covenants in Dane County and beyond, is coming to Sequoya Library in October.
For most of the 20th Century, racial covenants were an insidious tool used nationwide to segregate whites from Blacks and other minorities in America’s burgeoning suburbs and residential neighborhoods. Racial covenants were clauses inserted into property deeds to prevent non-Whites and non-Christians from buying or occupying land. Although no longer valid or enforceable, they can still be found in the land deeds of almost every American community, including Dane County.
Racial covenants were made illegal with the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968. Nevertheless, their impacts are pervasive and still with us today.
Events:
Monday, October 6 | 6:30-8pm
Local historian Rick Bernstein will give a presentation at Sequoya Library that explores the history of racial covenants in Dane County and nationwide. Before attending, homeowners are encouraged to look up their properties using the Prejudice in Places map online to see if their house still has a discriminatory covenant on the deed. If so, you can file a “Discharge and Release of Discriminatory Restriction Affecting Real Property” form at the event.
Dane County property assistants and notaries will be on site to help validate documents, and will take the documents to the Register of Deeds on your behalf. Document recording fees are waived thanks to a grant from the Wisconsin Realtors Association Foundation.
Registration is requested.
This is a project of the County Executive, Board of Supervisors, Planning & Development, and Office of Equity & Inclusion. This project is supported by WI Act 210 and Dane County Resolution 2024-305.
It's possible for this program to take place in libraries thanks to support from Beyond the Page, National Endowment for the Humanities, Madison Community Foundation, the Evjue Foundation, Dane Arts, and Dane County Department of Planning & Development.
Wednesday, October 22 | 7-8:30pm
Alder Bill Tishler will moderate a panel discussion on The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein. The panel members will discuss the book and what Madisonians can do in the present day to combat the legacy of segregation.
A limited number of copies of The Color of Law will be available to check out at the Ask Desk at Sequoya Library on a first-come, first-served basis.
About the book: In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading authority on housing policy, explodes the myth that America’s cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation―that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation―the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments―that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.
More Opportunities to Engage
The Unjust Deeds traveling exhibit will move on from Sequoya Library at the end of October, but will continue to be viewable at other Dane County Library locations through February 2026. See the rest of the schedule and look for remaining events online at danecountyhistory.org/racial-covenants.
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