Under the Mapping Prejudice Project, scholars from the University of Minnesota and Augsburg University have analyzed over 1.4 million historic Minneapolis housing deeds, finding racist language in more 20,000 documents. These racial covenants forbidding the sale of property to people of color are no longer legally enforceable, but researchers hope documenting this side of the city’s history will influence urban planning in years to come.
This article describes the methods that the Mapping Prejudice researchers use to conduct their work and discusses the motivations for the project with project director and Augsburg scholar-in-residence Kirsten Delegard.
The research group plans to map Minneapolis by the end of 2017 and all of Hennepin County next year.
Read the full story at the Minnesota Daily News site.