Whites Only! The History Of New Bush Neighborhood

[sabra]

http://cbs11tv.com/local/bush.new.house.2.880810.html


Whites Only! The History Of New Bush Neighborhood


DALLAS (CBS 11 News) ― The neighborhood where George and Laura Bush are buying a house is one of the most exclusive in North Texas.

And until just a few years ago, it was downright restrictive.

As we first reported Thursday, the Bushes are buying a house in the Preston Hollow area of Dallas. The house on Daria Place is in a neighborhood known as the James Meaders Estates.

Until the year 2000, the neighborhood association's covenant said only white people could live there—unless they were servants.

Property records at the Dallas County Clerk's office reveal the neighborhood's original restrictions. The covenant of the James Meaders Estates subdivision says, "Said property shall be used and occupied by white persons only except these covenants shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of a different race or nationality in the employ of a tenant."

This is a scan of that part of the original document:

[amdezurik]

1. HOA's always suck

[Bluebear]

2. Oh goody, at least servants aren't covered.

Honeybee the maid is safe.

:eyes:

What. A. DISGRACE.

[derby378]

3. Oh, SNAP!!

Be sure to snap pictures of the house before the Secret Service blocks off the entire street!

[moonlady0623]

4. Except....

it says "accept" instead of "except" which indicates a certain lack of intelligence both of the person who wrote it and the person who published it. Idiocy.

Isn't this UNCONSTITUTIONAL????????????????????????????????????????? oh wait this is GWB we're talking about.......

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. Yes, it is unconstitutional

There are many properties which have still have these deed restrictions, but they are unenforceable.

[Celebration]

5. lots of neighborhoods like that

Obviously, this was not inforced and has been ignored for decades. They just didn't get around to changing it.

For a long time there was something similar not allowing Jewish people to live in River Oaks in Houston.

[wildflowergardener]

6. neighborhood

My parent's neighborhood had that in the original documents - I think it was fairly common when the houses were built.

Meg

[mulsh]

7. Berkeley, CA, Park Hills=covenenants still in many deeds

Oakland, CA, the Glenview District, many houses in my area still have restrictive covenants. The previous owner of my house spent a couple of thousand bucks to get the covenant removed so my deed doesn't have one. My next door neighbor's house was purchace in 1957 by his parents they still have a covenant.

I believe the Fair Housing Act of 1968 voided all racist covenants.

[NutmegYankee]

8. Actually, many Southern Deeds said the same.

One black family in Virginia was shocked to find a similar clause on their house deed after they had paid it off. Few of these deeds or HOA documents have been changed because the clauses are "Null and Void" by US law. It's just a reminder of times past.

[yardwork]

9. Unfortunately, this is true all over the south and a reminder of why federal action is necessary.

Everyone who says, "Leave it to the states to decide" would be happy to live with a segregated south, I guess. I think every house I've ever owned has had language like this in the original deed. These covenants have been illegal since the 1960s, thanks to federal laws and federal court decisions.

Sometimes it really is necessary for the federal government to step in.

[Mudoria]

17. Oh I'd imagine if you looked at many of the deeds in the

northeast you would find many of these same restrictions.

[Quantess]

10. They were breaking federal laws for decades.

Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or familial status in the sale or lease of residential property or in the sale or lease of vacant land for the construction of residential buildings.

[onenote]

13. they were only breaking the law if they were trying to enforce the covenant

As others have pointed out, there was a time when including such covenants in deeds was not unusual. HOwever, they have not been enforceable for years. Nonetheless, in many instances, they haven't been removed from the deeds.

[Quantess]

14. Good point. But, it would be difficult to prove whether blacks were "steered" away unofficially.

From the article: "It's not known whether anyone ever tried to enforce that part of the Meaders Estates covenant."

[atommom]

12. This kind of convenant wasn't that unusual, and no, it wasn't exclusive to the south.

The unusual thing is that this covenant was in effect so recently. If you have a strong stomach, James Loewen's Sundown Towns discusses how minorities were barred from many neighborhoods and towns.

http://www.uvm.edu/~jloewen/sundowntowns.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town

[roguevalley]

15. so the little drunk is going to be living among his own base, rich

useless shitheads.

[leveymg]

16. IRS should audit the whole 75230 zip code.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://activerain.com/dallastexas&usg=__mDONHBC4cLQwLJc_2849yZuEIqQ=&h=533&w=800&sz=69&hl=en&start=3&sig2=QMcWuUEmABmA8PYiHO_YdA&tbnid=tlwU6aBVlN6XPM:&tbnh=95&tbnw=143&ei=soU-Sa_LLoz8efnulN0M&prev=/images%3Fq%3DPreston%2BHollow%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG