Wauwatosa racial covenant resolution passes unanimously, will go to Legislature
Some property deeds in Wauwatosa still include a reminder of the city’s dark past of racial and religious segregation. The Wauwatosa Common Council unanimously agreed on Tuesday to push for state law that would help remove these restrictive covenants from deeds across Wisconsin.
Originally proposed by the city’s equity and inclusion commission, the Racial Covenant Resolution urges Gov. Tony Evers and state legislators to enact laws that would remove, or make it easier for property owners to remove, racist and antisemitic language that once banned Black and Jewish people from living in certain areas.
“This is a vestige of a very bad and dark time in this city,” said Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride before the council’s vote. “I compared this to pullArney ing down our Confederate statues, which we do not have. We’re pulling down these.”
Ald. Joe Phillips told the council on Tuesday that Rep. Robyn Vining is working on legislation to be introduced in the Wisconsin State Assembly.
Restrictive covenants became unenforceable in 1948 and were specifically made illegal after the Fair Housing Act in 1968, but the damage they caused can’t be erased. That’s why education from projects like Mapping Racism and Resistance, which aims to document and map restrictive covenants in Milwaukee County, is key, said Ald. Margaret Arney.
“I think Wauwatosa is doing a lot to embrace what it’s going to take to come into the vision that we have for ourselves as a community that’s welcoming for all, and it’s everybody’s job,” said Arney, also a member of the equity and inclusion commission.
is a founding member of community social justice organization Tosa Together.
“One of the big things that (Tosa Together) did is community education, and that just needs to continue,” she said. “We have a Black History Month celebration with Tosa Together coming up on (Feb. 16), and I just hope we’ll have more and more.”
By the 1940s, at least 16 of the 18 Milwaukee County suburbs used restrictive covenants to exclude Black families from residential areas, according to records from the Metropolitan Integration Research Center.
“We have the kind of legal structure in Wisconsin that will allow people from all the different municipalities to have a process for getting rid of racial and religious restrictions in any kind of covenant on their deeds,” Arney said.