Philadelphia’s History of 
Racially Restricted Housing

The place where someone grows up has a major impact on their opportunities in life — and those of their children. Although racial covenants were outlawed decades ago, researchers see links between past unequal access and what we see today in the racial wealth gap and other measures of economic opportunity.

Hundreds of thousands of poor, rural Black Americans migrated to northern cities in the early 20th century. Racial covenants were one of many tactics that White developers, builders, and homeowners used to limit where people of color could live. In Philadelphia, covenants kept people of color from settling in new developments and formed an invisible barrier around White neighborhoods.

The use of racial covenants — one of many tools used to segregate neighborhoods — was widespread in urban housing markets in the early 20th century. Although in 1948 the Supreme Court ruled racial covenants unenforceable, they continued to play a role in federal housing policy for another 20 years.