This blog post is by Matthew L., Workforce and Economic Development Librarian.
We invite you to a community conversation, focused on Tucson, about the ongoing effects of racial discrimination in housing. Bring your experiences and personal perspective to this interactive conversation.
- What are racist covenants?
- Why is there segregation in Tucson?
- What is the generational impact of segregation on education, health, and wealth accumulation?
- How have communities been disproportionally impacted by pollution?
- How are schools funded differently in different communities?
Our community conversation draws on insights from the Mapping Racist Covenants (MRC) project, which tells the story of now illegal racist covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CCRs) that prevented people of color, as well as other marginalized individuals, from living in certain Tucson neighborhoods. Check out the history of your neighborhood by viewing the interactive map.
This community conversation on racial discrimination in housing in Tucson will be offered twice:
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Saturday, September 7 from 10:30 am to noon
Valencia Library, 202 W. Valencia Rd.
Please register in advance to attend. -
Thursday, September 12 from 6:30 to 8 pm
Woods Memorial Library, 3455 N. First Ave.
Please register in advance to attend.
These events will be facilitated by Victor Bowleg, Program Manager for the Dr. Laura Banks-Reed Center for Gender and Racial Equity of the YWCA of Southern Arizona and Jason Jurgevich, Assistant Professor in the School of Geography, Development & Environment at the University of Arizona.
I spoke with Jason about his Mapping Racist Covenants project and the importance of these conversations. While buying a home in Tucson in 2021, Jason discovered now illegal racist covenants in the deed of his new house that explicitly barred people who are Asian or Black from living in the subdivision. He tackled this professionally by researching and creating an interactive map of racist covenants in deeds and neighborhood charters in Tucson.
“These conversations are important because racial discrimination in housing is part of our history that a lot of us know little about but that has affected millions and millions of Americans,” Jason said. “Arguably the root of many of our problems in the United States are related to housing opportunities. Access to safe and affordable housing and the denial of opportunity are connected to how education, access to food, good paying jobs, safe neighborhoods, green spaces and clean air and water have played out in our city, past and present.”
The conversational nature of these events allows residents of Tucson to talk about their own experiences and the experiences of their friends, neighbors, and family, and explore how differences in opportunities has affected their own neighborhoods. Jason added, “I’ve received varied responses about my research, but the bottom line is that these conversations about racist covenants open a larger conversation about housing discrimination and its long-term effects. These conversations are a way to ground empirical data in lived experience.”
“I hope these conversations spark intellectual curiosity about our history and ensure that by looking at the past we don’t make the same public policy decisions that have denied, and continue to deny, people of color opportunities,” Jason said.
