The “UNJUST DEEDS” exhibit, about the history of racial covenants in Dane County and Beyond, will be at the Mount Horeb Public Library throughout July. Rick Bernstein, DCHS Executive Director, will give a slide Presentation there on July 21 at 6:30 pm. The event is open to the public. The full county-wide schedule is at the bottom of this page.
Here’s a link to the entire Exhibit.
See 27 News coverage of the Exhibit’s opening here.
See Channel 27 News coverage of the Dane County Supervisors passing a Resolution Repudiating Racial Covenants here.
February 20, 2025, Dane County Board of Supervisors Resolution Repudiating Racial Covenants in Dane County Property Records
February 20, 2025, Dane County Board of Supervisors Resolution Supporting DCHS’s traveling exhibit UNJUST DEEDS: The History of Racial Covenants in Dane County and Beyond.
Rick Bernstein, DCHS Executive Director; Tiffany Malone, co-founder of Own-IT, providing down payment assistance; and Patrick Miles, Chair of the Dane County Board of Supervisors, holding copies of the resolution passed by the Dane County Board on February 20, 2025.
For the past year, the Dane County Historical Society has worked hard to develop “UNJUST DEEDS: The History of Racial Covenants in Dane County and Beyond.”
Protesters placed this sign outside a housing project for African Americans in Detroit, Michigan, in 1944. During the Great Migration, Detroit was one of many northern cities where African Americans moved in large numbers from the South to escape poverty and racial violence.
What Were Racial Covenants?
Racial covenants were an insidious tool for racially restricting home sales and segregating residential neighborhoods. Essentially, a single cleverly-worded sentence inserted into a land deed of a subdivision plat could invoke the full force of the government’s police powers in enforcing racial segregation. As a result, in 1928, the Chicago Real Estate Board proudly said restrictive covenants were “like a marvelous delicately woven chain of armor … [excluding] any member of a race not Caucasian.” Moreover, by 1940, 40% of homes in Chicago and Los Angeles were subject to racial covenants.
Hemmed In: ABC’s of Race Restrictive Housing Covenants. This illustration, published in a pamphlet produced by the Civil Rights Congress of Michigan in 1945, depicts the evils created by racially restrictive housing covenants: unsafe and overcrowded housing for blacks, increasing segregation, and growing distrust between the races.
Exhibit Schedule
In brief, the Exhibit 14 pull-up banners will travel to 12 different Dane County branch libraries for a month each. Its first stop was at the Monona Public Library. To celebrate Black History Month, an opening reception was held on February 6, 2025.
Other locations and dates are listed below:
Belleville Public Library
20 S Park St, Belleville, WI 53508
Exhibit throughout March. 2025
Presentation by Rick Bernstein, Dane County Historical Society
March 20, 2025 @ 6:00 pm
6:00 pm to register for the Presentation
Waunakee Library
201 North Madison Street, Waunakee, WI 53597
Exhibit throughout April 2025
Presentation by Rick Bernstein, Dane County Historical Society
April 17, 2025 @ 6:30 pm
Rose Garfoot Public Library – Cross Plains
2107 Julius St, Cross Plains, WI
Exhibit throughout May 2025
Presentation by Rick Bernstein, Dane County Historical Society
Saturday, May 17, 2025 @ 10:00 am
Marshall Community Library
605 Waterloo Road
Exhibit throughout June 2025
Presentation by Rick Bernstein, Dane County Historical Society
Saturday, June 21, 2025 @ 1 pm (Refreshments)
Mount Horeb Public Library
105 Perimeter Road
Exhibit through July 2025
Presentation by Rick Bernstein, Dane County Historical Society
Monday, July 21 @ 6:30 pm
Dane County Bookmobile
Exhibit and Slide Presentation by Rick Bernstein, Dane County Historical Society, at the following three locations.
● Shorewood Hills – Tuesday, August 5 @ 7 pm
7 pm – Shorewood Hills Village Hall Board Room (810 Shorewood Blvd)
● Cottage Grove – Tuesday, August 12 @ 7 pm
7 pm – Drumlin Residences Community Room (107 E Reynolds)
● Maple Bluff – Tuesday, August 19 @ 7 pm
7 pm Beach House (306 Lakeview Blvd)
Verona Public Library
500 Silent Street
Exhibit through September 2025
Slide Presentation by Rick Bernstein, Dane County Historical Society
Saturday, September 20 @ 1:30 pm
Sequoya Library – Madison Public Library
4340 Tokay Blvd, Madison
Exhibit through October 2025
Slide Presentation by Rick Bernstein, Dane County Historical Society
Monday, October 6, 2025 @ 6:30 pm
Mazomanie Free Library
Exhibit through November 2025
Slide Presentation by Rick Bernstein, Dane County Historical Society
Mazomanie Community Building
9 Brodhead Street
Saturday, November 8, 2025 @ 1 pm
Oregon Public Library
200 N Alpine Pkwy
Exhibit through December 2025
Slide Presentation by Rick Bernstein, Dane County Historical Society
Saturday, December 13, 2025 @ 1 pm
Middleton Public Library
7425 Hubbard Avenue
Exhibit through January 2026
Slide Presentation by Rick Bernstein, Dane County Historical Society
Thursday, January 22, 2026 @ 6 pm
E.D. Locke Public Library
5920 Milwaukee Street, McFarland
Exhibit through February 2026
Slide Presentation by Rick Bernstein, Dane County Historical Society
Saturday, February 21, 2026 @ 2 pm
Madison Central Library
201 W. Mifflin St., Madison, WI
Exhibit through February 2026
Slide Presentation by Rick Bernstein, Dane County Historical Society
Thursday, February 19, 2026, @ 6 pm
Learn More
Check out Dane County’s Prejudice in Places Project to learn more about racial covenants in the county. Dane County staff and volunteers searched digitized records dated from 1937 to 1969. They identified over 1,000 land records with racial restrictions. Planning and Development staff, along with a Madison Boys and Girls Club intern, reviewed each document to identify any racial restrictions.
As a result, 1000+ records with covenants have been found and mapped on the Dane County Planning and Development website. Interestingly, breaking that down by decade, they are: 13-1910s, 13-1920s, 26-1940s, 26-1950s, and 4-1960s. Furthermore, staff are still looking at records from the 1920s and 1930s. Interestingly, the increase in covenants from the 1940s and 50s was due to several factors. The first was the large influx of African Americans from the South during the Great Migration (1920-1970). The second was the requirement, starting in the 1930s, by the Federal Housing agencies to include racial covenants.
Dane County Historical Society
The Dane County Historical Society is a 501(c)3 private non-profit organization established in 1961. Its mission is to preserve and promote the history of Dane County. To learn more about us, click here.
Sponsors
Importantly, this Exhibit would have been possible without the generous support from the following organizations:
Dane Arts
Evjue Foundation
Beyond the Page Program, Dane County Library Service