This page contains related resources on Washtenaw County history, as well as links to similar projects in other cities.

Washtenaw County Resources & Links

Washtenaw County Restrictive Covenants Bibliography: An evolving bibliography of works relevant to our project.

African American Cultural and Historical Museum of Washtenaw County: A museum founded in 1993 to document, collect, preserve and share African American History in Washtenaw County.

AACHM Living Oral History Project: A partnership between the African American Cultural & Historical Museum of Washtenaw County and the Ann Arbor District Library, the project contains oral histories collected from community members.

Another Ann Arbor: Founded in 1984 by Lola Jones and Carol Gibson, Another Ann Arbor is an organization dedicated to documenting histories that reflect the culture and concerns of African American communities in Washtenaw County. The project has produced a local television series that ran from 1984 to 1995, a book titled Another Ann Arbor (2006), and three documentaries, one of which is available for online viewing on the Ann Arbor District Library website. Another Ann Arbor continues their work today with their website and educational initiatives in the community and schools.

AADL Productions Podcast: Lola Jones and Carol Gibson, Ann Arbor District Library

The Ypsilanti Black Heritage Project: Conceived by the City of Ypsilanti in 2016, The Ypsilanti Black Heritage Project is a public signage project that documents the history of Black communities in Ypsilanti, from the pre-Civil War period through the 1970s, at core sites throughout the city including South Adams Street, Harriet Street, Parkridge Homes, and Parkridge Community Center.

The Promise of Parkridge: Hilyard Robinson, Online Exhibit at African American Cultural and Historical Museum of Washtenaw County. Designed by architect Hilyard Robinson, Parkridge Homes were built in 1943 and served as segregated housing for African American wartime workers at the Willow Run Bomber Plant.

Segregation/Integration, 2017 Washtenaw County Assessment of Fair Housing: This report provides a comprehensive overview of an interdisciplinary study of the state of housing in Washtenaw County, especially in the Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor regions. The report references the 2015 Housing Affordability and Economic Equity Analysis and other quantitative studies as well as the history of segregation, and proposes that the effects of segregation policies and practices continue unchecked to the present day.

Related Projects Elsewhere

Mapping Prejudice (University of Minnesota): Comprised of a team of geographers, historians, digital humanists, and community activists, Mapping Prejudice is a project dedicated to mapping the prevalence of racial covenants in and around the Minneapolis metro area and visualizing the effects of segregation on present-day housing policies.

JUST Deeds Project: A coalition of community stakeholders committed to acknowledging and addressing systemic racism in housing in Minnesota. Coalition members provide free legal and title service to help property owners find discriminatory covenants and discharge them from property titles.

#Reparations Syllabus (University of Minnesota): An offshoot of the “Reparations, Repatriation, and Redress” symposium at the University of Minnesota, the Reparations Syllabus is a resource for teachers, researchers, and advocates interested in learning more about the debates around Black reparations in the United States.

Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project: Segregated Seattle: Based at the University of Washington, the Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project documents oral histories, photographs, documents, personal biographies, and educational resources with a focus on the history of Seattle’s civil rights movements. One of the core components of the project is Segregated Seattle, a visual presentation of the history of segregation in Seattle and King County from 1920 to present. It features an interactive map, archive of restrictive documents, and research reports.

Mapping Segregation in Washington D.C. (Prologue DC): Mapping Segregation in Washington, D.C. provides historical context for the racial landscape of the nation’s Capitol based on restrictive housing covenants, and links primary documents, archival news clippings, and visual material relevant to the local history of housing discrimination.

Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America: Based on innovative archival research into the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, the Mapping Inequality project visualizes and geographically organizes mortgage-grade redlining practices across the country following the Great Depression. This large-scale project was borne in collaboration with teams at the University of Richmond, Virginia Tech, and the University of Maryland.

Renewing Inequality: Family Displacements through Urban Renewal, 1950-1966 (Digital Scholarship Lab, University of Richmond): Conceived by the same team of Mapping Inequality, Renewing Inequality maps data on the families displaced by the federal urban renewal programs—federally funded projects of the mid-twentieth century that were typically aimed at “slum clearance” and disproportionately affected communities of color.

Mapping Cville: Run by local freelance journalist Jordy Yager, the Mapping C-Ville project brings together local city clerks, students, academics, and researchers at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center to construct a series of digital maps of Charlottesville, VA that visualize institutional segregation policies of the past and the present-day effects.

Redlining Louisville: Racial Capitalism and Real Estate: Created by local urban planning and community organizing company team, Acknowledge, Recognize, Connect, LLC (ARC), Redlining Louisville presents several interactive maps containing data on the relationship of segregation, poverty, zoning, property values, and race as it manifests in neighborhoods throughout the greater Louisville area.

Chicago Covenants: The Chicago Covenants Project is a collaborative effort to locate every racially restrictive covenant in Cook County, IL, and tell these stories of racial segregation in metro Chicago. It features a crowdsourced, publicly-engaged research process among the analogue documents of the Cook County Clerk's office.

Racial Restriction and Housing Discrimination in the Chicagoland Area: This project investigates and documents the history of one such housing discrimination strategy, racial restrictive covenants in Cook County, Illinois, focusing on a timeline and interactive map tracing this history. The project seeks to unearth lesser-known artifacts of this history and to link them to other housing discrimination tactics, such as redlining, panic peddling and blockbusting. The documentary evidence made available through this project are digitally archived in various interactive formats for public consumption and for educational purposes.

Racial Restrictive Covenants Project: The Racial Restrictive Covenants Project involves teams of researchers at the University of Washington and Eastern Washington University. Authorized by the state legislature under SHB 1335 (May 2021), this project is charged with identifying and mapping neighborhoods covered by racist deed provisions and restrictive covenants.