This is a review and analysis of a source of information about the Milwaukee Civil Rights Marches in 1967. The source selected and used is a document: Restrictive Real Estate Covenants, Fox Point Gardens, dated June 18, 1940 and recorded July 26, 1940.
The subject document is two pages containing a total of 18 covenants, governing and restricting the occupation and use of residential lots and dwellings on a Wisconsin village called Fox Point Gardens, located about 12 miles north of Milwaukee.
The document was retrieved from an archive called the Barbee Papers, created in 2010 by Lloyd Barbee. However the Restrictive Covenants document itself was created in 1940 – presumably by the developer of Fox Point Gardens – to control the use of the development, by those purchasing building lots and/or homes there, all of whom would have had to agree formally to accept the covenants. Purchasers/occupiers would presumably also have to comply with local planning and zoning regulations. Covenant 15 does refer to compliance with the local ordinances and regulations of the village of Fox Point. Covenants 16 and 17 ensured that the covenants were not time-limited, stipulating that they applied to heirs and so on of the original occupiers and from 1960 would continue unchanged unless agreed to be changed by a majority vote of the owners (every ten years from then on), at the time.
The Milwaukee civil rights marches in 1967 were about what African Americans in the area saw as widespread racial segregation, but more especially in housing. Respectable, employed African Americans were unable to even rent homes in the predominantly white suburbs around Milwaukee, which even today is still one of the most segregated cities in the U.S.
The subject document reflects that restriction of housing freedom that existed; not only at the time of the unrest in the late 1960’s but when this set of covenants was created in June 1940. The relevant covenant of principal interest to us is number 4, which states:
No person of any race other than the Caucasian race shall use or occupy any building lot, or building, except that this covenant shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of a different race domiciled with an owner or tenant.
So clearly, the covenants were for the most part what might be expected for any new subdivision or other housing development anywhere, except for covenant 4 which was specifically aimed at preventing non-whites from living there; i.e. preserving Fox Point Gardens as a whites-only community.
In that regard it was following the general segregationalist principles that prevailed in the Milwaukee area at the time. It illustrates perfectly the problems that reasonably affluent African Americans had in finding decent housing, when such places were effectively barred to them, and therefore why the African American population eventually resorted to protest action in the form of a series of marches, in order draw attention to their campaign for an end to segregation in housing and in other areas of society.
No doubt a source of some extra anger to African Americans at the time was the sting in the tail of covenant 4, i.e. that non-Caucasians were permitted but only if they were domestic servants working for a Caucasian property occupant! These covenants were typical for housing developments at the time, as confirmed by browsing seven other covenants sets in the same archive, which contained similar wordings to Covenant 4 for Fox Gardens).
Works Cited
Barbee Papers, Box 203, Folder 11, Restrictive Real estate Covenants, 1929-1946. University of Wisconsin, UWMilwaukee. Web. May 4, 2012.
