Overview
Title: A History of Racialized Housing Discrimination in Fort Collins
Topic: Housing discrimination, racial covenants, redlining, race/racism, dates of sources range from 1926 to 1948
Theme/Focus: U.S. History – Colorado History – People, Places, and Environment – Connecting federal, state, and local governments
Location: Fort Collins – Colorado
Essential/Inquiry Question(s):
- How does history affect where we live today?
- How are democracy, capitalism, and racism interrelated?
- To what extent does where you live influence how you live?
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Standard Alignment (Evidence Outcomes):
- History – Apply the historical method of inquiry to formulate compelling questions, evaluate primary and secondary sources, analyze and interpret data, and argue for an interpretation defended by textual evidence.
- History – Analyze and evaluate key concepts of continuity and change, cause and effect, complexity, unity and diversity, and significant ideas in the United States from Reconstruction to the present.
- Geography – Make connections among geographic variables that influence the interactions of people, places, and environments.
- Civics – Research and formulate positions on government policies and on local, state, tribal, and national issues to be able to participate and engage in a civil society.
Author
Alexander Pittman
Resources
Steward v. Cronan (1940)
Steward v. Cronan, 105 Colo. 393, 98 P.2d 999 (Colo. 1940)
Description: Excerpt from the Colorado Supreme Court ruling on Steward v. Cronan (1940)
Possible Inquiry Questions:
- What does this image tell you about the current state of race relations in the United States in 1926?
- How does this document speak to the interconnectedness of democracy, capitalism, and racism?
Significance: Demonstrates that racial covenants were initially upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court
Advertisement for Slade Acres
Description: Slade Acres was an area west of Shields Street and south of City Park.
Possible Inquiry Questions:
- Where is the modern-day Slade Acres neighborhood? Who lives there currently?
- What inferences can be drawn based on this document in our understanding of current population demographics within Fort Collins?
Significance: Demonstrates that racial covenants and restrictions were not a thing of the Deep South but a very real situation in Fort Collins.
Fort Collins Map, 1938
Description: Zoning map of Fort Collins and description of each zone.
- Zone A was restricted to single-family homes, churches, schools, fraternity or sorority houses, farming or gardening districts, and “municipal recreation uses” (aka parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, etc.) In other words, the types of properties and amenities that middle-class White/Anglo people desired.
- Zone B could include any of the Zone A uses, as well as two-family dwellings, boarding or rooming houses, and private clubs.
- Zone C was also residential and could include all of the Zone A or Zone B uses, as well as multiple dwellings, “hotels and apartment hotels,” educational, philanthropic, and eleemosynary (charitable) institutions. Each family in a multiple-family dwelling was required to have at least 600 square feet of space.
- Zone D included commercial areas outside downtown, and was intended for smaller retail businesses, such as groceries or filling stations.
- Zone E was the downtown commercial district and could include larger retail businesses, as long as they did not involve “manufacturing or occupations in which dust, odors, noise, or smoke result.”
- Zone F was the industrial district and restricted to manufacturing uses. Those businesses that created dust, odors, noise, or smoke that would be hazardous to the surrounding neighborhoods were to be “located by permits approved by the board of adjustment.”
Possible Inquiry Questions:
- How are education and housing connected?
- Why is the map and zone descriptions important to the story of Fort Collins? Can you make any personal or familial connections to these items?
Significance: By examining the zoning map and population demographic trends, it becomes clear that Black and Hispanic residents were steered towards neighborhoods in northwest Fort Collins.
Real Estate Advertisement, 1926
Description: Excerpt from Washington DC’s Evening Star.
Possible Inquiry Questions:
- What does this image tell you about the state of race relations in the United States in 1926?
- Why do you think white people wanted to restrict where Black people can live?
- How does where you live impact your daily life and experiences?
Significance: This image provides a federal context in connection with the local history.
National Association of Real Estate Boards, 1928
Exhibit 6
Model Racial Covenant Text
Model Racial Covenant
- No part of said premises shall in any manner be used or occupied directly or indirectly by any negro or negroes, provided that this restriction shall not prevent the occupation, during the period of their employment, of janitors’ or chauffeurs’ quarters in the basement or in a barn or garage in the rear, or of servants quarters by negro janitors, chauffeurs or house servants, respectively, actually employed as such for service in and about the premises by the rightful owner or occupant of said premises.
- No part of said premises shall be sold, given, conveyed or leased to any negro or negroes, and no permission or license to use or occupy any part thereof shall be given to any negro except house servants or janitors or chauffeurs employed thereon as aforesaid.
Source: National Association of Real Estate Boards, 1928
Possible Inquiry Questions:
- How does this document imply that the federal government was implicit in housing discrimination?
Significance: This source provides a federal context in connection with the local history.