Tucson neighborhood gets rid of racist housing rules

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — In the almost 40 years she has lived in her home, Emily Ricketts, 89, who is African American, has cleaned her home hundreds times. As she vacuumed her home, she reflected on something that was just brought to her attention.

Up until six months ago she didn't know there was a housing restriction saying she couldn’t live there.

"I thought, oh my goodness, what would I have done had I known it back in 1980?" Ricketts said. "So I'm glad I didn't know."

The Vista del Monte neighborhood where she lives has a covenant, which is a restriction, on people who are African American living there. It reads, “No part of said premises shall be sold, assigned, transferred, demised, leased or sublet to any persons of African or Mongolian descent."

Similar rules in the other developments in Vista del Monte exclude anyone who isn’t white.

However, the Fair Housing Act, which passed in 1968, does not allow it to be enforceable, which means anyone can live in the neighborhood.

Ricketts has been a civil rights activist since the 1980s, and all around her home are various books about race and social activism stacked on tables and chairs.

"My energy and my passion can be…can serve and still be significant,” she said.

On Sunday, the neighborhood association got together to get rid of the racist language in their restrictions. The reason it was so hard to remove it from their restrictions is because when they were written, it also included a part that said the restrictions could never be removed.

However, the new Uniform Unlawful Restrictions in Land Records Act, a bipartisan bill that passed into law in March, which took effect last week, allows neighborhood associations across Arizona to get rid of the racist restrictions.

The new law also allows for home owners associations and neighborhood associations to take out restrictions discriminating against, religion, sex, or disability.

"Because it's not right. It's not fair,” Ricketts commented. "We're talking about it and there's action against the kind of thing that existed in the past."

Four members of the neighborhood association including Ricketts signed an amendment to the restrictions on Sunday.

It’s an issue the president of the neighborhood association, Laurel Shane, found through the Mapping Racist Covenants Project.

"It was a law that was on our books that really doesn't represent who we are as a neighborhood,” Shane said.

She’s a volunteer with the research project and she said she also found out the restrictions are still in loan packages when people try and move in.

"That can really discourage people from moving into a neighborhood. They don't want to sign anything saying yes, I'm okay with these racist covenants,” Shane said.

On Monday she took the amendment and signatures to the Pima County Recorder’s Office.

As the door creaked behind her, and she walked out into her neighborhood, Ricketts noticed a “for sale” sign right next door. With this new law, she’s hoping all her future neighbors feel welcome.

"For me it's freedom, and that's what I believe democracy is all about...choice and freedom, and not using against you as the human being that you are," Ricketts said.