News-Record.com

John,

Although not restrictive convenants per se, Tanglewood Park in Clemmons, NC, has some what of similar history. It was originally the home of William and Katherine B. Reynolds and was left as a recreational facility for the "white people of Forsyth County." That was corrected many years ago and it now serves all citizens.

Ironically, the "colored" hospital in Winston-Salem was named after Katherine B. Reynolds and was referred to as the Katie B. hospital.

Blacks were not the only people discriminated against in this country. While doing research at Pitt University on an historic home that an organization I belonged to wanted to purchase for our headquarters I found that the property could not be sold to other than those of English descent. The owners didn't even know this, but it would have been found when they did a title search of the property. So it saved some problems when I stumbled onto it while getting information for our bulletin. The deed dated to the mid-nineteenth century when so many immigrants from Northern European and Mediterranean countries were coming over. We found that it was legal and would take an act of the State Legislature to overturn which could have taken years. So by putting out a bulletin to our members we found a member who could “purchase” the property and then “donate” it to the organization. Of course that brought up income tax problems for the member and we had to pay the enormous taxes on the income that she supposedly had to have had to purchase the property. Naturally once we had ownership we petitioned the state to make the necessary changes.

Also I understand that this practice was quite commom up until the mid 20th. century on strictures against Native Americans owning land in the western states.

Must be a slow news day...just couldn't resist, could you? I'll bet you won't me moving any time soon to purge yourself of guilt.

News and Racecard - all race, all the time.

Wow. I would have expected a big house in a country-club neighborhood to have a very ethnically diverse, non-classist history. What with rich folks and country clubs being so accepting and all.

Sam, are you kidding me? This story was interesting. If you can't see the news value in this, then maybe YOU are the one with the blind spot, not the N&R.

You are missing my point. The N&R is obsessed with race. They panic when a few days go by and they don't have some story with a racial angle to it. Yet, they say they want to improve race relations, when all they end up doing is segregating people more and more into "us" and "them". Race isn't supposed to matter, but the N&R wants to make sure it does, over and over and over and over again.

What is the purpose of this story other than to stir up old resentments?

The purpose of this blog just may save someone buying an older home a whole lot of trouble. If you will note my comment you will see the difficuty well beyond prejudice that these kinds of deed restiction pose for the future. Talk about 'sins of the fathers"!

JR, this type of story is exactly where I hope your local news emphasis will continue to go. While some readers are so busy trying to deflect any feelings of guilt they should not feel anyway, many of us know that part of creating a better community is by acknowledging and learning from mistakes of those before us.

Yes, I believe it is very helpful to constantly bring up repugnant racial discrimination from the past so we can remind blacks how awful they were treated and give them a reason to remain resentful and angry as well as perpetuate stereotypes of racial inferiority. The N&R does a wonderful job of reminding them lest they forget.

The alternative is to leave the past to the history books and actually move forward, and we can't have that, now can we?

Sorry, but this persistant race obsession by the N&R is counterproductive. The only people who benefit are white liberals who are only interested in feeling better about themselves. All you have to do is take a morally indefensible racial position/issue (usually from the past) and contrast it with your own opposite position on the issue and then make sure everyone knows where you stand (this is the key- letting everyone know where you stand) . By publicizing yourself as not "being one of those people who believe in THAT" you feel better about yourself. Look at me, I'm a good person. I like myself. I would never support deed restrictions even though they have been illegal for more than 30 years, so it doesn't matter what I think. I just want to remind you that I wouldn't have supported that. I think it is/was outrageous. I'm not one of THEM.

Guess what, folks. Most of us aren't one of THEM either. We just don't see the need to draw attention to ourselves. Instead, we try to build individual relationships with people, and prefer to show progress by our own actions rather than constantly digging up wrongs of the past to apologize for so we can feel morally superior. What's past is past. Let's move on.

By the way, I believe I have about exhausted my comments the N&R's race fixation. I think JR & Co. know where I am coming from. We will just have to agree to disagree. I don't think the N&R is going to change their perspective any time soon, and I certainly don't believe they will ever see it my way or the way that many others see it. So henceforth, I will try to refrain from my usual comments regarding the counter-productive effect that constant racial spotlighting by the N&R has on healing racial divisions.

I don't want to sound like the broken record (or skipping CD) that the N&R has become on issues of race. Suffice it to say that many people like myself believe that the N&R does more harm than good on this subject, and that is unfortunate. We'll leave it at that.

"Nothing's gonna change my world" - John Lennon, 1967

Sam, It is called victimization. As long as some can continue to keep others in victim status they can contol how they think, vote and act. And yes you do this by reminding them just how terrible "whity" treated them and that they are owed something for the sins of the past but now don't go getting to big of ideas for you are still a victim of society and will always remain so. That is the doctrine of Jesse, Al the NAACP crowd and of course the "white save the world group" aka lily white bleeding heart liberals . Without victims where would they be.

The N&R would have had a heyday with the article in the Johnson City Press today. It seems that Al has sent one of his people to check out police abuse in that city. Only problem they haven't had a complaint in over 5 years or longer. It seems the complaint stems from something that happend prior to that but leave it to Al, "bring in the clowns"Sharpton to find a way to remind "his people" that they are victims.

I think it's easy for those who were mostly on the right side of the equation to those who weren't to just forget it and move on. I've said this before in other posts, some -- prolly MOST black people -- just want folks to ACKNOWLEDGE that these things happened and offer an apology. Think about your personal life, someone does something to hurt you and then says, well, yeah, I did that, and it hurt you, yes, but it's tomorrow now, so get over it, let's move on...how would YOU feel? In regard to this story, it's a good one and something I knew nothing about, though it doesn't make me suddenly hate white people or whatever. I guess I'm just saying that the future has a past and the kind of future you have depends on how well you handled the past. I'm done. Have a good day all.

Sam, what would it take for you to acknowledge that a story is legitimate? Forget for a moment all your objections to other N&R stories (some of which may be valid). Do you not find it a little shocking that these covenants exist in this day and age? And does it not suggest to you that there's still something to be said on the topic of race?

Suppose you stumbled into these covenants on your own, and you were in a position -- maybe as a journalist, maybe as an elected official, maybe as a real estate agent -- to bring them to someone's attention. Would you do so?