Racial Restrictive Covenants Project: Recent Updates November
Note: If you would prefer a different avenue for receiving project updates, please follow us on our new Instagram account (@racialrestrictivecovenantswa).
October has been an eventful month filled with microfilm rolls and map layers for everyone at the Racial Restrictive Covenants Project. Read on to find out about the release of our new racial restriction maps and the progression of our King County records scanning project.
Mapping Updates
As of this month, new maps have gone live on the Racial Restrictive Covenants website! Constructed by our GIS Specialist, Liz Peng, the new county maps of individual properties for King, Pierce, and Thurston counties are now displayed on our website under the Restrictions maps and data page.
They include new features that make the maps more interactive and visually striking, and hopefully, enhance peoples' understanding of racially restrictive covenants and how they have shaped Western Washington.
Some of the features include:
A Quick Start Guide to assist visitors with operating the map
A semi-transparent Demographics layer with 1960 and 2020 demographic options that can be switched on and off
A graph showcasing the number of restrictions created each year between 1906 and 1955
A timeline function that allows visitors to visually witness the appearance of racial restrictions between 1906 and 1955
New maps for Snohomish, Whatcom, Kitsap, Island, and Skagit counties are in progress. These counties’ original maps remain on our website.
Volunteer Updates
Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter and volunteering your time in person or on Zooniverse! If you would like to contribute to the project, please check out the Volunteer page on our website. Transcribing documents on our Zooniverse page is a remote, easily accessible way to earn service hours while contributing to a ground-breaking research project. Email us at wacovenants@gmail.com with proof of your volunteer time, and we will happily sign off on hours!
We now have 1,120 Zooniverse volunteers assisting us. Thank you all for your contribution to this project. We couldn’t do it without you!
We now have eight service learners from Seattle Central College assisting with the project. Thank you all for joining us! We’re excited to see your progress throughout the year.
Our service learners are students from local community colleges who need volunteer hours to fulfill class requirements. If you would like to fill your service requirement with the Racial Restrictive Covenants Project, please contact us at wacovenants@gmail.com.
On Oct. 19, our team members had the opportunity to introduce the project to the HSTRY 388 class of our director, James Gregory. Thank you to the students of HSTRY 388 for their interest and time.
Scanning Updates
Since acquiring our high-speed microfilm scanner in late September, we have scanned roughly 900 microfilm rolls containing 1.2 million King County property records.
According to our programmer, Nicholas, our software has flagged 3,679 suspected racial restrictions among the records we have scanned.
If you would prefer a different avenue for receiving project updates or would like to view more content from our project, please follow our new Instagram account (@racialrestrictivecovenantswa)!
Learn More About the Project
Racial Restrictive Covenants Project Website
Racial Restrictive Covenants Instagram
Learn About Volunteering Here!
Racial Restrictive Covenant Zooniverse Page