Named event or history
Segregated housing and neighborhood boundaries
How race drew Chapel Hill’s residential map: deed covenants in new subdivisions, realtors who steered Black buyers away, and the town’s 1968 open housing ordinance.
1 indexed record is connected with this event.
In the index
Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.
In the chronology
Dated events connected with this event, earliest first. See the whole chronology →
- The Order of Gimghouls plats its Chapel Hill subdivision with racial deed restrictions The Junior Order of Gimghouls subdivided its land east of campus into house lots, with a plat recorded in Orange County Plat Book 1, page 51. The original deed…Living Places: Gimghoul Neighborhood Historic District (adapted from the 1993 National Register nomination by M. Ruth Little)
- Chapel Hill adopts its first zoning ordinance The Board of Aldermen unanimously adopted an ordinance dividing the town into two residence zones and two business zones, with height limits, setbacks, yard ru…DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, June 22, 1928, page 1
- Realtors steer Howard and Lillian Lee away from white subdivisions After moving to Chapel Hill for graduate study, Howard and Lillian Lee searched for about six months while realtors hesitated to show them houses in white subd…UNC Libraries, North Carolina Miscellany: May 1969: Howard Lee
- Chapel Hill aldermen vote down a public accommodations ordinance The Board of Aldermen rejected, 4 to 2, an ordinance that would have required all town businesses to serve Black customers, and set up a nine-member committee …DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, January 14, 1964, page 1
- Chapel Hill aldermen approve an open housing ordinance 3 to 2 on first reading Weeks after the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. and a petition signed by about 2,200 people, the Board of Aldermen voted 3 to 2 for a local ban on discrimina… People: Sandy McClamrochDigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, April 28, 1968, page 3
- Chapel Hill adopts North Carolina's first local open housing ordinance On second reading the Board of Aldermen passed the open housing ordinance 4 to 0, effective immediately, making it a misdemeanor for an owner to discriminate b… People: Sandy McClamrochDigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, May 15, 1968, page 1
Continue your research
Read contemporary evidence
Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time
- Gimghoul Neighborhood Historic District (National Register text) Other source The 1923 subdivision east of campus, whose original deeds carried the racial restrictions standard for the period
- The Chapel Hill Weekly, June 22, 1928: the first zoning ordinance DigitalNC The ordinance’s published text: two residence zones and two business zones, with no reference to race
- UNC Libraries, North Carolina Miscellany: Howard Lee, May 1969 UNC-Chapel Hill How realtors kept Howard and Lillian Lee out of white subdivisions in 1964, and the cross burned after they bought in Colony Woods
- The Daily Tar Heel, May 15, 1968: the open housing ordinance passes The Daily Tar Heel The Board of Aldermen’s 4 to 0 vote on second reading, and what the ordinance made a misdemeanor
Search beyond the index
Other catalogs, databases, and guides worth searching
- NC LIVE: Exploring Race in Society NC LIVE Deed covenants, redlining, and zoning as policy
- NC LIVE: Social Explorer NC LIVE Race and homeownership by census tract
- NC LIVE: Digital Sanborn Maps (1867–1970) for North Carolina NC LIVE The neighborhoods lot by lot
- NC LIVE: prepared search for Segregated housing and neighborhood boundaries NC LIVE An advanced search of the state’s shared databases already scoped to Orange County’s places and this subject; edit it freely, and sign in through your North Carolina library to read
Go further
Other catalogs to search and local organizations that can help.
- Context: Marian Cheek Jackson Center: Northside Stories Marian Cheek Jackson Center How residents describe the boundaries and their crossing
- See the place: Mapping Chapel Hill (story map) Other source 1930 census-based mapping of homeownership and residential segregation
- Ask locally: Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection, Orange County Public Library Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection (OCPL) The county library’s local-history room at the Main Library in Hillsborough: books, journals, maps, and microfilm of county records from 1752
- Ask locally: Local History Help Hours and request form OCPL Local History Liaison The library’s Local History Liaison helps in person most Mondays, 12 to 3, at the Main Library, or by the online request form
Background reading at OCPL
Held in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection. Selected because their titles or catalog subjects provide wider historical context for this event; they may not discuss the Orange County event directly.
- Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Triumph of Good Will: How Terry Sanford Beat A Champion of Segregation and Reshaped the South Drescher, John · 2000 Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: North Carolina -- Politics and government -- 1951-; Governors -- North Carolina -- Election -- History -- 20th century; Sanford, Terry, 1917-1998
- Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South Siddle Walker, Vanessa · 1996 Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: African Americans -- Education -- North Carolina -- Caswell County -- Case studies; Community and school -- North Carolina -- Caswell County -- Case studies; Caswell County Training School (Caswell County, N.C.)
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