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any people have some notion of Nevada’s racially discriminatory past—of it being referred to as “the Mississippi of the West.” Many are familiar with the stories of people like Jack Johnson, the first black world heavyweight boxing champion whose July 4, 1910 bout in Reno and success in the years to follow led to his arrest on charges of violating the Mann Act, which forbade a person from transporting a woman across state lines for “immoral purposes”—a racially motivated charge that left Johnson embroiled in controversy for his relationships, including marriages, with white women. Others know stories from decades later when famous black musicians were allowed to perform in local casinos but not stay in them. But Nevada’s—and Reno’s—history of discrimination goes far beyond this, having touched the local population deeply. And the legacy left by it can still be felt and seen today, including in the city’s older houses in neighborhoods like Newlands Manor and the documents tied to them.
Today, people may find in the documents they sign when purchasing homes in Reno’s older neighborhoods some disturbing policies. They’re most often contained in documents called Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions, CC&Rs for short. The language differs by neighborhood and by the age of homes, but it’s always similar—a prohibition on the sale or occupancy of homes by anyone other than those of the Caucasian race. Of course, these kinds of discriminatory housing policies were made null and void by passage of the Civil Rights Act, and specifically by the Federal Fair Housing Act that was adopted as Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act in 1968. Technically, discriminatory CC&Rs should have been unenforceable as of 1948, when th e United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Shelley v. Kraemer that while private parties could abide by the terms of such restrictive covenants, they could not seek judicial enforcement of them because it would require state action that would violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Regardless, these discriminatory terms persisted in home sales documents and are still found in them today. And although a new Nevada law—which will be discussed in greater detail later in this article—allows homeowners to file a document with their county recorder disavowing such language, the impact can still be witnessed throughout
the community—and represents only a facet of a system that worked to discriminate against black people and other minorities for decades on end.
Discrimination beyond the documents Discriminatory CC&Rs have existed in Nevada since the state’s inception. But in 1933, when faced with a housing shortage, the federal government began a program designed to increase America’s housing stock—and segregate it. The National Housing Act of 1934, a New Deal program, created the Federal Housing Administration—the FHA—as well as the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation. The FHA was designed to provide housing assistance to lower-middleclass families without the money for a large down payment, but only white ones. “FHA financing was only for Caucasians,” explained Reno realtor and historian Barrie Lynn. “So that was a major disparity right there. Suddenly now you have lower-middleclass Caucasians who are able to buy a home with almost nothing down. But lower-middleclass African Americans and other darkskinned people couldn’t do the same thing.” It’s something Lynn says she thinks needs to be made up for even today, but more on that later, also—because FHA financing wasn’t as
simple as providing assistance to white people seeking home ownership. It came hand in hand with a policy known as “redlining,” through which the FHA refused to insure mortgages in or even near predominantly minority neighborhoods. “We did have FHA-approved neighborhoods,” Lynn said. “Westfield Village [near Reno High School] is the most notable. And that would have been hand in hand with redlining, for sure.” So, with exclusionary CC&Rs in neighborhoods throughout Reno and redlined FHA developments that began springing up in the ’30s and decades to follow, where did minority communities go? In part, this depended on how long they planned to stay.
Seeking a place during Reno’s divorce heyday Reno is known for having been the “Divorce capital of the world” during a period ranging from the early 1900s through the 1960s. According to Mella Harmon, a local historian and contributor to the Online Nevada Encyclopedia, that’s because prior to the “modern age of no-fault divorce, legal dissolution of marriage could take years, or it was simply not allowed,” and—while a “number of states competed for the nation’s migratory divorce trade and the economic opportunities found in offering relatively quick divorces,” it was in 1931, when the Great Depression was raging, that Nevada “cornered the migratory divorce market by lowering its residency period to six weeks.” A ONE article by Harmon explains that boardinghouses, hotels and even “divorce ranches”—a dude ranch sort of experience usually reserved for the wealthy—provided housing for those looking to meet the sixweek residency requirement, but these places weren’t always open to just anyone, and black people in particular were barred from seeking accommodations in white hotels and were not served in white restaurants. According to Harmon, a boardinghouse at 539 Sierra St. was known as a “black person’s place,” but few others were hospitable in town,
“House
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