More than 40,000 property deeds containing racially discriminatory language have been uncovered in Western Washington by the , and director and his team aren鈥檛 finished yet.

In 2021, the Washington State Legislature authorized the project to find and map neighborhoods where property deeds contained racial covenants. No longer legally enforced, racial covenants prevented certain groups of people, usually Black people, from buying or occupying property. This created segregated cities that reserved desirable areas for white people.

Gregory, professor of history at the 天美影院, oversees a research team at the 天美影院that handles counties in Western Washington. , professor of history at Eastern Washington University, leads a group that researches the eastern side of the state.

Mostly due to the work of students and nearly 800 volunteers, Gregory鈥檚 team has so far identified documents in several counties, including King, Pierce, Snohomish, Whatcom and Thurston. are available on the project鈥檚 website. Some counties aren鈥檛 finished; others haven鈥檛 been started.

鈥淭his has become such a community venture,鈥� Gregory said. 鈥淚t goes to show how the 天美影院 serves the broader community. So much of what we are thought of doing is just academic work that鈥檚 really abstract. This is a service project basically for the people of Washington state.鈥�

On-site volunteers are increasingly necessary for the project because several counties, including King, don鈥檛 have the digital records that allow for a quick search of relevant terms. Examining physical books or microfilm is a more time-consuming process. For months, the project team has been removing batches of reels from the King County archives and reading them in the Suzzallo Library on the UW鈥檚 Seattle campus.

The effort was authorized and funded in 2021 by the Washington State Legislature under , which addresses the presence of the covenants and gives property owners and residents options for legally removing the language from their deeds. Gregory plans to ask for renewed funding to continue the effort and purchase a high-speed scanner to digitize property records and speed up the rest of the work.

鈥淲e鈥檙e roughly halfway there,鈥� Gregory said, 鈥渁nd I hope the legislature agrees that we should continue.鈥�

Nicholas Boren, a 天美影院junior who is majoring in informatics, develops and manages computer programs that use text recognition to automatically search for racial restrictions in those property records that have been digitized. Then Zooniverse, a citizen science web portal, allows volunteers to double-check documents flagged by Boren鈥檚 algorithm.

鈥淧eople don鈥檛 think of software, artificial intelligence and machine learning as being used to help people,鈥� Boren said. 鈥淏ut engineers should be thinking about the choices they make and how software can be actively used for good.鈥�

Along with reviewing documents, the project also prioritizes community outreach. Students often present to community and church groups. Recently, students spoke with the Mercer Island City Council in a Zoom meeting that was attended by more than 300 residents. Several cities in King County had their diversity, equity and inclusion staff members complete training and volunteer with the project, Gregory said.

Recently, about 20 lawyers and staff from the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and real estate company Redfin volunteered at Suzzallo Library. After several students gave a presentation on the history of racial restrictions, the lawyers helped read King County deeds and identify restrictions.

天美影院seniors Erin Miller, who is majoring in law, societies and justice with a minor in informatics, and Samantha Cutts, a history and international studies major, are both involved with research, data management and community outreach. They agreed the project has been an eye-opening experience

鈥淚t鈥檚 a learning process for me, as much as it is for the people I鈥檓 teaching,鈥� said Miller, who got involved after writing a paper for one of Gregory鈥檚 classes on the dichotomy of her identity as a half-Black, mixed-race woman. 鈥淚鈥檓 being educated about things that have impacted my life, my ancestors and the way my family settled in Washington state.

鈥淚n our presentations, we talk about how we often assume that segregation and discrimination happened in the South and weren鈥檛 necessarily part of the Pacific Northwest. But they were. It鈥檚 happening in a lot of our backyards, and we don鈥檛 even know it. One of the most gratifying things is being able to educate people that these things exist.鈥�

The documents uncovered by the project force people to face their history and reckon with systemic racism, Cutts said.

鈥淎s a Jewish individual, I know there is a long history of oppression of Jewish people,鈥� Cutts said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e seen restrictions that specifically prevent Jewish people from living in certain areas. Through working on this project, I confronted my interactions with the history of ethnic and racial discrimination to see how direct it really was.鈥�

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For more information, contact Gregory at gregoryj@uw.edu and the project team at wacovenants@gmail.com.