Thanks to the genius that is Casefile Clues (read my post about why you should subscribe to this wonderful genealogy tutorial resource) I have been looking at old deeds from the County Clerk's Office. This can be somewhat difficult because there is no easy way to look for really old records other than going through all the indexes and looking for the surnames you are researching.

Anyway, this is not the topic of this post. I found the following paragraph in one of these old deeds:


It reads:

neither said property nor any part thereof shall be used for negro tenements nor rented to negroes, nor sold and conveyed, either directly or indirectly to any negro or person of African descrent [sic], within a period od [sic] fifty years from the date of this instrument.

This is from Decatur, DeKalb County, Georgia. What year do you think this is? Take a guess in the comments. I will write an update after a couple of days with the answer.

Not sure why I was so surprised about this. I guess I have never actually seen it in writing before. In a real live county document. How could this kind of discrimination take place out in the open? How is that possible?

I found another deed for the same property dated six years later and the same paragraph was in it except now they changed the limitation from 50 years to only 40.

Shocking!