Deeds say whites only in Myers Park

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Some people want answers about illegal language in deeds on thousands of Charlotte homes.

It says black people can't live in the neighborhood. A sample of that 1936-era deed is displayed on the Myers Park homeowners association Web site and some question whether it should be there.

The sample deed, which is common for homes in the Myers Park neighborhood, lists restrictions that include, “The lot...shall be owned and occupied by people of the Caucasian race only.”

“Well I'm offended of course!” Susan Shivers said when she heard the language. She's a board member and past president of the Myers Park Homeowners Association.

But she wasn’t surprised. She said it’s come up before when new people have moved into the neighborhood and asked about having the language changed.

The problem, she said, is that changing the language would be difficult, expensive, and not really necessary because it’s illegal.

“Since the language is illegal anyway, we have chosen not to undertake that task,” she said.

A 1948 Supreme Court ruling made the deed restriction on race illegal. But Charlotte Historian Tom Hanchett said the racist wording on deed restrictions is still commonplace in many Charlotte neighborhoods, and many across the South.

“They were all over the place,” he said. He showed us one on display at the Levine Museum of the New South in Uptown from another Charlotte neighborhood with similar wording to that of Myers Park.

That deed read, “This property shall never be owned or occupied by anyone of the negro race.”

A real estate attorney who lives in Forest Park, the subdivision adjacent to Myers Park, dug up his own deed and found a restriction that reads, “No person of any race other than white shall use or occupy the building.”

Attorney John Markey said he understands the difficulty in changing deeds but said it shouldn’t be listed on the Myers Park Web site the way it is now.

“When you go to the Web site, it's a little misleading. It looks like this is what the current restrictions are,” Markey said.

Shivers doesn’t like it being on the Web site either. She worries that sends the wrong message about the community.

“It does bother me. I'd probably rather not have that on our Web site,” she said. She plans to raise the issue at the next HOA meeting.

Historian Tom Hanchett said, “It’s a reminder of a real sad part of our past.”