For this week’s digital humanities exploration, I examined Mapping Prejudice, a project from the University of Minnesota that uses data, mapping, and archival work to uncover the long history of racial covenants in Minneapolis. These covenants, written into thousands of property deeds in the early–mid 20th century, legally prevented non-white residents from owning or occupying certain homes. By visualizing this history, the project makes structural racism visible in the physical landscape of the city.
Following Miriam Posner’s breakdown of DH “black boxes,” I explored the project’s internal logic by looking at its sources, processes, and presentation.
Sources
Mapping Prejudice relies primarily on digitized property deeds from county archives, where covenants can be identified by specific discriminatory language. These documents are supplemented by metadata (addresses, parcel numbers, dates), historic maps, scholarly articles, educator guides, and community-submitted materials. Much of the raw data comes from volunteers who help read, classify, and confirm whether deeds contain covenants.
Processes
The project uses text-mining techniques to automatically flag deeds likely to contain racist restrictions. Volunteers then transcribe, verify, and interpret those flagged records. After this confirmation stage, each deed is georeferenced (matched with a geographic location) so it can be layered onto modern maps. The processed dataset is then cleaned, standardized, and fed into mapping software that allows users to explore patterns over time.
Presentation
The project’s public-facing interface is an interactive map allowing users to zoom, select, and animate the spread of racial covenants from 1910 to 1960. The visual accumulation of blue shapes across the Twin Cities makes the argument tangible: discriminatory housing policy wasn’t abstract—it was widespread, deliberate, and geographically patterned. The site also includes timelines, downloadable datasets, videos, and short essays that contextualize the data.
A question that emerged for me is how the team plans to preserve both the website and the processed dataset long-term, given the instability of digital tools.
Discussion Questions.
Does the site make an argument?
Yes. The project argues that structural racism shaped housing in Minneapolis, and it proves this through thousands of archival documents made publicly accessible. This is particularly interesting to me as a Minneapolis resident.
Which academic fields are involved?
Urban history, African American studies, GIS/mapping, sociology, archival science, and digital humanities are all involved here.
