Mount Horeb Public Library

Unjust Deeds: A History of Racial Covenants in Dane County and Beyond

For most of the 20th century, racial covenants were an insidious tool used nationwide to segregate whites from Blacks and other minorities in America’s burgeoning suburbs and residential neighborhoods.  Racial covenants were clauses inserted into property deeds to prevent non-Whites and non-Christian’s from buying or occupying land. Although no longer valid or enforceable, they can still be found in the land deeds of almost every American community, including Dane County.

Crisis in Ukraine

Andrey Ivanov, a history professor who specializes in Russia and the Soviet Union at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, recently received a phone call from his parents in Kyiv, Ukraine. They had to flee. Fast.