It’s been banned for decades, but it’s possible it still exists in the deed to your home. Racially restrictive housing covenants were used nationwide to prevent people from different racial and religious groups from owning homes.

“It had protective provisions or racial covenants that explicitly restrict ownership to people of the Caucasian race or the white race,” said Michael Kelly, a Syracuse University graduate student.

While the practice has been illegal since the 1960s, under the Federal Fair Housing Act, the effects can be seen today.

Kelly, a Ph.D student in geography, created a map outlining areas with racially restrictive housing covenants.

“Racial covenants are really about the entire real estate market and tying racism and property value, and that's something we deal with and contest today," said Kelly.

He’s studying racially restrictive housing covenants in the city. They were written into property deeds, barring certain people from buying housing in certain areas.

"Beyond just a legal barrier to integration, which racial covenants were, they provide a window or insight into how real estate markets create racial inequality," said Kelly. "Racial covenants were not just used in Syracuse; they were used all throughout the U.S."

He enlisted the help of two web designers to make a website for his map to make his findings more accessible.

“So one of the things that immediately stood out was how explicit the language was,” said web developer Yahkeef Davis. "Growing up in school, we often like hear this rhetoric of like, ‘Oh, it was the South that was really blatantly racist and not really the North.’ But as I'm reading through the covenants in there, they explicitly say things like ‘there cannot be a drop of Negro blood in any person that purchases owns, rents or leases this property for the next 50 to 100 years.’ I'm like, that's pretty explicit."

Without the covenants, could neighborhoods have looked different?

"I believe that this neighborhood would have more diversity of thought, as well as complexion, and I think that it would help really break down those barriers between suburbanites and city folks," said web developer Tania Dean.

"Rather than looking at it and say, 'Oh, look how far we've come' because they now have been outlawed … the actual tangible effects have not [gone] away," said Davis.

While these covenants were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948, and eventually made illegal in 1968, their impression lingers.

"These issues are still affecting us today. And I think it's important for the local community and society as a whole to be informed, because you have to know history in order to enact meaningful change," said Dean.

There’s currently a bill in the state Senate that would require housing covenants be removed before property is sold.