Saving the neighborhood racially restrictive covenants law and social norms richard rw brooks and carol m rose harvard university press april 2013 yale law school public law working paper no 292 yale law economics research paper no 471 arizona legal studies discussion paper no 13 53. Saving the neighborhood racially restrictive covenants law and social norms richard rw brooks and carol m rose harvard university press april 2013 this book examines the interactions . Saving the neighborhood tells the charged still controversial story of the rise and fall of racially restrictive covenants in america and offers rare insight into the ways legal and social norms reinforce one another acting with pernicious efficacy to codify and perpetuate intolerance the early 1900s saw an unprecedented migration of african americans leaving the rural south in search of . Saving the neighborhood provides an excellent introduction to historical and legal scholarship on the use of racially restrictive covenants in the united states and a thoughtful meditation on the topics importance for scholars and concerned citizens covenants are contracts written into real estate deeds that limit the propertys use adopted in residential enclaves since the nineteenth