HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) -- Cringe-worthy and racist language is hidden in old deeds across Pennsylvania. But why is it there?
A bill that overwhelmingly passed the House on Wednesday afternoon may offer a fix.
"We have a website that contains all deeds of mortgages, basically back to 1785," said Jim Zugay, president of Pennsylvania Recorders of Deeds Association.
Zugay says deeds are easily found, though sometimes hard to see.
"It really is jarring to see it in print. It's shameful," said Rep. Justin Fleming (D-Dauphin County).
A friend of Fleming has a deed with racist language, which read a part of for abc27.
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"No race or nationality other than the Caucasian shall use or occupy any building upon any lot," Fleming said.
Such covenants were struck down by state and federal courts decades ago. They don't apply today, but past bigotry exists in black and white.
"I've seen that in deeds in Franklin County there in deeds all over the Commonwealth," said Rep. Paul Schemel (R-Franklin County).
Schemel is a lawyer who does title searches.
"You'll see these provisions will say things like no one of African descent and no outhouses and no pigs," Schemel added.
Fleming's House Bill 1289 would let current homeowners submit a form for the record disavowing that language.
"We are trying to acknowledge that it did happen. But we want to give those who are in our ways and homeowners a path forward to say, I don't agree with this. Let's leave it in the past," Fleming said.
The bill gives homeowners a way to officially reject the past without trying to erase it.
"What I'm glad for is that we're not looking to strike any history here. We're looking to just repudiate they're looking to repudiate it so that we don't have to have that burden of going through all of our records on microfilm that we've had back to the 1700s," said Zugay.
But Fleming also notes that those past transgressions are still felt today.
"Like a six-to-one gap in wealth between white homeowners and black homeowners. It's largely because of these restrictive covenants that denied access for people of color," Fleming said.
The bill now moves to the Senate, which is currently tied up with the budget and then will go to recess, so it likely won't move until the fall at the earliest.
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