American cities were not always racially segregated. Minneapolis is no exception. But in the early 20th century, something called the ‘racial covenant’ began remaking the geography of cities across the country. These covenants were legal clauses that prevented people of color from owning or occupying property. And while covenants have been illegal for over a half-century, their legacy lives on. Today, Minneapolis has some of the worst racial disparities in the United States. In this talk, Kevin Ehrman-Solberg shows how these contemporary disparities are rooted in the spatial practices of the past. Kevin Ehrman-Solberg is a co-founder of the Mapping Prejudice Project at the University of Minnesota's Borchert Map Library where he and a small team have built the first-ever comprehensive visualization of racially biased covenants for an American city. Their project maps restrictive deed covenants-agreements made during home purchases-that enforced racial segregation in Minneapolis until the Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlawed such covenants. Despite this landmark legislation, to this day the vast majority of the nation’s neighborhoods remain deeply segregated. As an active proponent of the digital humanities, Ehman-Solberg interrogates the intersection of space and historical narrative. Born and raised in the Twin Cities, Ehrman-Solberg has recently completed his Master of Geographic Information at the University of Minnesota, and is now a graduate student in the Department of Geography, Environment and Society. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx