Editing San Lorenzo, California (section)

=== Segregation ===
The original San Lorenzo Village homes were restricted to white owners, and re-sale of homes were limited to white owners through racially restrictive covenants on property deeds.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Rothstein|first=Richard|title=The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America|year=2017|isbn=978-1-63149-285-3|edition=First|location=New York|pages=115–116|oclc=959808903}}</ref> "Sales brochures in the early to mid-1950s [...] assured prospective buyers that the village was "a safe investment" because "farsighted protective restrictions ... permanently safeguard your investment."" <ref name=":0" /> These restrictions, among others around fencing and house colors, were enforced by the San Lorenzo Village Association.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Stiles|first=Elaine B.|date=2015|title=Every Lot a Garden Spot: "Big Dave" Bohannon and the Making of San Lorenzo Village|url=http://www.sanlorenzoheritage.org/history/stiles.htm|access-date=2020-09-07|website=www.sanlorenzoheritage.org}}</ref>

Legal enforcement of such covenants was deemed to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by the Supreme Court in ''[[Shelley v. Kraemer]]'' (1948), meaning that while parties could choose to abide by the covenants, they could no longer be legally used to prevent non-white persons from buying properties with such restrictions. As a general note, without specific reference to San Lorenzo, after ''Shelley'', homeowners associations still would bar non-white owners by requiring membership in the association before buying property, and federal and state governments refused to enforce the ''Shelley'' decision.<ref>Moore, Eli, et al. Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, 2019, ''Roots, Race, and Place: A History of Racially Exclusionary Housing in the San Francisco Bay Area'', https://escholarship.org/content/qt2j08r197/qt2j08r197_noSplash_eecbec55456f21df8cb302a7b292855a.pdf?t=qc30qt</ref> In San Lorenzo, the black population remained under one-half percent in the early 1970s.<ref>Terry Link, “The White Noose: How Racist Federal Policies Put a Stranglehold on the City,” San Francisco, November 1971, 26-56.</ref>

The language of these restrictions, even if not enforceable, may still be on property deeds.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2019-02-26|title=For whites only: Shocking language found in property docs throughout Bay Area|url=https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/26/for-whites-only-shocking-language-found-in-property-docs-throughout-bay-area/|access-date=2020-09-07|website=The Mercury News|language=en-US}}</ref>