The online exhibition Unvarnished: Housing Discrimination in the Northern and Western US (www.unvarnishedhistory.org) was undertaken by a learning community of five museums and one cultural organization to convene at each location and learn from thought leaders, scholars, and each other, dig into archives, and listen to community members share their experiences. Unvarnished was conceived, developed, and directed by Naper Settlement, an outdoor history museum in Chicagoland administered by the Naperville Heritage Society. Now the fourth largest city in Illinois because of significant population growth and demographic change, the museum set out to learn how that happened. What were the factors that took the community from being an essentially all-White population in the mid-twentieth century to a resident population that is now 37% people of color? Was Naperville unique or part of a pattern of change?

The Folded Map Project, created by social justice artist Tonika Lewis Johnson, gained national recognition for visualizing Chicago's segregation by connecting "map twins"-residents living on the same street but miles apart in racially and economically different neighborhoods. Johnson later created Inequity for Sale, an award-winning public art and research project that highlighted the lasting impact of racist land sale contracts that exploited Black homebuyers in the 1950s and '60s. As part of this project, Tonika designed and installed large-scale landmarkers in front of homes that were effectively stolen from Black residents, making visible the generational harm caused by systemic housing discrimination.

Racially restrictive covenants and deed restrictions were legal instruments used to promote racial segregation in the first half of the twentieth century. They were first created and deployed by individuals, but then were embraced by real estate leaders and economists, who led national organizations based in Chicago. Covenants and restrictions became so widely used in Chicago that it was estimated that 80% of the city's homes were covered by racial covenants. These records have been buried in the files of Cook County, but a new collaboration is unearthing the documents to illustrate how racial segregation in Northern cities such as Chicago was not accidental. It was a system that was intentionally created, house by house, block by block, and subdivision by subdivision, across the city and across the country. The only way we will find all these covenants is by bringing together a wide array of people from around Chicago to take on this effort, piece by piece. Thus, we are offering training and research sessions for members of the public who want to take part.