Racism is an ugly human disease. Like cancer or AIDS, it needs a cure. February is Black History Month, so it's a good time to reflect on this issue. In the North, we like to think that we have a good track record on race. After all, we reason, the North championed the abolitionist movement of the 19th century.

The first federal census in 1790 revealed Albany County (we were part of until 1791) had 1,474 slaveholding families owning 3,722 slaves.

By 1800, Rensselaer County dropped to 890 slaves, decreasing to 750 in 1810, 433 in 1820, and 0 by 1830. Slavery was abolished in New York in 1827. For thirty years before the Civil War, there were no slaves in the Capital District.

Troy did play an important role as part of the Underground Railroad, a network of people sympathetic to smuggling southern slaves to Canada.

Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, became an effective piece of antislavery ammunition, and was first performed in America in 1852, in Troy's Peale's Museum on the corner of Fulton and River Street.

And of course, Trojans like to point out the story of rescuing the escaped slave Charles Nalle in 1860.

All this is true, but racism has many legs.

One form of racism deals with land ownership. The desire to get out of the city and move into the suburbs began early in America. While Long Island's Levittown is widely proclaimed to be the beginning of suburbanization, the fact is that it began earlier in the 19th century, as wealthier citizens of grimy industrial cities often purchased a "summer" house on the outskirts to escape the problems of urban life. Others followed, who could afford it.

In Troy, for example, before the greater Troy movement of the 1920s', East Side, Sycaway, Albia, and developments like Morningside Park off Hoosick were suburbs. This is true in neighboring Albany County as well, in areas like Colonie, Guilderland and Westmere - today still considered the "burbs."

However, there was a concerted effort to keep blacks and other minorities (called collectively "aliens") out of these communities - and not so subtly either.

For example, in deeds as late as the 1920's, and perhaps later, there is specific wording that makes my point.

Maywood, South Maywood, and Birchwood Park are early 20th century suburbs in the Town of Colonie. In a 1916 Maywood deed to the secretary of the Albany Cemetery Association, it states, "FIRST This land shall never be conveyed to nor occupied by a collored person or alien, nor occupied for the purpose of doing a liquor business thereon."

In a July 24, 1929 deed to a South Maywood development: "The following covenants shall run with the land for a period of 50 years from date and are enforceable by any landowner in South Maywood.

First. This land shall never be conveyed to nor occupied by a colored person or alien, nor used for a public garage, nor for any commercial or manufacturing business."

In a deed dated July 5, 1929, the same company, H.G. Veeder Realty Company of Schenectady, added this near the end of a deed to a family in Birchwood Park: "The premises shall never be occupied by a colored person or an alien." Even in Guilderland's Westmere section, you can find a deed dated May 27, 1929, containing the same wording.

This is obviously illegal today, however does this form of racism still exist, perhaps dressed differently? Today, the Town of Guilderland is 91.4% white and 4.3% black, while the Town of Colonie is 92.9% white and 2.8% black. You draw your own conclusions.

You might suspect that here in the city Troy where the population is 82.2 % white and 12.6% black, this kind of ugliness never existed, but it did.

In October 1920, a landscape civil engineer, who was also Troy's city engineer and designer of Prospect Park (1903), certified a map of a new development called Morningside Park, an area off Hoosick. The developers had written in the margin a number of restrictions. The very first restriction states: "said premises shall not be sold or leased or occupied by any person other than of the Caucasian race."

This engineer, who certified the map with his signature below the restriction paragraph, was Garnet D. Baltimore. He also was the first African American to graduate as an engineer at RPI. Yes, Garnet was black. He could certify the development, but he couldn't live there.

It's time to shed this Neanderthal mindset and realize that humanity isn't a color but an experiment of hope. Let's hope that by the end of this century, racism is just a footnote in history.