Two weeks ago I wrote a column about Napa's racial demographics. Why, I wondered, had blacks always been such a minuscule portion of the population. Was it racism or mere happenstance?

A half dozen readers with greater knowledge of Napa history than I wrote in. None of them supposed that Napa's 1 percent black population was happenstance.

"Napa has a long and ugly history of written and unwritten covenants regarding racial discrimination. Blacks were simply not allowed to buy or rent in Napa," Mary Herzog wrote.

Another reader said she bought a house in north Napa a few years ago. She was shocked to find that the deed prohibited the home's sale to Negroes.

Such anti-black covenants were common in many communities across the U.S. until outlawed by the courts.

Linda Scott recounted the bigotry that existed here in the early 1960s when her mother sold real estate.

"At one point in time, word spread through the local real estate community that a black family was looking to buy a home in Napa," Scott said.

"My mother was called into her broker's office and told bluntly that any Realtor who sold to a black family would lose their job and never be able to work in any other Napa real estate office."

As a defense against black buyers, her mother's boss kept a dummy deposit receipt in his desk drawer, Scott said. If a black person showed interest in a house, he would fill in the address of the home and say, Sorry, it's sold.

Scott said her mother shared this story with her family when she quit her real estate job. "She simply said that she would not work in a job that forced her to be dishonest," she said.

Housing discrimination based on race was not illegal 40 years ago, but today state and federal laws prohibit it, as do real estate professional codes.

Other readers shared local lore about how Napa made sure that black residents of Oakland, Richmond and Vallejo did not migrate into the Napa Valley.

Blacks knew they were not supposed to be in Napa County after the sun went down, several people said.

Herzog recounted several personal experiences with racial prejudice locally. In the '60s, when a local church went on record against housing discrimination, a cross was burned on the parsonage lawn, she said.

In the 1970s, Herzog said one of her co-workers was a black man who had to frequently drive to Napa.

"It didn't matter how well he was dressed or that he was driving a state car," she said. "Whenever he ventured into Napa he would get pulled over by the police wanting to know what he was doing in town."

"He was in the office one day when several of the staff members were getting ready to go out to lunch so we invited him to join us. He declined, saying that we would be ignored and not be served if he were with us," she said.

"As far as I know, overt discrimination is no longer practiced in Napa, but it is pretty obvious that memories are quite long and most black people do not feel very welcome here," Herzog said. "I am ashamed of this fact, but glossing over history does nothing to bring about change."

A week after the column ran, a postcard arrived from a Napa woman who accused me of "naivete" for not understanding why Napa whites had worked so hard to keep blacks out.

Look at the social dysfunction of the inner cities, with high crime and the breakdown of the family, Pam Reid wrote. "Are you pushing for Napans to welcome crime and fear into Napa in order to show how inclusive your pie-in-the-sky ideas are? Get real!" she said.

"The concept of a merry oasis of white people on the edge of urban sprawl has always been a myth," wrote Atumn, a reader responding to my column on the Web.

"We live here to escape the problems of race and difference, imagining that we are somehow better or blessed in our 'paradise,'" she said.

I'll give the final word to Jarvis, another Web responder: "As long as the good folk stay silent as the bad folk spout off, there never will be progress made to incorporate all people into this sliver of land that we call paradise."

Kevin can be reached at 256-2217 or Napa Valley Register, P.O. Box 150, Napa 94559 or kcourtney@napanews.com