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The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

by Richard Rothstein
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

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ISBN13: 9781631494536
ISBN10: 1631494538



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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading authority on housing policy, explodes the myth that America's cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation — that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation — the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments — that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.

Through extraordinary revelations and extensive research that Ta-Nehisi Coates has lauded as "brilliant" (The Atlantic), Rothstein comes to chronicle nothing less than an untold story that begins in the 1920s, showing how this process of de jure segregation began with explicit racial zoning, as millions of African Americans moved in a great historical migration from the south to the north.

As Jane Jacobs established in her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, it was the deeply flawed urban planning of the 1950s that created many of the impoverished neighborhoods we know. Now, Rothstein expands our understanding of this history, showing how government policies led to the creation of officially segregated public housing and the demolition of previously integrated neighborhoods. While urban areas rapidly deteriorated, the great American suburbanization of the post-World War II years was spurred on by federal subsidies for builders on the condition that no homes be sold to African Americans. Finally, Rothstein shows how police and prosecutors brutally upheld these standards by supporting violent resistance to black families in white neighborhoods.

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited future discrimination but did nothing to reverse residential patterns that had become deeply embedded. Yet recent outbursts of violence in cities like Baltimore, Ferguson, and Minneapolis show us precisely how the legacy of these earlier eras contributes to persistent racial unrest. "The American landscape will never look the same to readers of this important book" (Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund), as Rothstein's invaluable examination shows that only by relearning this history can we finally pave the way for the nation to remedy its unconstitutional past.

Review

"Rothstein's comprehensive and engrossing book reveals just how the U.S. arrived at the 'systematic racial segregation we find in metropolitan areas today, ' focusing in particular on the role of government." Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Review

"Masterful....The Rothstein book gathers meticulous research showing how governments at all levels long employed racially discriminatory policies to deny blacks the opportunity to live in neighborhoods with jobs, good schools and upward mobility." Jared Bernstein, Washington Post

Review

"Essential....Rothstein persuasively debunks many contemporary myths about racial discrimination." Rachel M. Cohen, Slate

About the Author

Richard Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a Fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He lives in California, where he is a Fellow of the Haas Institute at the University of California–Berkeley.

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`
Kit-Katya , July 21, 2022 (view all comments by Kit-Katya)
This book is eye-opening. I knew that legal residential housing segregation existed, but everything I'd seen took for granted that it was de facto, resulting from individuals' choices. Rothstein demonstrates that government at every level not only allowed residential segregation to happen, but actively encouraged and even required it. I studied history and law, and so much of what Rothstein wrote was new and surprising to me. Highly recommend this book.

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Marci San Francisco , May 18, 2018 (view all comments by Marci San Francisco)
If you thought deeply entrenched housing segregation in the U.S. resulted primarily from cultural preferences, Rothstein's myth busting treatise will quickly disabuse you of that idealistic notion. Through his deep research, the author presents nothing less than a damning indictment of government at every level playing a decisive role in mandating separation of the races from the get go. I thought I knew quite a bit about housing segregation and mortgage lending and insuring, having worked in that field for many years in many different capacities from non-profit organizations to quasi-governmental agencies to major banks, but I certainly did NOT know that the major home ownership insurance, the Federal Housing Administration or FHA insurance, which was created to enable the first great homeownership initiative following the return of service members after the second world war, EXPLICITLY EXCLUDED BLACKS. And since segregation was still legal for conventional mortgages and mortgage insurance and real estate business, blacks were essential cut out of all but the most undesirable locations in every part of every city and town. The reason the FHA was crucial for the explosion of home ownership after WWII was that it allowed, for the first time, home buyers to achieve home ownership with much smaller down payments than were previously available because the federal government insured the mortgage loan for a small fee. States and localities followed the fed's lead. READ THIS BOOK!

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Product Details

ISBN:
9781631494536
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
05/01/2018
Publisher:
W W NORTON & CO
Pages:
368
Height:
1.00IN
Width:
5.40IN
Author:
Richard Rothstein

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