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

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

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

by Richard Rothstein

Paperback(Reprint)

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Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

An essential history of America focusing on the overt urban policies that fortified widespread segregation. This is an exacting and damning indictment of the American government that is essential reading for all.

New York Times Bestseller • Notable Book of the Year • Editors' Choice Selection
One of Bill Gates’ “Amazing Books” of the Year
One of Publishers Weekly’s 10 Best Books of the Year
Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction
An NPR Best Book of the Year
Winner of the Hillman Prize for Nonfiction
Gold Winner • California Book Award (Nonfiction)
Finalist • Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History)
Finalist • Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize

This “powerful and disturbing history” exposes how American governments deliberately imposed racial segregation on metropolitan areas nationwide (New York Times Book Review).

 

Widely heralded as a “masterful” (Washington Post) and “essential” (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law offers “the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation” (William Julius Wilson). Exploding the myth of de facto segregation arising from private prejudice or the unintended consequences of economic forces, Rothstein describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning; public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods. A groundbreaking, “virtually indispensable” study that has already transformed our understanding of twentieth-century urban history (Chicago Daily Observer), The Color of Law forces us to face the obligation to remedy our unconstitutional past.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781631494536
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date: 05/01/2018
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 368
Sales rank: 14,814
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Richard Rothstein, the author of The Color of Law and father to co-author Leah Rothstein, has written many books and articles on educational policy and racial inequality. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

1 If San Francisco, Then Everywhere? 3

2 Public Housing, Black Ghettos 17

3 Racial Zoning 39

4 "Own Your Own Home" 59

5 Private Agreements, Government Enforcement 77

6 White Flight 93

7 IRS Support and Compliant Regulators 101

8 Local Tactics 115

9 State-Sanctioned Violence 139

10 Suppressed Incomes 153

11 Looking Forward, Looking Back 177

12 Considering Fixes 195

Epilogue 215

Appendix: Frequently Asked Questions 219

Author's Note and Acknowledgments 241

Notes 253

Bibliography 293

Photograph Credits 321

Index 325

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