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The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
by Rothstein, Richard
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$22.73
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Hardcover
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9781631492853
Overview
Overview
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.
- Format: Hardcover
- Author: Rothstein, Richard
- ISBN: 9781631492853
- Condition: New
- Dimensions: 9.20 x 1.50
- Number Of Pages: 368
- Publication Year: 2017
Language:
English
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An enlightening and an absolute revelation regarding the zoning practices of urban, suburban, rural, and industrial America.
Yolanda J. - 5 years 5 months agoIf you enjoy having references included in your nonfictional texts, you will find Mr. Rothstein’s writing style satisfying. The insight he provides into the formation of laws, reveal how far the scales have been tipped by those who were able to use wealth to influence law enforcement, our courts, municipalities, and politicians in the United States. Personally, I had to set the book down to digest the immense range of the damage by the laws. The broadness and depth of laws which were born of insecurity and cruelty which remain deeply woven into the fabric of this country. It seems as if the only way to correct those wrongs would be to unravel those fibers to the root knots, which have been anchored for centuries. Will we be able muster the strength and unify for challenge to correct them in my lifetime? I hope that this book encourages all who read it to see more clearly the development of America.
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HPB S. - 5 years 8 months agoAn AMAZING book. A must read for EVERYONE. This book is does such a good job taking us through the history that had been historically left out of textbooks for years.
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The Color of Law
Kenneth M. - 6 years 1 month agoThis book offers great insight into the laws put in place by our government to support the discrimination experienced by people of color across this country. An informative read!!!