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

An excellent, comprehensive book which describes our country’s century-old laws and policies regarding residential segregation. Rothstein explains how political leaders and government agencies were complicit and full participants in this destructive and systemic segregation.

Most Americans have been encouraged by ‘The American Dream;’ to work hard, obey the law, provide for family, do the right thing. In return you get to have a good life, a decent job, a nice home, a happy, healthy family and more. This book has shown me how white Americans expected and felt entitled to red-carpet access to that dream. African-Americans were deliberately, criminally and immorally excluded from virtually all of that dream. While they were expected show more to work hard, obey the law, provide for their families, life was more of a complicated, endless struggle, a fraught nightmare with far-reaching consequences for generations and still visible, dangerous, and shameful today.

Housing shortages especially after WWII, led to construction of public housing mainly for white families. These buildings were located near good schools, and employment opportunities. If black families tried to move in, the federal government, in the form of many presidents including: FDR, Woodrow Wilson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and others, various government bodies and agencies including the Supreme Court, FHA, and others, banks, real estate associations, building and community associations, neighbors and individuals openly created non-inclusive laws, wrote manuals and guides to forbid, discourage, and stop blacks from doing so. The FHA would NOT provide mortgage insurance to any housing development built for African-Americans, and banks would not provide financing, etc.

In suburban one- and two-family homes developed around the country with tax-payer funds, the same anti-black policies held true. Levittown in Long Island, New York is just one example. Homes could not be purchased by African-Americans or Communists. If a home was sold to a black family, neighbors would harass, attack the family and the home while the police watched and did nothing to protect a black American family! And sometimes the neighbors would go after the white homeowners who sold their homes to black families.

Smaller housing developments for African-American families were built with inferior workmanship and materials. Located near warehouses, industries, far from schools, and job locations. In many cases, African-American men had to drive hours to get to work, and if late, they could easily be fired and replaced by white employees. Black men were employed mostly in low-level positions; and not offered job training for better jobs (that were available) because whites felt it would not be appropriate for African-Americans to manage or supervise white employees!

This created a cruel crescendo of buildings falling into disrepair; black men earning paltry salaries or out of work, marriages and families fracturing, people turning to crime to support families, black men arrested and jailed. While mothers worked, children were left on their own, and were vulnerable to gang influence. When a housing development got bad enough, the state/city decided to demolish it. Then builders constructed new, good quality housing for white families! Black tenants had to double up in relatives’ apartments in other housing for African-Americans. Overcrowded housing was common for poor immigrants, and now for African-American families, causing more stress and difficulties.

The flip side of this scenario, blacks being moved out to make room for whites, was ‘blockbusting.’ This occurred when real estate agents lied or exaggerated to white home owners that blacks had started moving into the neighborhood. This ‘effective’ scare tactic resulted in ‘white flight’; white families fleeing urban neighborhoods to find homes in the suburbs. Real estate agents then sold homes to blacks at higher prices, mortgaged at higher interest rates, and added other fees and penalties some of which buyers were not advised. In many cases, the real estate agents and banks wanted African-American owners to default on payments. Blacks would then be evicted without any equity, and the process would begin again with new people desperate for housing!

These policies were often protested, and government agencies sued, which brought some changes to the law. But because racism was insidious, those in authority felt above the law, free to ruthlessly, and often openly continue their egregious behavior, filled with hate and prejudice.

The ludicrous rationale used by these racists: blacks want to live by themselves, not with white citizens. The truth is that in the 19th century there were many ethnic neighborhoods (Greeks, Jews, Italians, Russian, etc.) in many cities where each group’s landsmen spoke the same language, practiced the same religion, cooked and ate the same foods, and who helped each other through difficult times. They were hopeful, ambitious, and wanted to fully participate in, and enjoy the freedoms of this country, and raise their families in peace and prosperity.

African-Americans were no different; they wanted the same rights and benefits. They obeyed the laws, worked hard, paid taxes, served (and died) in the military defending our country, and raised their families. They did not choose to live in inferior, crowded housing, kept far from good schools, jobs, cultural institutions and medical facilities. They did not deserve to be marginalized, disenfranchised, treated as less than 2nd class citizens. No one deserves that.

Other ridiculous racist excuses were that blacks were morally and mentally inferior, or that having integrated neighborhoods would result in miscegenation. Or that blacks would bring drugs and crime. Again, untrue. Drugs were used more often by white people. Drugs and crime found in some African-American neighborhoods were the results of decades of poverty, deprivation and hopelessness due many things including lack of job training and good-paying jobs.

And all because the South could not accept that the Civil War had ended, and they had lost. Slavery and Jim Crow were over for many, many years but the people of the South were stubborn and hard-hearted like Pharaoh in the Bible’s story of Exodus, and would not let the ‘slaves’ go. Disenfranchising, impoverishing, cheating, jailing, and expunging the voice of black human beings was the new form of slavery and Jim Crow!

Gradually, the government was finally forced into enforcing laws to stop housing segregation. In reality, some racist policies linger. Additionally, it may take decades to rectify the pervasive imbalance of unequal and illegal treatment, and the long-lasting damage done to our country.

The harm to African-American citizens includes: Economic Inequality between white and African-Americans. Southern racism permeated most aspects of politics and government. To win elections Northern politicians made evil deals with Southern politicians to maintain the status quo of horrific Jim Crow laws, and 2nd class treatment of blacks. By being excluded from the advantages of integrated housing with mortgages insured by the FHA, not given access to job training or good jobs, and being overcharged for inferior segregated housing, African-Americans did not benefit from the wealth the US generated. This has created a huge ‘wealth gap.’

Secondly, Educational Inequality - African-Americans lived in inferior over-crowded neighborhoods, attended poorly funded schools which did not have the resources white schools offered. Less libraries, cultural institutions, parks and more, black children had less opportunities to develop, grow and benefit educationally. That, of course, limits future success.

Additionally, Health Inequality - black neighborhoods often located near industries releasing toxins into the air, and because housing developments aged and fell into disrepair without regular maintenance. The original lead in pipes leached into water supply, and lead in old wall paint was eaten by hungry children. Many African-Americans suffer from asthma. Ingesting lead can harm developing brains, and result in violent behavior when child is older.

What about the emotional and psychological toll, the anger, depression and fear? How do we measure and quantify that pain?
Systemic racism, particularly housing segregation, has badly hurt all citizens of this country. It prevented millions of blacks and whites from living, going to school, working, worshipping together. Simply being neighbors and friends. Helping each other, bonding, and developing trust. A huge, unnecessary loss to all of us. Imagine how much better all our lives would have been had housing and neighborhoods been fully integrated.

Rothstein offers suggestions on remedies including giving African-Americans the homes they were prevented from owning in the past, reparations and a few compelling others.

My thoughts: The Color of Law was instructive and heart-breaking; revealing and maddening. To mistreat African-Americans, citizens, human beings, by deliberately planning, codifying, and carrying out immoral and illegal policies of exclusion. Leaving out one group of people based on race and nothing more. Rejecting, ostracizing hard-working people with dreams, skills, talents and needs like all human beings, to ensure they got the message that they were not welcome or wanted. To guarantee they remain poor, less educated, less healthy and certainly NOT happy. To make them work for whites for less pay, help defend our country, then lie to and cheat them of their full rights. To allow whites to harass, intimidate, and attack them when African-Americans moved to better neighborhoods, and to have officers of the law stand by and do nothing to protect them. To write untrue inciteful, inflammatory articles against blacks to scare whites from caring, or helping them. To intentionally set them up for failure. This is pure evil, and self-perpetuating. In effect, this is character assassination of a race of people, nothing less than wholesale murder of the spirit of a people!

Some will excuse it saying times were different but these policies have continued for over a century in different forms. And we clearly see that prejudice and racism still survive today.

Others will say the poor, uneducated people of the South didn’t know better. They felt threatened by blacks succeeding when they couldn’t, or of losing their free labor. Jealousy and greed are poor excuses for brutalizing people. But presidents, government officers, and other leaders cannot claim ignorance as an excuse. They had been educated, but didn’t exercise that privilege humanely or benevolently. Instead they chose to perpetuate the status quo by continuing inequality, with its harsh attitudes to and cruel treatment of black people.
There is so much information in this book that I know I haven’t covered everything. There is much I didn’t know about housing segregation, and so many other forms of discrimination. I need to continue reading and learning. It was hard to swallow and process this jarring and sorrowful topic, so I read it slowly. I needed to give myself time to digest, and attempt to fathom the enormity of evil in what the US, this country of much potential and hope, has done.

I hope others will read The Color of Law to understand the troubling truth of American history, and how because the U.S. defaulted on its promise of democracy, equality, and freedom for all must now make amends to African-Americans on a grand scale. show less

I often don't pay close attention to year-end best-of lists for books, since most of them focus on fiction, which I rarely read. That said, I do take note of non-fiction lists, and one book that was on many such best-of lists last year was Richard Rothstein's account of housing segregation in America. Previous to reading it, I'd heard about redlining and the maps (like the one on the cover) that they refer to, but I was as guilty as most Americans in not having enough knowledge of this "forgotten" history. (I actually wonder if "forgotten" in the book's subtitle should be replaced with "untold.") Rothstein's history is deeply researched (with many long footnotes), clearly told, and one of the best books I've read in recent years, well show more worth all the year-end praise.

In "The Color of Law" Rothstein provides evidence and stories of how racial housing segregation in the United States last century was mandated by the government. It was, as he describes it repeatedly, de jure segregation rather than de facto segregation; the former is in accordance with law while the latter arises from social factors. But Rothstein doesn't just tell a history, he also argues for some fixes (none of them easy) for the lasting effects of residential segregation. Perhaps knowing the controversy of his book's subject and the difficulty in people swallowing his fixes, he even supplies a section of Frequently Asked Questions -- and clear-headed answers -- at the back of the book. It's a history I wish didn't exist, but one that needed to be told in just the way Rothstein did. show less

This book was recommended by a guy who testified at our City Council. He provided annotated copies to all our councilmembers. I was so impressed I went straight to the library and got a copy.

The book is about the US government's direct involvement in US housing segregation history. Its central thesis is that our current narrative assumes that housing segregation is a "de facto" issue brought about largely because of individual / local expressions of racism, when the reality is that it is a "de jure" decision made by federal, state and local governments over a long historical period. It is very convincing and well-argued.

The final chapter contains several ideas for reducing the levels of segregation in American cities and show more suburbs.
• Educate people that segregation was purposeful and government-incentivized and funded (current K-12 materials on American history make it sound like it was just due to the attitudes of residents rather than actual rules, regulations and laws)
• Revive George Romney’s idea from the 70s about denying HUD funds to any jurisdictions that exacerbate or prolong segregation through exclusionary zoning (“Open Communities”)
• Protect the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule (sort of on the back burner in Trump/Carson admin but can be revived)
• Federal subsidies for African American homeownership programs for specifically highly white communities
• Ban zoning ordinances that prohibit multifamily housing or mandate large lot sizes
• Require inclusionary zoning (Portland a bit ahead of the curve here)
• “Fair Share Act” to require states to establish mechanisms to ensure that every jurisdiction houses a representative share of African Americans and low income people
• Increase Section 8 subsidies to African Americans renting in high rent communities and increase vouchers to all who qualify (as we do for the mortgage income deduction which applies to everyone and is not first-come-first-serve)

For all who are interested in the US housing sector and racial equity, I highly recommend it. show less

Rothstein had me for the first 80% of this book. He effectively explains why segregation in the US was de jure and not de facto (notwithstanding the incorrect words of our esteemed Chief Justice who has stated that discrimination in housing is de facto.) I don't want to go all law school on everyone, but this is an essential distinction. Basically, de facto segregation means that, yes there is segregation, but it just happened as a side effect of other things, it was not a result of state action, and de jure segregation means that the government took action and created policies and laws with the goal of segregating people based on race. That is a huge distinction. Rothstein has provided a thorough and crushing account of the many ways show more in which the US government created segregation and continued down that path until it was so entrenched that it became economically impossible for black Americans to ever catch up to white Americans in terms of personal net worth. Yes, anecdotally there are exceptions to that rule, but practically because of the way in which real property has appreciated since the 1930s, and because that is where the majority of middle-class American personal wealth resides, even if we were to fix all the other racist systems at work in America the median personal wealth of black Americans will never catch up to white Americans. The way that this happened is shocking and Rothstein's positions are well supported.

So, what happened in the last 20% of the book? Rothstein started talking about solutions. Some are sensible and being used in some cities (though the numbers need to go up.) He talks some about fair share laws, which require developers to set aside a certain number of housing units in new developments for low (or at least lower) income residents. These programs, where they exist (and they should be expanded) are all based on income rather than race. Rothstein would like to see that change. Race based fair share laws though are unlikely to withstand constitutional scrutiny. Whether they would withstand scrutiny is a question that will likely never be answered because to be subjected to scrutiny Congress would have to pass legislation requiring developers to set aside x% of all new units for black people and to charge less for those units. That is NEVER going to happen. Rothstein makes even more farfetched suggestions like setting a minimum number of housing units in an existing community which must be owned by black people and if that number is not met everyone who lives in that community loses their mortgage deduction. You want to see revolution in the streets in America? Take away the mortgage deduction. For middle income Americans the mortgage deduction is the only thing that makes home ownership possible - with wage stagnation most people who have mortgages would not be able to pay them as well as taxes without the deduction. It is a suggestion that leaves the wealthy in homes they own and acquire equity in and pushes lower and middle income homeowners into rentals where they get no equity or onto the streets. It creates MORE poor people. It is stupid, and it is also unconstitutionally broad. The truth is that there are no ways to address the past government wrongs or the current inequality that was caused by those wrongs in any sweeping way that would ever pass through Congress, and if there was it would almost certainly fail in the courts on constitutional grounds. I know I am supposed to be all "40 acres and a mule" but its not feasible. I mean how would someone even go about proving they are entitled to compensation? Do they have to prove that their grandparents tried to buy a home and the FHA rules that allowed funds only to white people were the reason they did not. Or that their grandparents were closed out of buying in better parts of town, farther from railroad tracks and chemical plants, due to covenants required by the FHA? Or are we just going to say that compensation goes to all black people? What if I am African or West Indian and my family came to the US after the end of de jure segregation? Do I still qualify for compensation? What if I had a black forbearer but have always identified as white? Anyway, this stuff is crazy pants. Also, Rothstein's epilogue where he "responds" to questions like this is silly. It all comes down to "suck it up." Look, I get that its not very helpful to people who have been historically and irreparably held back from economic success for us to understand what happened and to acknowledge that it is yet another shameful chapter in the history of America. I do think there are some small things that can be done, and I think we all need to push our legislators to embrace things like fair share legislation and require landlords to rent to section 8 tenants in all of their buildings and not just those units in poor neighborhoods. These things make a difference. But we also need to face that we cannot fully erase the impact of our past wrongs. There are things that cannot be undone. I am not abdicating responsibility, I am suggesting that we all accept that affirmative action policies in housing, education and employment are essential, and that as allies we push to strengthen those polices after years of erosion. If that inconveniences those of us who are white that is something we have to suck up (unlike a policy that steals our homes, which we do not have to suck up.) The fact that at the time much of this was happening my own relatives were busy having their property seized by Lithuania, Latvia and Poland because they were Jews, and then later after having been sent to Siberia they were busy getting murdered by Lenin in the pogroms, that doesn't mean that I don't need to sacrifice to begin to right this ship. Still, we can't undo what was done and some professor ranting about what we need to do even if it violates the constitution and dispossesses many Americans isn't helpful. Those problems with the ending in no way rob the book of its value. There is so much in here Americans all need to know, and every American (or any person interested in America) should read this. show less

This book is a continuation of my education in African American history – this time via applied zoning laws as a means of social segregation. I personally know many people who would bristle under the presumption that they both take this for granted and benefit from it. Because I feel like my anti-racist education can’t go forward without this topic being explored, I needed to read this book.

While a lot of what I learned from this book made me really hot under the collar, I can’t dispute anything I found in it especially because it’s based on what I already knew to be true. Still, I think this book could have been a bit more concise and as someone who doesn’t understand “legalese” I didn’t pay much attention to everything show more I was reading. Not that this book is just for lawyers – but I feel like the topic might be more self-evident to someone who works in civics. I know when I’m out of my league and under-exposed; I know when to throw in the towel.

Without going too far into it, where I was raised, segregation and racism is normalized even in 2020 even more obviously than it is in a lot of places in the United States. It is perfectly normal her for “Black Churches” and “White Churches,” “Black” Gas stations and “White” Gas stations. We do go to the same basic public buildings – schools are inter-racial because they are smaller and serve more rural areas, but we have made national news at least twice in my life-time for having segregated High School proms. Still, I understand that this is neither normal nor the exception.
With this book, you can illustrate the current state of socioeconomic in American cities, and give your anti-racist education a little flavor. Otherwise, the book offers very little by way of solutions except through awareness. It’s a bit dry on it’s own, and repetitive, but it does the job.

If you enjoyed this review, you can find it and others like it here show less

If you think that segregation in the US persisted mostly because of private discrimination, you are wrong; even if you don’t, you may be surprised by the pervasive involvement of federal, state and local governments in creating and maintaining segregation and the economic disenfranchisement of African-Americans. For example, World War II defense projects “played a particularly important role in segregating urban areas … where few African Americans had previously lived. In some cities, the government provided war housing only for whites, leaving African Americans in congested slums.” In 1960, Savannah evicted all white families from an integrated housing project, arguing that “whites could easily find homes elsewhere.” In show more Miami, “African Americans eligible for public housing were assigned to distinct projects while eligible whites were given vouchers for rentals of private apartments to subsidize their dispersal throughout the community. It was not until 1998 that civil rights groups won a requirement that vouchers be offered to African Americans as well—too late to reverse the city’s segregation.” And on and on. In St. Louis, as elsewhere, zoning boards made exceptions to residential neighborhood rules “to permit dangerous or polluting industry to locate in African American areas.” Or, if integration threatened, areas would be rezoned by localities or land condemned to prevent integrated areas from being built. The University of Chicago, supported by tax exemptions, engaged in an expensive, successful campaign to maintain segregation around its environs. In Houston, the famously “unzoned” city, city planners separated previously adjacent black and white schools to different sides of the city to make families choose “their” side.

Further afield, government supported private attempts to limit African-American incomes through racially segregated unions and otherwise. In 1942, the feds took over training agencies, “which generally refused to enroll African Americans in training for skilled work. [The federal agency’s] instructions to local offices advised that if a company failed to specify a racial exclusion in its request for workers, the office should solicit one.” Property taxes tend to be overassessed in black neighborhoods and underassessed in white ones, ensuring again that it’s expensive to be black.

Ending overt discrimination has come too late: the structural advantage that white families got from buying a suburban house for $8000 ($75,000 in today’s dollars) has become embedded in white wealth. Rothstein argues for generally progressive policies to start addressing these problems, but I liked his off-the-wall proposal that “the federal government should purchase the next 15 percent of houses that come up for sale in Levittown at today’s market rates (approximately $ 350,000). It should then resell the properties to qualified African-Americans for $75,000, the price (in today’s dollars) that their grandparents would have paid if permitted to do so.” The epilogue discusses various objections about white innocence and the admitted disruption that would take place if we tried to fix things—ending with the powerful point that creating the current segregation required a lot of social engineering, and it’s a bit rich (so to speak) to reject government intervention now to fix it. show less

Segregation continues to be the rule in the United States today as most neighborhoods, cities, and suburbs are greatly tilted to be either mostly white or mostly African American. Politicians, pundits, and everyday people consider this de facto segregation, based on the choices of individuals to live among people of "their own kind," or credit the wealth disparity that prevents Blacks from affording to live in white areas.

In this book, Rothstein argues that this common wisdom is all wrong. He argues, with lots of evidence provided, that in the past 100 years, the Federal, state, and local governments have created de jure segregation of housing. By historically being shut out from housing opportunities offered to whites, African show more Americans were unable to build equity and create generational wealth to pass on to later generations, contributing to the prosperity gap that exists today. The places where Blacks and whites live today were created by the de jure segregation laws of the past, and laws against discrimination are only half-measures in that they do not undo the damage done in the past.

Here are some of the ways in which the government segregated housing detailed in the book:

• Federal Housing Authority subsidizes housing in whites-only subdivisions.


• FHA enables redlining by refusing to insure African American mortgages.


• FHA regulations for segregation actually written into widely-distributed manuals. Local projects that intended to be integrated could be forced to follow these Federal regulations.


• Public housing projects built for whites were larger and better resourced, while separate public housing for Blacks were usually smaller and something of an afterthought. White projects often had vacancies while Black projects had waiting lists.


• Property taxes overassesed in Black neighborhoods and underaccessed in white neighborhoods, adding to the burden of making ends meet for Black families.


• Government programs that enabled whites to buy homes in the suburbs not available to Blacks. A generation of African Americans ended up trapped in decaying cities, far away from good jobs that had also moved to the suburbs.


• Restrictive covenants that prohibit Blacks from moving into white neighborhoods granted legal protection.


• Highway projects deliberately targeted Black neighborhoods for construction, demolishing viable communities and creating barriers around what remained (while at the same time benefiting prosperous white car owners commuting between city and suburbs).


• Police and governments allow and abet violence by whites against Blacks who move into white neighborhoods. If fact, Black victims more likely to be charged with a crime if any legal action is taken at all.


• IRS maintains tax exemptions for organizations that fund segregated housing.


• Housing segregation serves as a stumbling block to integration of schools.


• Government aware that Black home buyers were being targeted for risky subprime mortgages but fail to act on regulations to protect them.


• Section 8 vouchers restrict African Americans to housing located only in poor, African American neighborhoods

Rothstein also offers a final chapter with several solutions to segregation and inequality in the United States:

• Education - this book is a good start to countering the widespread belief in de facto segregation based on individual's preferences and prejudices. The history of the government's support for funding and requiring segregation must also be taught in schools.


• Revive George Romney's proposals to deny HUD funds to any communities that use exclusionary zoning to enable housing segregation.


• Use the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing of the Fair Housing Act to rectify barriers to desegregation of housing.


• Subsidies for African American homebuyers in predominately white areas (in a sense, restitution for their parents, grandparents, great-parents being unable to buy homes in these areas back when whites purchased homes at bargain rates).


• End zoning regulations that prohibit multifamily housing or require large lots.


• Promote inclusionary zoning.


• “Fair Share Act” to require states to establish mechanisms to ensure that every jurisdiction houses a representative share of African Americans and low income people.


• Allow African Americans to use Section 8 subsidies in areas with higher rents, and model Section 8 programs on the mortgage income deduction which applies to all rather than being first-come, first-serve.

This is a powerful and important book and should be read by all Americans who care about creating a just and equitable country. show less