The Color of Law

A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

By: Richard Rothstein

Narrated by: Adam Grupper

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. 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.

©2017 Richard Rothstein (P)2017 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"With confidence and clarity, narrator Adam Grupper describes discriminatory laws governing the actions of the Federal Housing Administration, Department of Education, Department of Veterans Affairs, and other government agencies that have shaped African-Americans' ability to gain wealth, health, education, and voting power, not merely in the past but in the present day.... The Color of Law is compelling and convincing - and maybe even essential." (AudioFile)

An essential read

Puts the visible, yet seemingly mysterious effects of a long history of segregation into context and perspective. A must read for anyone who's ever wondered why we are so siloed, or why "those people" are the way that they - over there.

A Must Read

Crystallizes American history and law in a riveting narrative. Well researched and explained. Concepts are crucial to moving our country forward.

good read

Breaks it down quite well. Very informative in regards to "legal" and "constitutional" inclusion or exclusion to permit the use of segregation whether there are during recognizable eras like Jim Crow or familiar times of today. its all connected and should be taken into consideration for these times where change is mostly needed. good read!

Eye opening and actionable

Knowledge is power! This book is an important resource and clear reminder of our current responsibilities as a nation to live up to its constitution.

Great Real Estate educational read

The book was very informative and an eye opener for me. I enjoyed reading every minute of it!

Enlightening!

Great book.

I live in the midsouth and it is interesting to hear about how our city got so "pockety."

Knowing how we got here is step 1

I was blown away. I thought I knew the ways in which racism played a role in the holding African Americans down and back. This book took the few pieces of the puzzle I knew about and painted the entire picture. Anyone who wants to understand why there is a nationwide outcry for a crisis in one area can now understand that there is a broader history that ties all these events together... always.

must read for understanding segregation in the U.S

highlights the roots of spatial and economic segregation in the U.S. we should be learning these things in public schools.

A Must Read

This may well be the most important writing that I will read in my lifetime. Well organized, to the point, fact based, argued objectively.

fact-driven portrayal of housing segregation

i grew up in the North and took pride that we hadn't committed the segregation atrocities of the Jim Crow South. I was raised on the history books that gave just a sentence to redlining or discrimination. Rothstein's account traces law by law, news story by news story accounts to present a compelling case for just how widely and deeply housing discrimination has been throughout our country and ways it can persist today. he offers a few brief remedies that can and should be debated. as someone not in law, it was accessible to follow.