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In The Color of Law, historian Richard Rothstein argues that segregation is not a natural phenomenon in the US. He claims it’s de jure rather than de facto and that it has been implemented by all levels of government. This segregation is responsible for African Americans being impoverished and blocked from homeownership. Even today, governments are still actively segregating American cities to African Americans’ disadvantage.
In the first chapter, Rothstein explains that segregation was illegal but still existed in many cities. In Richmond, California, a black man named Frank Stevenson worked at Ford Motor Company and lived with his family in an apartment complex near the factory. After World War II ended and production slowed down, Ford moved its operations to Milpitas—an hour away from where Stevenson lived—and he had no way of getting there because African Americans were not allowed to live there. The government made it so only white people could get housing loans for houses in certain areas while excluding others based on their race. This created segregated neighborhoods where African Americans were forced to live and services such as schools and hospitals were taken away from them over time as they became poorer communities.
The government has used several methods to segregate the country. In this book, Rothstein examines public housing and how it was built in different neighborhoods based on race. He states that after World War II, African Americans were moved into segregated projects because whites had left for the suburbs with federal assistance.
In the chapter, Rothstein explains zoning laws. The first zoning law was made up of height restrictions so buildings couldn’t be taller or shorter than the surrounding buildings and using setbacks to make this happen. Another example is how single-family houses are sensitive areas that have minimum density and maximum density in certain neighborhoods. Some blocks had no apartments on them at all due to these restricted zones for better living all around.
In Chapter Four, Rothstein explains how government prevented African Americans from moving into white suburbs. The New Deal made homeownership affordable for the middle class, which was a stepping-stone to the middle class—but only for white people. Roosevelt’s administration redlined black neighborhoods and refused to issue loans or insure bank mortgages in those areas.
Rothstein notes that loan restrictions were not the only factor keeping middle-class African Americans out of the suburbs. There was also a history of “restrictive covenants,” which prohibited white people from selling their homes to black people. Builders, homeowners, and homeowner’s associations used these clauses to keep neighborhoods segregated. The FHA continued promoting such covenants even after they were ruled unconstitutional in 1948 by the Supreme Court.
In Chapter Six, Rothstein looks at the actual justification for all this policy: the idea that African Americans moving into a neighborhood would cause the value of white-owned properties to decline. However, there is no evidence for this claim and actually all studies point to its opposite: because of segregation and discrimination, African Americans have always had to pay more than white people for the same housing. This allowed real estate agents to profit off blockbusting by selling homes on predatory contracts.
In Chapter Seven, Rothstein explains how the tax system has allowed racist churches and colleges to get away with their segregationist practices. The IRS didn’t stop these institutions from practicing racism in the 20th century, so they continued into the 21st century. The 2008 economic collapse was caused by predatory loans that were given out to poor Americans, which is a majority of black people. Banks specifically targeted black buyers for these loans because they knew that they would be more likely to default on them than white people.
