The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America 1st Edition by Richard Rothstein (Liveright)

When William Julius Wilson writes that a book is "the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation," it grabs your attention. Rothstein's book is exactly that--a seminal work on the history of housing discrimination that is required reading for anyone who cares about the effect of residential segregation on cities and schools in our country.

Rothstein demonstrates that such segregation isn't the result of just or even primarily individual choices, such as "white flight," as has long been popularly understood--what legal experts call "de facto" segregation. Instead, with example after example, he proves that housing segregation is the result of decades of explicit government policies--"de jure" discrimination--which prevented blacks and whites from living together as a matter of law (not just personal preference) throughout most of the 20th century.

In just one of the many examples Rothstein gives, he cites the case of Wallace Stegner, the fiction writer, who was recruited to teach at Stanford immediately after WWII. Housing was scarce across the country during this post-war period. Stegner and friends formed a cooperative to purchase a 260-acre ranch in Palo Alto in which they planned to build 400 affordable homes for low-paid professors and other working-class families. The co-op had 150 members, three of whom were black. But as part of its official policy, the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) wouldn't insure loans to a cooperative or development that included black residents. And no bank would issue a loan or a mortgage to any builder or developer without this government backing. Thus, the cooperative was effectively barred from creating integrated housing--even when its members wanted it! Their "choice," in fact, wasn't a choice--but was the result of "de jure" discrimination. Because the Veterans' Administration also relied on FHA rules for underwriting, black servicemen were similarly barred from receiving the same VA loans for housing that white vets enjoyed. As Rothstein shows, such practices weren't just characteristic of the Jim Crow south, but occurred in every metropolitan area and region of the country.

As a result, blacks were barred from participating in the post-war housing boom and the wealth this boom created for the generations that followed, resulting in the wealth discrepancy that is still evident today. These government policies also effectively combined to prevent blacks from working at better jobs (located far from where they were allowed to live) or attending better schools. Instead, blacks were frequently confined to rental apartments, which actually cost more than comparable housing would cost in white neighborhoods, further eroding any economic gains blacks might make.

As Rothstein shows, in the rare instances that African Americans did manage to buy housing in white neighborhoods, they typically encountered racial violence to drive them from their homes; such violence was tolerated or even encouraged by local authorities. As Rothstein shows, school boards similarly promoted segregated housing as official policy. At every turn, for decade after decade, it was virtually impossible for blacks to improve their station by moving into middle-class neighborhoods where whites also lived and where economic and educational opportunities congregated.

Such policies, although clearly unconstitutional, persisted throughout most of the 20th century, Rothstein writes, and continue to have a profound influence on the prospects for blacks today. Even the conservative justices of the Supreme Court have acknowledged that "de jure" discrimination must be remedied. It is thus Rothstein's conclusion that we must acknowledge and address the effects of this injustice, whose discriminatory impact is ongoing. Along with Matthew Desmond's book "Evicted," Rothstein's "The Color of Law" demands a radical rethinking of how we conceive of segregation--and how to address it.