The Color of Law A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (z-lib.org).epub

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A New Deal housing agency drew maps of metropolitan areas nationwide.Neighborhoods where African Americans resided were colored red to cautionappraisers not to approve loans. This map is of Detroit.
WHEN CHIEF JUSTICE John Roberts wrote that if residential segregation “isa product not of state action but of private choices, it does not haveconstitutional implications,” he set forth a principle. But the principlesupported his conclusion—that government remedies for segregation wereimpermissible—only because he assumed an inaccurate factual background:that residential segregation was mostly created by private choices.We need not argue with the chief justice’s principle; his jurisprudence isflawed mainly because he and his colleagues got their facts wrong.Residential segregation was created by state action, making it necessary toinvoke the inseparable complement of the Roberts principle: wheresegregation is the product of state action, it has constitutional implicationsand requires a remedy.Just like Supreme Court justices, we as a nation have avoidedcontemplating remedies because we’ve indulged in the comfortable delusionthat our segregation has not resulted primarily from state action and so, weconclude, there is not much we are required to do about it. Because onceentrenched, segregation is difficult to reverse, the easiest course is to ignoreit.It’s not that private choices haven’t also been involved. Many Americanshad discriminatory beliefs and engaged in activities that contributed toseparating the races. Without the support of these private beliefs and actions,our democratically elected governments might not have discriminated either.But under our constitutional system, government has not merely the optionbut the responsibility to resist racially discriminatory views, even when—especially when—a majority holds them. In the twentieth century, federal,state, and local officials did not resist majority opinion with regard to race.Instead, they endorsed and reinforced it, actively and aggressively.If government had declined to build racially separate public housing incities where segregation hadn’t previously taken root, and instead hadscattered integrated developments throughout the community, those citiesmight have developed in a less racially toxic fashion, with fewer desperateghettos and more diverse suburbs.If the federal government had not urged suburbs to adopt exclusionaryzoning laws, white flight would have been minimized because there would
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THE COLOROF LAWA FORGOTTEN HISTORY
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CONTENTSPreface1. If San Francisco,
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PREFACEWHEN, FROM 2014 TO 2016, rio
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of slavery. Actions that made Afric
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view that an action is not unconsti
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Most disturbing about Justice Stewa
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segregation doesn’t fall into thi
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factors were also involved, we “n
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1IF SAN FRANCISCO, THENEVERYWHERE?
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to walk. In rural Louisiana in the
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when Richmond’s black population
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workers at different workstations w
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reserved for military use, the gove
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and other leading California banks
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2PUBLIC HOUSING, BLACKGHETTOS
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ITHE FEDERAL government first devel
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took office. The PWA’s goal was t
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Despite the neighborhood’s biraci
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played a particularly important rol
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be addressed to African Americans,
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dormitories for single men, and the
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Liberals, led by Minnesota Senator
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did not apply to housing. In 1955,
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cease building public housing altog
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* In New York City an unusually lar
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St. Louis, 1916. Leaflet urging vot
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the state’s public universities,
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basement toilets were constructed f
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twentieth-century segregation. The
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American areas in official planning
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draw African American families to s
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introducing into a neighborhood . .
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metropolitan areas today, and what
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In 1991, the Environmental Protecti
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Detroit, 1941. The Federal Housing
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Here, too, Secretary of Commerce He
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which modern homes can be built.”
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whites-only requirement, racial seg
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then blacklisted Mr. Cohn, advising
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couldn’t buy into the development
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were willing to give these concessi
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1946 on Houston’s northwest side.
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listeners that such segregated proj
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Daly City, California, 1949. FHA di
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So increasingly in the twentieth ce
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obtained a legal opinion that each
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nearby the neighborhood but also lo
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and as such violated the Fourteenth
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the [two-and-half-month delay].”
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for damages against fellow signator
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6WHITE FLIGHT
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neighborhood, would cause the value
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knocking on doors to see if homes w
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African Americans in Chicago had be
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7IRS SUPPORT AND COMPLIANTREGULATOR
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ITHE IRS has always had an obligati
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one of the few times before Shelley
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whether to allow it to proceed. It
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require the nondiscriminatory appro
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subprime loans, and higher-income A
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In 2008 the City of Cleveland sued
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Miami, 1966. Mayor Chuck Hall sends
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recreational opportunities, a well-
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advise its black members in Richmon
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formed carpools to share the hundre
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wife forged ahead, scaling back the
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homes outside the ghetto and theref
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overcome the constitutional prohibi
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After Miami-Dade mayor Chuck Hall s
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construction on the Eastside of a n
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blocks were interspersed in central
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a frequent twentieth century slogan
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Levittown, Pennsylvania, 1954. A cr
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happened that in 1957 an African Am
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status than the white neighbors who
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Cicero’s council president boaste
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Nor can the failure to control mob
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A policeman inspects damage after t
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10SUPPRESSED INCOMESSausalito, Cali
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then these economic policies are al
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to permit African Americans to take
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membership or that segregated them
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African Americans could not promote
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First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt suppor
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Page 180 and 181: described how, when his family live
Page 182 and 183: example, the minimum lot size for h
Page 184 and 185: 11LOOKING FORWARD, LOOKINGBACK
Page 186 and 187: President Kennedy’s 1962 executiv
Page 188 and 189: • We waited too long to try to un
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Page 192 and 193: good to succeed and exhibit more th
Page 194 and 195: above it. Notwithstanding the gover
Page 196 and 197: Along with the mortgage interest de
Page 198 and 199: rented in neighborhoods where the p
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Page 202 and 203: Plano, Texas, 2016. Attorney Elizab
Page 204 and 205: achievement more difficult. Conside
Page 206 and 207: obligations. Short of that, we can
Page 208 and 209: information to do so. Giving suburb
Page 210 and 211: Of course, no presently constituted
Page 212 and 213: rule, then any suburb whose African
Page 214 and 215: housing or low- and moderate-income
Page 216 and 217: The housing subsidy that the federa
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Page 220 and 221: educated household as a result of T
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Page 226 and 227: APPENDIXFREQUENTLY ASKEDQUESTIONS
Page 228 and 229: specialists. These discussions have
Page 230 and 231: this day, so it is up to our genera
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Page 234 and 235: duped. Integration cannot wait unti
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Page 238 and 239: We should not overemphasize the ext
Page 240 and 241: added to higher incarceration and u
Page 242 and 243: many low-income Hispanic youth livi
Page 244 and 245: is rising. Higher rents and propert
Page 246 and 247: AUTHOR’S NOTE ANDACKNOWLEDGMENTSF
Page 248 and 249: Christopher Edley, then dean of the
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Page 252 and 253: Christian Ringdal, then a graduate
Page 254 and 255: If there was a question I didn’t
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Page 258 and 259: FRONTISPIECEWhen in his second inau
Page 260 and 261: Negro?” The agent answered, “No
Page 262 and 263: Americans, was constructed in a nei
Page 264 and 265: Alancraig 1953, 93-96; Broussard 19
Page 266 and 267: p. 35, 2 In 1987, more than a deca
Page 268 and 269: Americans as Reconstruction ended.
Page 270 and 271: understand how Roosevelt planned to
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Grumman during the war, then formed
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p. 80, 4 Pates 1948; Claremont Imp
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$2,000 paid to each of eight neighb
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group of neighborhoods that were in
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solely for charitable, religious, o
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studies (e.g., Squires, Hyra, and R
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African American workers when the p
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the personnel manager of a Fremont
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persuasive to an all-white jury, an
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p. 161, 2 Independent Metal Worker
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The floor leader for the Fair Housi
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wage immigrants, and because lower-
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Herbers 1969; Lilley 1970; Bonastia
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p. 212, 3 Kirp 1982, 142-44.APPEND
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“appreciated the difficulties of
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BIBLIOGRAPHYTHE AVAILABILITY OF sou
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crisis that we can, if we have the
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Mayers v. Ridley. 1972. U.S. Court
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Barr, Michael S. 2009. “Community
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Bonastia, Christopher. 2006. Knocki
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Clark, Charles D. 1938. “Federal
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Drake, St. Clair, and Horace R. Cay
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Graves, Donna. 2004. Mapping Richmo
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———. 2000a. “Choosing Segre
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Kantrowitz, Stephen. 2000. Ben Till
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Little (Arthur D. Little, Inc.). 19
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Fargo, Case 2:09-cv-02857-STA-dkv,
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Nixon, Richard. 1973. “Special Me
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San Francisco Office of the America
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———. 2004. Class and Schools:
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Sharkey, Patrick. 2013. Stuck in Pl
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Thompson, David. 2014. “As a UCLA
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Waters, Mary C., and Marisa Gerstei
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Wood, Lewis. 1949. “Truman Puts B
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72 The Veterans Administration subs
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INDEXPage numbers listed correspond
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school placement decisions, 134-36A
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violence against movers, 146Bridgep
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CIO, see unions, Congress of Indust
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Country Club District (Kansas City)
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FBI, see Federal Bureau of Investig
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Guilford (Baltimore County), 171Ham
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Ida B. Wells Homes (Chicago), 24, 2
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Kushner, James A., see “Apartheid
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Massachusetts, see Boston; Brooklin
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National Association of Real Estate
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Ohio, see Cincinnati; Cleveland; To
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during New Deal, frontispiece, ii,
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litigation regarding, 81-82, 85, 89
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see also specific citiesSan Jose (C
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see also specific states and locali
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UAW, see unions, United Auto Worker
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mobility, see mobility, wealthWeave
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Copyright © 2017 by Richard Rothst
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The Color of Law A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (z-lib.org).epub

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