Book SummaryThe Color Of Law, by Richard Rothstein

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Color Of Law

Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law argues that racial residential segregation—the fact that some neighborhoods are almost exclusively African American while others are almost exclusively white—is the result of explicit government policy rather than personal choice. In other words, racial residential segregation in the United States is de jure (“by law”) rather than de facto (in this context, “by virtue of personal choices or random circumstances”). The distinction between de jure and de facto segregation is paramount, because de jure segregation is unconstitutional: It infringes the Fifth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

Each section below covers a specific way in which racial residential segregation was realized, from the segregation of public housing to labor-market discrimination.

(A note on terminology: Rothstein uses “Black” and “African American” interchangeably, and refers purposefully to “ghettos.” A “ghetto” describes a residential area with a concentrated minority, a shortage of opportunity, and significant barriers to exit. These three conditions apply to contemporary African American neighborhoods.)

Public Housing as a Segregating Agent

One of the most important methods by which government segregated cities was the construction of segregated public housing (“projects”) from World War I through to the 1960s and 1970s. By confining African Americans to subpar public housing in undesirable areas, federal, state, and local authorities promoted (1) the segregation of their cities and (2) the transformation of predominantly Black areas into slums.

Projects were segregated as a matter of policy. For example, they had to abide by the “neighborhood composition rule”—that is, they had to reflect the racial composition of the neighborhood around them.

During WWII, segregated projects were constructed near shipyards to house the influx of war workers. Black workers were housed close to worksites in shoddily constructed units, while white workers lived in sturdier projects further inland. (White workers were also subsidized to rent rooms from private landlords.)

After WWII, city-level public housing authorities used segregated public housing to ghettoize their African American residents. For example, in 1952, the NAACP took the San Francisco public housing authority to court, claiming that though the authority had promised to make all new construction integrated, it was trying to build a new segregated project. Under oath, the authority’s chairman admitted that the agency was purposely trying to confine African Americans to particular locations in the city.

Exclusionary Zoning Laws

Another key cause of racial residential segregation in the US was the enactment of discriminatory zoning laws. Zoning laws are local ordinances that limit how certain “zones”—or areas—in a municipality can be developed; racial zoning laws restricted African Americans from owning property in certain areas.

After the Supreme Court ruled racial zoning unconstitutional in Buchanan v. Warley, city authorities found workarounds and subterfuges that allowed them to continue segregating by race. Two such strategies were:

1) Economic Zoning

Officials passed ordinances limiting certain neighborhoods to single-family homes affordable only to middle-income people. Because African Americans had been historically and systematically discriminated against in the job market, many were lower-income and so could only afford housing in apartment buildings—structures that were banned by these ordinances. The result was that areas zoned for single-family homes stayed or became white while areas that allowed multiple-family dwellings stayed or became African American.

2) Industrial Zoning

Certain areas in municipalities are zoned specifically for industry to protect residents from nuisances like noise and air pollution. To further segregate their cities in the wake of Buchanan, city officials zoned areas near predominantly Black neighborhoods for industry. This move lowered property values in those areas, thereby reducing the current residents’ wealth and limiting their opportunities to move out.

An example of this method can be seen in South Central Los Angeles, a predominantly Black area. In the 1940s, the city began using “spot” rezoning ordinances to move automobile junkyards and commercial factories into the area, thus ghettoizing the residents.

Federal Loan Discrimination

The shortcoming of economic zoning—at least as far as segregationists were concerned—was that it was race-blind: If a Black family were wealthy enough, they could live in an economically zoned neighborhood. In order to keep African Americans confined to particular neighborhoods, the federal government pursued a two-pronged approach. First, it appraised areas that were majority African American as “risky” (a process known as “redlining”); then it denied loan guarantees and financial support to Black families attempting to live outside those areas.

The agency doing the denying was the Federal Housing Administration (“FHA”). Created to increase home ownership by insuring private bank mortgages and facilitating more advantageous terms, the FHA systematically discriminated against Black families. Their reasoning was that integration led to a “reduction in [property] values.”

Private Sector Abuses

Not all efforts to maintain and further residential segregation originated with the federal government; three common strategies—restrictive covenants, blockbusting, and contract sales—developed among private enterprises. Nevertheless, the federal government consistently condoned—or, at the very least, ignored—these injustices.

Restrictive Covenants

Restrictive covenants are stipulations in deeds that obligate the owner of the property to undertake certain actions or follow...

The Color Of Law Summary Shortform Introduction

Widely reviewed and discussed when it was published in 2017, Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law makes the case that racial residential segregation—the fact that African Americans largely live in discrete areas separate from white Americans—is the result of explicit government policy (“de jure” segregation) rather than personal preferences or random processes (“de facto” segregation). That is, historically, African Americans didn’t choose to live almost exclusively among themselves; rather, they were compelled to do so by** an array of discriminatory policies designed and implemented by...

The Color Of Law Summary Introduction

Before he delves into the discrete means by which government sponsored racial residential segregation, Rothstein discusses the terminology he’ll be using throughout the book and offers a brief history of de jure segregation.

A Note on Terminology

The use of the term “ghetto” to refer to predominantly Black neighborhoods has become unacceptable, but Rothstein argues the term accurately denotes the situation of racial residential segregation, and therefore uses it in his work. A ghetto describes a residential area with a concentrated minority, a shortage of opportunity, and significant barriers to exit. These three conditions apply to contemporary African American neighborhoods.

It is also habit to despecificate the African American experience by referring generally to “people of color.” Rothstein resists this habit, because the policies he discusses were designed to disadvantage African Americans specifically.

Rothstein uses “African American” and “Black” interchangeably in accordance with contemporary norms. He also occasionally uses the (now unacceptable) term “Negro” in historical contexts when that was the preferred nomenclature.

The History of De...

The Color Of Law Summary Chapter 1: Public Housing as a Segregating Agent

One of the most significant methods the federal government used to institute racial residential segregation was public housing policy. Throughout much of the 20th century, federal housing was segregated by race, and rules mandated that units for African Americans be built in predominantly African American areas and units for whites be built in predominantly white areas. These rules entrenched the racial makeup of areas that, but for the introduction of segregated public housing, could have remained—or been further—integrated.

A History of US Public Housing

In the contemporary imagination, public housing—or “projects,” as they’re colloquially known—is composed of dreary high rises, largely occupied by families of color headed by single mothers. This stereotype isn’t true: Present-day public housing can consist of attractive low-rise structures and count whites and BIPOC alike among its inhabitants. In fact, at least in its early history, public housing was the exclusive province of whites.

The first public housing units were built during World War I to accommodate war-industry workers. In this era, 83 projects housed 170,000 (white) workers. Although African...

The Color Of Law Summary Chapter 2: How Racial Zoning Laws Segregated Cities

Of course, public housing wasn’t the only means by which government furthered racial residential segregation. Another lever to separate whites from Blacks was racial zoning laws—rules that prohibited Blacks from owning property in white areas (and vice versa). The following sections detail the history of racial zoning in the US and explain how discrimination continued even after racial zoning was declared unconstitutional.

Integration and Its End in the Reconstruction Era

In the aftermath of the Civil War, African Americans gained not only their physical freedom but also a slate of civil and political rights. Formerly enslaved people scattered across the country and, for about a decade, integrated towns and lived relatively unharassed.

These gains were quickly reversed, however, with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes as president in 1877. In order to secure his election, which was disputed, abolitionist Republicans cut a deal with racist southern Democrats: If the Democrats voted for the Republican Hayes, his administration would remove the federal troops occupying the South. (The federal troops were there to keep the peace and enforce the civil rights laws passed...

The Color Of Law Summary Chapter 3: How the Federal Government Worsened Residential Segregation

The shortcoming of economic zoning—at least as far as segregationists were concerned—was that it was race-blind: Although many African American families were too poor to own single-family homes, not all were, and so if a Black family could afford to buy a single-family home, they could live in an economically zoned area.

Two policy objectives pursued by the federal government in the middle of the 20th century furthered the cause of segregation. Through agencies like the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), the government (1) encouraged and financed the movement of white families out of urban centers and into suburban tracts and (2) withheld that support from African Americans, thereby consigning them to those urban centers.

The Rise of the Suburbs

The origins of the government’s discriminatory interventions in the private housing market can be found in the early twentieth century. Elected officials, wary of the communist takeover in Russia, theorized that the wider ownership of property would act as a bulwark against communism (because the more people who owned property, the more people who would be committed to the...

The Color Of Law Summary Chapter 4: The Public—Private Push to Segregate

Years before the FHA adopted explicitly discriminatory policies that furthered racial residential segregation, private homeowners and developers regularly included racist “restrictive covenants” with deeds to particular properties. These covenants were ignored, then propped up, by the federal government, and so constitute a further incidence of de jure segregation.

Restrictive covenants comprised the obligations a purchaser of a property was agreeing to when he or she assumed ownership. They included stipulations concerning the color(s) the home could be painted or what kinds of foliage an owner could plant. They also frequently included a clause that forbade the owner from selling or renting to an African American. In the 20s, it was not uncommon to find among the list of prohibitions—of constructing a slaughterhouse or smithy on the premises, of producing noxious odors through manufacturing—a line limiting the property to “people of the Caucasian race” (with the notable exception, of course, of domestic workers). Often all the homes in a particular area would feature racist restrictive covenants, thus limiting that area to whites only.

The problem with...

The Color Of Law Summary Chapter 5: How the IRS and Regulatory Agencies Furthered Segregation

Government’s contribution to racial residential segregation didn’t end with federal and local housing programs or the FHA. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), as well as an array of regulator agencies, also exacerbated segregation by neglecting their constitutional obligations not to promote prejudice or discrimination.

The Role of the IRS in Racial Residential Segregation

The IRS contributed to racial residential segregation by failing to follow its own rules against promoting discrimination. One important area in which it did this was in the determination of tax-exempt status for US entities. IRS rules obligate the agency to withhold tax exemptions from organizations that countermand official public policy or promote prejudice and discrimination. Yet, throughout the middle of the 20th century, the IRS regularly conferred tax-exempt status on entities that contributed to racial residential segregation.

For instance, tax-exempt religious entities like churches and synagogues regularly promoted segregationist policies. In the 1940s, priests in North Philadelphia, Buffalo, New York, and Los Angeles spearheaded efforts to keep African Americans from moving...

The Color Of Law Summary Chapter 6: The Cooperation of Localities

As much as federal policy contributed to racial residential segregation, the small-scale efforts by state and municipal governments to keep their communities segregated, when considered in their totality, also clearly point to a system of de jure segregation in the United States.

One of the strategies localities used was zoning laws (as discussed in Chapter 3): reserving neighborhoods for single-family residences or industry, thereby funneling African Americans into overcrowded multi-family structures and loud or toxic areas. Others include:

• Withholding access to public utilities, reclassifying roads needed by African American families as “private,” and condemning privately owned land slated for integrated housing
• Pursuing “slum clearance” projects
• Using the placement of segregated schools to segregate cities
• Sanctioning violence against African Americans attempting to integrate neighborhoods

Segregationist Strategies on the Small Scale

One approach pursued by local officials to keep white communities segregated was to condemn privately owned land in white areas that was slated for African American families.

An illustrative example...

The Color Of Law Summary Chapter 7: Unequal Incomes and Racial Residential Segregation

Commentators inclined to argue against the fact of de jure segregation often point to other explanations for that segregation. One such explanation they put forward is the well-documented disparity between African Americans’ and whites’ incomes. According to this argument, racial residential segregation isn’t the product of purposeful governmental policy but rather African Americans’ lower incomes—if African Americans had higher earnings, they could live wherever they want, including areas where whites predominate.

However, this argument fails to account for the public policies whose express intent was to depress African American wages. In other words, Black Americans’ lower average incomes and wealth were too the product of purposeful government (in)action—and so part of the structure of de jure segregation.

In the following sections, we’ll trace the long history of labor market discrimination against African Americans before turning to the specific actions taken by entities like labor unions and the Fair Employment Practices Committee.

Labor Market Discrimination From Reconstruction to the New Deal

The story of African Americans’ unfair treatment in...

The Color Of Law Summary Chapter 8: The Lasting Effects of Historical Segregation

With the enactment of the Fair Housing Act in April 1968—a vote spurred by the tragedy of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination—the private segregationist practices described above finally became explicitly illegal. (Of course, the public practices had been unconstitutional since the conclusion of the Civil War.)

However, unlike other Civil-Rights-Era statutes that protected African Americans’ right to vote or patronize any restaurant of their choosing—statutes whose benefits were felt immediately—the Fair Housing Act was powerless to rectify the decades of housing discrimination that preceded its passage. That is to say, despite African Americans’ being able to live wherever they want, racial residential segregation has persisted due to the US’s history of de jure segregation.

Racial residential segregation is difficult to remedy for a number of reasons, but three in particular: the unaffordability of quality housing, the unintended consequences of race-blind public polity, and flawed social programs.

The Unaffordability of Quality Housing

The Federal Housing Act enshrines in law the ability for African Americans to live wherever they can afford to. But**...

The Color Of Law Summary Chapter 9: What Is to Be Done?

If outlawing discrimination in the private sector and enacting public policies to help low-income families find housing have failed to remedy racial residential segregation, what solution is there? Because undoing racial residential segregation—and the intergenerational damage it has done to African American wellbeing—is a massive challenge, Rothstein is loath to offer remedies for fear they will inevitably come up short. Nevertheless, he proposes some initial steps that may, in time, lead to a more integrated, and thus more equitable, society. Those steps are:

• Acknowledging de jure segregation
• Understanding that segregation hurts everyone
• Educating US youth about racial residential segregation
• Financing integration directly
• Banning exclusionary zoning and implementing inclusionary zoning
• Reforming Section 8

Acknowledging De Jure Segregation

First and foremost, Americans must realize that racial residential segregation isn’t the result of personal choices or the random outcomes of the housing and labor markets. Rather, it is the legacy of explicitly discriminatory public policy that flouted the US Constitution and US laws. Once elected...

The Color Of Law Summary Postscript: Frequently Asked Questions

In the ten years Rothstein researched de jure racial residential segregation, he unsurprisingly encountered a number of questions about his findings. In the book’s final chapter, he addresses some of these questions.

Question #1: The public officials who pursued segregation were men of their time; isn’t it unfair to judge their behavior by present-day mores?

This question ignores the many voices, belonging to both whites and African Americans, decrying segregation when it was most entrenched. For example, in 1914, after Woodrow Wilson began segregating federal offices, Christian leaders condemned the move. Later, officials in FDR’s administration like Harold Ickes and Frances Perkins desegregated their departments’ cafeterias, and Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the president, was the first white person to join the Washington, D.C., chapter of the NAACP. During WWII, while the Boilermakers union excluded African Americans, the United Auto Workers accepted them.

The fact that there were dissenting voices at the time belies the claim that segregation was just “the way of the world” during the early and mid-twentieth century. And so, when we judge public officials...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on The Color of Law

Reflect on racial residential segregation and its possible remedies.

Rothstein describes numerous strategies public officials and private citizens used to force African Americans to live separately from white Americans. Which of these strategies was the most surprising or disturbing to you? Why?