April-June 2017 Volume 26: Number 2 Book Review The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein Brian Knudsen When Frank Stevenson came to other stories to portray the immense holds that this governmental promo- work in Richmond, California during costs and profound consequences of de tion of housing segregation—occurring World War II, he found that little ap- jure segregation on African Ameri- at federal, state and local levels—rep- petite existed for residential racial in- cans. De jure segregation, defined as resents a continuing violation of the tegration. The white residents of rural segregation by racially explicit law and U.S. Constitution’s Fifth, Thirteenth Milpitas,California got wind in 1953 policy, is a complex system con- and Fourteenth Amendments. Finally, that the Ford Motor Company plant structed over decades to perpetuate— Rothstein agrees with past Supreme employing Stevenson and 250 other and in some instances to initiate—the Court precedent (e.g. Milliken v. Brad- African Americans would be relocat- spatial separation of whites and Blacks. ley, Parents Involved in Community ing to their town, and they quickly The Color of Law argues that this type Schools v. Seattle School District, etc.) snapped into action. In a scene that of residential segregation over the that the enactment of legal constitu- played out in many locales across the course of the twentieth century defined tional remedies requires showing that U.S. during the last century, the citi- where whites and Blacks could live and segregation had governmental origins. zens of Milpitas incorporated their city denied African Americans access to However, whereas Court decisions and passed an emergency exclusionary middle-class neighborhoods, with ef- found no evidence of such state in- zoning ordinance banning apartment fects continuing to the present. Fur- volvement, Rothstein sets out in the construction and allowing only single- thermore, Rothstein provocatively (Please turn to page 2) family homes. Federal Housing Ad- ministration (FHA) approval, neces- sary to finance construction of low-cost CONTENTS: subdivisions in Milpitas and elsewhere, explicitly prohibited home sales to Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law ............................ 1 Blacks. With no apartments to rent and Brian Knudsen. A book review. excluded from the single-family mar- Segregation: A Persistent Public Health Challenge ....... 3 ket, for twenty years Stevenson en- Robert Hahn. A major information gap for health dured a daily six-hour round-trip com- agencies needs a response. mute to and from his residence in Rich- This Green and Pleasant Land ...................................... 5 mond California’s Black ghetto. Bryan Greene. Harlem at a crossroads in the summer of ‘69. In his new book, The Color of Law, Essay: The Fight to be Public ........................................ 7 Richard Rothstein recounts this and Tyler Barbarin. Reimagining the Community Benefits Agreement. PRRAC Update ............................................................. 10 Brian Knudsen, bknudsen@prrac. Resources .................................................................... 15 org, is Research Associate at the Pov- erty & Race Research Action Council. Poverty & Race Research Action Council • 1200 18th Street NW • Suite 200 • Washington, DC 20036 202/906-8023 • FAX: 202/842-2885 • E-mail: [email protected] • www.prrac.org Recycled Paper (COLOR OF LAW: Cont. from page 2) housing segregation in the United the book infers that contemporary pat- States. terns of segregation are directly and book to remove any doubt that such Moreover, The Color of Law is pub- singularly caused by governmental acts acts took place. Constitutional rem- lished at an opportune moment. That from decades prior. However, such edies can be placed on the public this book appears in the midst of an links between past and present need to agenda, he contends, only after “we emerging zeitgeist of race-conscious be more methodologically and analyti- arouse in Americans an understanding scholarship and activism is propitious, cally demonstrated than what can be of how we created a system of uncon- and Rothstein clearly intends to con- discerned from Rothstein’s historical stitutional state-sponsored, de jure seg- tribute to and build upon this new descriptive account. Similarly, regation, and a sense of outrage about work. Following authors such as Ta- whereas The Color of Law pins all of it….” Nehisi Coates, Jeff Chang, Keeyanga- its explanatory weight to a single fac- The core chapters of The Color of Yamahtta Taylor, and Michelle tor, complex phenomena—like resi- Law provide a descriptive historical ac- Alexander, Rothstein’s book demands dential segregation—are instead usu- count of de jure segregation. Rothstein that we explicitly and openly grapple ally multi-causal. Future work should separately discusses each element of de with race, with our society’s sordid strive to incorporate other causal ele- jure segregation, including govern- history of past racial injustices, and ments into our understanding of present ment enforcement of racially restric- with the way that race continues to in- patterns and conditions, including tive covenants, the use of zoning or- form and shape our fraught contem- empirically modeling and measuring dinances for exclusionary purposes, porary moment. As Coates writes in the magnitudes of the relative contri- segregation of public housing, The Case for Reparations, an “America butions of different sets of factors. redlining, and explicit racial require- that asks what it owes its most vulner- Furthermore, what explains de jure ments in the Federal Housing able citizens is improved and humane.” segregation? Was it a reflection of the Administration’s mortgage insurance racist sensibilities of the majority of program. While these topics (and the Race continues to Americans at the time? Or, was it elite- others included in the book) have been shape our fraught driven? For instance, on some occa- frequently treated separately in prior contemporary moment. sions Rothstein draws attention to gov- research, perhaps never before now ernmental responsiveness to the racist have they been so accessibly joined views of the citizenry whereas else- together in this way. This is an im- Furthermore, all of these scholars where he suggests that government portant innovation. Amassing all of (as well as activists such as the Move- policies undid integrated communities this material together portrays in vivid ment for Black Lives) call us to put in which Blacks and whites were co- fashion how all-encompassing and aside colorblind approaches to racial existing. Finally, The Color of Law multi-varied were the governmental and social justice and to once again omits any discussion of class and its efforts to spatially separate the races, heed the words of Justice Thurgood relationship to race, racism and segre- and therefore to exclude Blacks from Marshall that “class-based discrimina- gation. Is there any political-economic equal participation in the society, tion against [Blacks]” necessitates basis for racism and/or segregative acts economy and polity. We also learn “class-based remedies.” The Color of or are these expressions of attitudinal from Rothstein’s research—so ably Law does all of this, but also makes a deficiencies? Answers to these kinds presented in colorful examples and sto- novel contribution by focusing race- of questions would merely build upon ries—that this diverse process played conscious scholarship upon housing, Rothstein’s contribution, and help to out over many decades and in innu- whereas much of the contemporary lit- flesh out even more our understand- merable locations, both small and erature has centered on criminal jus- ing of these relationships. large. Overall, the reader leaves the tice reform and mass incarceration. The Poverty & Race Research Ac- book moved and overwhelmed with Several questions remain unan- tion Council has been exploring the the knowledge of the magnitude and swered by the book, hopefully to be historical roots of segregation for some creativity of past efforts to enforce taken up by future researchers. First, time, including in three Ford Founda- tion sponsored studies that trace the de- velopment of federal housing and Poverty & Race (ISSN 1075-3591) is published four times a year by the Poverty and transportation policies in relation to in- Race Research Action Council, 1200 18th Street NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20036, creasing housing and school segrega- 202/906-8052, fax: 202/842-2885, E-mail: info@ prrac.org. Megan Haberle, editor; tion in American metropolitan areas. Tyler Barbarin, editorial assistant. Subscriptions are $25/year, $45/two years. Foreign postage extra. Articles, article suggestions, letters and general comments are welcome, (“Housing and School Segregation: as are notices of publications, conferences, job openings, etc. for our Resources Section- Government Culpability, Government —email to [email protected]. Articles generally may be reprinted, providing PRRAC Remedies” PRRAC 2004). The Color gives advance permission. of Law is a powerful addition to an © Copyright 2017 by the Poverty and Race Research Action Council. All rights historical understanding of govern- reserved. mental contributions to segregation. ❏ 2 • Poverty & Race • Vol. 26, No. 2 • April-June 2017 Racial and Ethnic Residential Segregation as a Root Social Determinant of Public Health and Health Inequity: