The Colour of Legislation: A Forgotten Historical past of How Our Authorities Segregated America

Eye opening
Great read. Eye opening. If you want to know this where you find it

Great Historical Collection
This book painstakingly details an over a century of discriminatory practices and how they were hidden behind the image of policies like zoning. Good read and interesting photos every chapter.

Well-researched, illuminating read
“Actions of government in housing cannot be neutral about segregation. They will either exacerbate or reverse it. Without taking care to do otherwise, exacerbation is more likely.”What an illuminating book! Through well-researched stories of families, individuals, & communities, as well as court cases and federal, state, and local policies, Rothstein shares evidence with painstaking detail that racial segregation was not de facto (based on individual, personal prejudices) alone, but was de jure segregation—“segregation by law and public policy.” The U.S. has a history of systematic, disturbingly intentional segregation that continues to impact us greatly. This reads almost like a history textbook or legal brief, so it is not the most engaging read, but it is incredibly insightful, thorough, & important. While I knew about some general reasons for segregation, like redlining & the fact that Black veterans did not benefit from the G.I. Bill in the same way white veterans did, I had no idea of the magnitude & intentional nature of housing segregation. Rothstein demonstrates how white perceptions of African Americans as “slum dwellers” were shaped by intentional policies and practices, including “the frequent existence of polluting industry and toxic waste plants in African American communities,” among other practices. He elaborates on the history of public housing & how it made housing communities even more segregated than they already were; racial zoning; & the push for white Americans to own homes as a safeguard against communism & the policies that enabled them to do so while Black families struggled to get loans, find housing, & afford the exorbitant taxes in middle class neighborhoods. He also shows the connection between segregation & state-sanctioned violence, suppressed incomes, & segregation in public education. As I seek to learn more hidden history that illuminates systemic racism in its many forms, I realize more & more how very deeply it is embedded into our government, cultural norms, & collective conscious. Rothstein makes a compelling case for the systematic nature of segregation in the U.S., as well as the legal obligation we have to address it.

awesome reading and investigation into the red lining phenomenology, sadly still present to this day both in Europe and elsewhere.

In the “Color of Law”, Richard Rothstein shows that the use of discriminatory residential practices in the US, including ‘racially’ zoned housing areas, restrictive covenants, the creation of fear of loss of property values and at times violence have been in effect from the reconstruction period in the late 19th Century and continued into 21st Century. These practices have disproportionately affected African Americans, keeping their communities poor and leading to the creation of segregated neighbourhoods, where none previously existed.The most disconcerting thing about this is that it the policies have been supported by the state and federal government. Not just in the Southern States, but throughout the US. Also, whilst these ‘racial’ discriminatory practices are no longer openly applied, their effects have carried over into the lives of the children, grandchildren, and other generations of African American families, also keeping them in poverty.This is another excellent and well-researched history of discriminatory practices in the US, showing that despite the idea of the “American Dream”, where anyone can achieve whatever they want, inequality has been and continues to be a feature of US society.