The Color of Law

Richard Rothstein argues that the racial segregation of American cities was not a matter of private bias or happenstance but a system imposed by federal, state, and local governments. Drawing on zoning ordinances, public-housing policy, redlined maps, racial covenants, and the Federal Housing Administration's own underwriting manuals, he documents how the state subsidized whites-only suburbs, planted segregated public housing in previously mixed neighborhoods, and backed violent resistance to Black families who crossed the line. The book reframes segregation as de jure rather than de facto, with consequences for wealth, schooling, and policing that persist generations later.