Description
Widely heralded as a "masterful" (The Washington Post) and "essential" (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America offers "the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation" (William Julius Wilson). Exploding the myth of de facto segregation arising from private prejudice or the unintended consequences of economic forces, Rothstein describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning; public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods. A groundbreaking, "virtually indispensable" study that has already transformed our understanding of 20th-century urban history (Chicago Daily Observer), The Color of Law forces us to face the obligation to remedy our unconstitutional past.
Museum Story
The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, art, history, and culture. There are nearly 37,000 objects in the museum's collections.
Details
- Paperback
- 368 pages, 13 illustrations
- 8.3" x 5.5" x 1.1"
- Written by Richard Rothstein