SUMMER BOOK READ – The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
6.05.2018
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LISC Stories
Host a Book Read!
The summer read will culminate at an event with author
Richard Rothstein the evening of Tuesday, October 16th, 2018.
LISC Milwaukee and the Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council (MMFHC) are facilitating a large-scale community book read of TheColor of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated Americaby Richard Rothstein. MMFHC and LISC’s goal is to develop a shared understanding of the past to facilitate a more equitable future.
The Color of Law documents how American cities became so racially divided, as federal, state, and local governments 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
- Official support for violent resistance to African-Americans in white neighborhoods
- State liscensing of real estate brokers whose code prohibited racial mixing
- State and federal court orders evicting African-Americans who moved to white neighborhoods
- Routing of highways to separate African-American and white neighborhoods
Scholars have separately described many of these policies; The Color of Law uniquely brings them together to show how they interacted to create a powerful system of residential segregation in every metropolitan area.
Download PDF for more information on The Color of Law.
To host a book read with your friends or colleagues, please contact Jerusha Daniels, jdaniels@lisc.org, or register here or on Facebook @equitablefuture.