The Color of Law Themes

In The Color of Law, historian Richard Rothstein’s central argument is that, from the 1870s to the present day, federal, state, and local governments in the United States have systematically and intentionally segregated American cities. While most Americans assume that their country’s pervasive pattern of racial segregation is the de facto product of individual decisions and market conditions, Rothstein argues that this is incorrect: American residential segregation is de jure, a product…

While readers familiar with 20th-century American history will immediately understand the importance of integrating American cities, others might wonder why segregation is necessarily a bad thing. As Rothstein notes, some might even ask why he wants “to force [Americans] to integrate.” In response to this question, Rothstein explains that the systematic segregation of American cities sustained the American system of racial caste—by forcing African Americans to live in ghettos, the government ensured that…

In his Preface to The Color of Law, Richard Rothstein notes that the U.S. government only truly began addressing de jure (legally-mandated) segregation in 1968, with the Fair Housing Act, even though it had already been ostensibly illegal for more than a century, since the ratification of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments (which require “equal protection” for all people by federal and state governments, respectively). Why did it take so long for the…