In most textbooks, “there’s only one paragraph about discrimination, with one sentence saying, ‘In the north, African Americans found themselves forced into segregation,’” said Rothstein. This went on through WWII.” These housing programs greatly impacted-and are still impacting-the demographics of many neighborhoods in our country, yet education about residential segregation has always been severely lacking. “They made separate projects for whites, and separate projects for blacks.

“Under the New Deal and during The Depression, segregated housing projects were built for working class families,” Rothstein said. On September 6 th, during his Office for the Advancement of Research (OAR) Book Talk, Rothstein made sure that the audience at John Jay College knew both the history and facts behind how our federal, state, and local governments explicitly segregated our country.ĭating the start of residential segregation to the 1930s, Rothstein explained how it began with the public housing program created under the 1937 Housing Act. “Without government requirements, rules and regulations, we would not have been able to create the segregated landscape that we have today,” said Rothstein. But, in Professor Richard Rothstein’s new book The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, he offers up solid evidence proving that this belief is a myth.

Many people believe that residential segregation in America is caused by “de facto segregation” (a separation of groups occurring from natural conditions or preferences), instead of resulting from “de jure” segregation (segregation by law).

The color of law book