Summary & Analysis of The Color of Law

Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law is an academic and exhaustive recounting of the racial discrimination and segregation policies that were carried out by local, state, and federal agencies throughout the twentieth century, creating the segregation and wealth inequality that pervades America today.

What does this SNAP Summary Include?


Synopsis of the original book
Key takeaways from each chapter
Guide to Key Figures who created the systems of segregation and the personal characters that Rothstein highlights
Key Events and landmark court decisions over the last 155 years that provided equal protection for all citizens under the law
Detailed history into the creation of the black-white wealth gap through policies that excluded African Americans from federal benefits and homeownership
Specific stories behind policy initiatives that invented a blueprint for cities across the nation to create and enforce segregation
In-deth Editorial Review of Rothstein's books 
Analysis of potential solutions
Background on Richard Rothstein



About the Original Book:

Rothstein leaves no stone unturned as he recounts the worst of racism and federally-sanctioned segregation in the United States. He covers everything from the forced segregation of already integrated neighborhoods, Supreme Court decisions allowing local communities to bar the sales of homes to black families, the forced movement of black Americans into slums and ghettos, the inability for African Americans to receive federal support in buying homes, the inability of African Americans to receive fair treatment and pay in unions and at work, and the violence and intimidation against black Americans that was allowed to take place by local police, among other things.


His thesis is simple: the current segregation that plagues American cities and suburbs is no accident—it is the product of design of a century of such explicitly racist policies not only being ignored by the federal government, but actively promoted by them. The Color of Law is a must-read for any American to understand our forgotten history, one that is often white-washed or completely ignored in history books today.


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