In addition, African-American workers were hired only for the most menial and lowest-paying positions, until the dire need for workers forced war industries to hire them for any position for which they had the aptitude. In addition, black subdivisions tended to be built in less desirable locations, for example, near heavy industry and dumps, where polluted conditions compromised the health of those forced to live there. In addition, many more white subdivisions were built than African-American subdivisions, forcing black people into crowded conditions or dwellings far from their work sites as they tried to find adequate housing. Rothstein calls the “poison pill” of housing legislation, affirmed segregation practices in law. But rather than make this housing available to all workers in all areas, the laws passed by Congress and the policies of the Public Works Administration, and later the Federal Housing Authority, required subdivisions to be segregated. The government invested in public housing to provide war workers with homes. When the economy ramped up with as WWII began, millions of workers, both white and African-American, migrated to cities where those factories offered work. Since few houses were constructed during the Depression, a huge shortage of housing developed in the 1930’s. While currently most public housing is targeted towards the poor, in its early days, public housing was built for working- and middle-class families.

His arguments are compelling and are a lesson for everyone in the court system, in fact for all citizens, about why housing segregation really happened, and what might be done about it.

Rothstein argues that segregation in housing is in fact de jure (a result of laws and policies of the government). While the common supposition is that housing segregation is de facto (people live in segregated neighborhoods out of personal choice), Mr. Richard Rothstein’s thesis is that local, state, and federal laws, rules and policies deliberately caused segregation in public housing, beginning primarily around World War II when severe housing shortages for war workers caused the government to build public housing in large numbers where war industries existed. As such, this enlightening book is valuable to judges and court employees for understanding who comes to court and how they get there. As an educator who spent the last 10 plus years working for the courts, where the rule of law reigns supreme, this book challenged what I thought I knew about segregation, racism, public housing and the law. Augustine says it all for me after reading Richard Rothstein’s well-researched book The Color of Law ( AMAZON). By Nancy Fahey Smith, NASJE Western Region Director

The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein