Narrator: In the late 1940s, Vince Mereday, a Black World War II veteran, tried to buy a home. He had served his country and now, with a steady job delivering drywall, he wanted to purchase one of the new, affordable houses he was helping to build in a sprawling Long Island development called Levittown. But he was turned away. The reason was simple and absolute: he was Black. The developer, William Levitt, who was building this suburban dream with the full financial backing of the federal government, had a strict whites-only policy. Mereday was instead forced to buy a home in a nearby, almost all-Black suburb, with a much larger down payment and a less favorable, uninsured mortgage. This single story is not an isolated incident of private prejudice. It is a window into a forgotten history of systemic, government-engineered segregation. This deliberate, state-sponsored system of racial division is the subject of Richard Rothstein's groundbreaking book, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. Rothstein methodically dismantles the myth that American cities became segregated by accident or through private choices—a phenomenon often called de facto segregation. Instead, he presents overwhelming evidence that residential segregation was created and enforced by law and public policy, making it de jure segregation, a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Narrator: The central argument of The Color of Law is that the racial landscapes of American cities are not natural but were meticulously designed. For decades, the prevailing narrative, even upheld by the Supreme Court, has been that residential segregation resulted from private prejudice, economic differences, or personal preferences. Rothstein demolishes this idea, redefining the issue as de jure segregation—segregation by law and policy.

This distinction is not merely academic. If segregation is de facto, there is no constitutional requirement for a remedy. But if it is de jure, the result of explicit government action, then the government has a constitutional obligation to undo the damage. Rothstein points to Supreme Court decisions like Milliken v. Bradley (1974), which refused to implement a desegregation plan for Detroit schools that included the surrounding white suburbs. The Court claimed there was no proof that government policy in the suburbs had caused the segregation in the city, ignoring a mountain of evidence to the contrary. This ruling, and others like it, helped solidify the myth of accidental segregation in the American consciousness, absolving the government of its responsibility.

Narrator: The federal government did not just passively allow segregation; it actively constructed it. Public housing, a New Deal initiative, became a primary tool for creating and reinforcing racial ghettos. Initially intended for working-class white families, these projects were used to impose segregation where it had not previously existed.

A stark example is the Techwood Homes project in Atlanta, built in 1935. To create this whites-only housing complex, the Public Works Administration (PWA) first demolished an integrated, low-income neighborhood known as the Flats, displacing hundreds of Black families. These families were then forced into already overcrowded Black neighborhoods, intensifying their poverty and isolation. This pattern was repeated nationwide. In San Francisco, the housing authority segregated the Hunters Point project at the Navy's insistence. In Detroit, the proposal to place Black families in the Sojourner Truth Homes sparked riots by white residents, demonstrating the violent enforcement of these government-drawn color lines. These were not isolated incidents but part of a deliberate federal strategy to use housing policy to separate the races.

Narrator: Perhaps no federal agency was more instrumental in segregating America than the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Created in the 1930s to make homeownership accessible, the FHA institutionalized racism through its mortgage insurance programs. The agency’s own Underwriting Manual explicitly warned against the "infiltration of inharmonious racial groups" and gave the highest ratings to all-white neighborhoods protected by restrictive covenants—clauses in property deeds that forbade sales to non-whites.

This policy effectively funneled government-backed capital into the creation of white suburbs while starving Black and integrated neighborhoods of investment, a practice known as redlining. Developers like William Levitt, who built the iconic Levittowns, were "100 percent dependent on Government" financing, as he himself testified. This financing was granted on the explicit condition that he not sell homes to African Americans. The FHA didn't just condone private discrimination; it made it a non-negotiable condition of federal support, turning the American dream of homeownership into a tool for racial exclusion.

Narrator: The federal government's grand strategies were supported by a vast array of local tactics designed to maintain racial purity. When African Americans did manage to find a way into white areas, local governments and law enforcement often looked the other way—or actively participated—as white residents responded with intimidation and violence.

In the 1950s, when the Ford Motor Company moved its plant to the all-white suburb of Milpitas, California, Black workers were systematically excluded from housing. Local officials used zoning laws, denied access to public utilities like sewer lines, and supported developers who refused to build integrated housing. In other cases, the tactics were more direct. In cities across the country, highway construction was used as a tool for "slum clearance." In Miami, planners deliberately routed I-95 through a thriving Black community called Overtown, destroying it to create a buffer between the Black population and the white downtown business district. These actions, from bureaucratic maneuvers to the deployment of bulldozers, were all part of a coordinated effort to enforce a de jure system of segregation.

Narrator: The consequences of this state-sponsored segregation extend far beyond geography. By denying African Americans access to homeownership—the primary vehicle for middle-class wealth accumulation in the 20th century—these policies created a racial wealth gap that persists today. While white families were building equity in appreciating suburban homes, Black families were trapped in disinvested neighborhoods and often fell prey to predatory practices.

Because the FHA would not insure mortgages for Black buyers, they were often forced into exploitative "contract sales." Speculators would buy homes from panicked white families at a discount, then sell them to Black families on an installment plan at inflated prices. The family would build no equity until the final payment was made, and a single missed payment could result in immediate eviction and the loss of their entire investment. This system drained wealth from Black communities and ensured that the economic chasm between the races would be passed down through generations. The median wealth of a white household today is more than ten times that of a Black household—a direct and enduring legacy of the color of law.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from The Color of Law is that residential segregation in America is the product of purposeful, unconstitutional government policy. It was not an accident, and it will not be undone by accident. Richard Rothstein proves that we have a collective, constitutional, and moral obligation to remedy the damage done by these policies.

The book challenges us to abandon the comfortable myth of de facto segregation and confront a more difficult truth: we are living in the house that Jim Crow built, a house designed and constructed with the full power of the American government. The question it leaves us with is not whether we are responsible for the past, but whether we are willing to take responsibility for building a more just and integrated future.