The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

Heralded as a "masterful" and "essential" history of the modern American metropolis, The Color of Law is a groundbreaking investigation into how U.S. governments in the twentieth century deliberately imposed racial segregation on metropolitan areas nationwide. Rothstein describes how federal, state, and local governments systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning, public housing that purposefully severed previously mixed communities, subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs, tax exemptions for prejudiced institutions, and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods.