The racial divide in America’s cities – underscored by violence in Ferguson, Baltimore, and Charlotte – is not just the product of individual prejudices, income disparity, or the actions of developers, banks, and other private institutions.
 
In a discussion of his new book The Color of Law, Richard Rothstein makes the case that our federal, state, and local governments shoulder even greater blame. They adopted laws and policies that promoted or facilitated discrimination for decades, sanctioning segregated public housing and demolishing integrated neighborhoods. Post-World War II suburbanization was fed, in part, by federal subsidies for builders stipulating that no homes be sold to African-Americans. The effects were long lasting, felt to this day and crying for government fixes.
 
Rothstein is a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute and a former New York Times columnist.