I appreciate most the ways this book anticipates rebuttals to its assertion of governmental enforcement of segregation, and brings up ample evidence confirming the federal governments participation in de jure segregation. There is this myth that implies segregation was largely an individual affair, with individual racists and communities of racists pushing black and brown people out of “their” areas; first violently during the post-Reconstruction years, and then switching to legislation and policy in successive years through local and state government. This vindicates the larger power of the state from culpability, by making it a “state and local issue” that the federal government did not want to overstep. Rothstein shows, however, that these racist policies were aided, abetted, and supported time and time again by federal housing committees and federal courts. It then follows that if segregation was supported and furthered by the federal government, than integration should not be solely an individual or community-based movement. It must be subsidized by the federal government.

A great read, and a helpful resource to build a case for reparations. Its hard to imagine a good-faith argument against reparations when you see how intensely wealth and opportunity was kept out of reach of black citizenry.