Book summary “The Color of Law”: summary

Introduction

You likely assume that modern residential segregation persists because of private prejudices and personal economic choices. You see distinct neighborhoods and accept them as a natural byproduct of social sorting and housing market forces. Richard Rothstein and Leah Rothstein demonstrate that this assumption is entirely mistaken. You will discover that American segregation is the direct result of unconstitutional, explicit government policy at every level.

The book provides a framework to understand how public authorities engineered divided communities and outlines specific remedies you can pursue. You will explore how local organizing, zoning reform, housing subsidies, and legal challenges can dismantle historical barriers.

• How did federal, state, and local agencies intentionally create segregated cities?
• What responsibilities do private actors and public institutions share for past discrimination?
• How can you participate in community stabilization and wealth-building reforms?

1. Building Coalitions and Researching Local History

Forming biracial committees and uncovering historical property records empower citizens to prove segregation was government-engineered.

Residential segregation is extreme, and many people lack cross-racial friendships despite wanting them. A 2022 survey found that two-thirds of white adults had not discussed a single important matter with a nonwhite person in the previous six months. Brighid O'Shaughnessy and Carmen Stratton met in Chicago in 2018 through social work circles and discovered commonalities despite living in segregated neighborhoods.

Building Biracial Coalitions

Artist Tonika Johnson matched residents living at identical addresses on north-south grid streets in Chicago's segregated neighborhoods. The Folded Map Project paired Englewood resident Nanette Tucker with Edgewater resident Wade Wilson. The pairs visited each other's homes, leading to block-level cleanups and joint advocacy. A 2013 Englewood home cost $175,000, while a North Side home cost $340,000 in 2009 among the 25,000 owners in the Chicago Bungalow Association.

Ministers in Winston-Salem formed a strict 40-member discussion group divided equally by race to prevent dropouts and ensure equal footing. In Winston-Salem, pastors Steve McCutchan, Sam Stevenson, and Carlton Eversley formed the Presbyterian Inter-Racial Dialogue in 1991 following local racial tensions. They built on an 1807 tradition when the first segregated black Presbyterian church was founded in Philadelphia. In 1993 the school board revised its curriculum, and by 2000 the group raised funds to construct the first of five Habitat houses.

Laurie Goldstein and Cynthia Barnes-Slater led a mixed group of Wilmette and Evanston residents to Montgomery in April 2019. The Montgomery Travelers subsequently advocated for affordable housing before village boards. Cynthia Barnes-Slater retired in 2017 after a 30-member synagogue group went on the initial July 2018 trip.

Historical Research and Documentation

Implicit biases function as mental shortcuts based on everyday experiences and media exposure. True reduction of bias occurs when systemic injustices are actively reformed. The proportion of female physicians has grown from one in six to over one in three today, changing public assumptions. Meanwhile, black men are incarcerated at six times the rate of whites.

In Modesto, California, Sharon Froba and retired teacher Marianne Villalobos partnered with high school advanced placement students in 2019 to inventory 90 subdivisions containing restrictive covenants by 1950. Modesto used zoning in 1885 to exclude Chinese-owned laundries to Chinatown. Stanislaus County now has 15,485 households needing low-income affordable housing, with 76 percent of low-income households paying over half their monthly income for rent and utilities.

You can uncover the paper trail of segregation through local action:

• Consult with area college and high school faculty and students to research how your city segregated.
• Examine county property records and deeds to inventory subdivisions with restrictive covenants.
• Partner with local civil rights branches and leaders like the NAACP to share findings through public presentations.
• Distribute copies of discriminatory deeds to community groups and local forums to raise awareness.
• Press county boards and city councils to adopt resolutions committing to solve historical housing inequities.

Modifying deeds through legal expungement erases tangible evidence of historical discrimination. Marin County enacted an ordinance allowing homeowners to attach an official county repudiation atop illegal restrictive language on their deeds. This practice recalls West Germany's president calling May 8, 1985, the fortieth anniversary of the Nazis defeat, a day of liberation.

You can pursue substantive recognition:

• Ask the county to certify that a property deed includes illegal language inconsistent with community values.
• Have the county clerk attach an affirmative repudiation atop the offending clause on the deed.

2. Zoning Reform and Housing Subsidies

Exclusionary zoning laws that restrict residential areas to single-family homes on large lots act as powerful instruments of racial segregation. By prohibiting affordable housing types such as duplexes, triplexes, town homes, and apartments, zoning codes economically bar most African Americans from affluent, resource-rich suburbs. This artificially limits the housing supply, drives up property prices, and concentrates tax revenue to fund superior public goods like schools and parks for white residents.

Exclusionary zoning laws and flawed federal housing programs drive segregation, requiring statewide mandates and voucher reforms to open neighborhoods.

In Woodbridge, Connecticut, 98 percent of residential land is zoned for single-family homes on at least one acre, and the town resisted multifamily housing proposals through vocal public protests. In West Hartford, 5 percent of residents are black while 80 percent are white or Asian, contrasted with Hartford where 40 percent of all housing is reserved for the poor, financed with federal subsidies.

Some states have enacted mandatory zoning reforms to override local exclusionary practices and compel municipalities to allow denser housing options. Oregon requires cities of certain sizes to allow duplexes, triplexes, and town homes on single-family lots, while California eliminated single-family zoning altogether to permit multiple units per property and eased restrictions on accessory dwelling units. California passed a 2021 law authorizing homeowners to split single-family lots and build up to two units on each half, allowing four homes where only one was previously permitted. Oregon cities with a population threshold of 10,000 are required to allow duplexes on residential lots, while those reaching a 25,000 threshold must allow triplexes, quadplexes, and town houses.

Combining zoning reform with inclusionary zoning mandates ensures that new market-rate developments incorporate affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families. Bluffton, South Carolina, requires new projects to set aside at least 20 percent of their units as affordable for thirty years in exchange for a density bonus and reduced building fees.

You can implement inclusionary zoning strategies effectively:

• Balance policy goals around unit affordability with the cost of compliance to the developer.
• Ensure set-aside units match the size and bedroom needs of the metropolitan area's excluded black households.
• Transfer set-aside properties to a land trust or restrict resale prices through the ordinance to preserve long-term affordability.
• Require developers to collect information about the race and ethnicity of residents in set-aside units.

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program frequently isolates poor families by concentrating tax-credit apartments in low-income, racially segregated areas rather than high-opportunity suburbs. In Minneapolis and other cities, state allocation processes prioritize projects with local support, which effectively guarantees that few will be built in middle-class white suburbs. The nationwide program houses 2 million households in tax-credit apartments, operating with a 15 years initial compliance period before investors can sometimes exit or alter terms, and a 30 years total required duration of affordability under tax-credit rules.

You can reform housing subsidies with specific actions:

• Hold public hearings and update state agency point systems annually.
• Award points to developers proposing projects in low-income areas only if they include community revitalization and infrastructure investments.
• Award more points to family-sized units located near well-resourced schools and public transportation.
• Remove state allocation priorities that reward projects demonstrating local neighborhood support.
• Guarantee nonprofit developers' rights to purchase tax-credit properties at year fifteen for a specified low price.

Housing choice vouchers under Section 8 are severely underfunded and restricted by metropolitan-wide rent formulas that trap recipients in high-poverty neighborhoods. In 2010, a Dallas civil rights lawsuit forced regional housing authorities to adopt neighborhood-based rent standards so vouchers would be worth more in higher-cost, predominantly white neighborhoods. Out of 2 million families that receive Section 8 vouchers, four times that many qualify but receive nothing, and only 5 percent of voucher households manage to move to high-opportunity areas.

Mobility counseling and homeownership programs can transform Section 8 into a powerful tool for breaking the cycle of poverty and building wealth. In Milwaukee, a partnership between a fair housing council and local housing authorities randomly assigns voucher volunteers to receive counseling and financial help for security deposits to facilitate moves to low-poverty areas. The program utilizes a $1,200 maximum short-term financial assistance for security deposits or rental application fees in Milwaukee, alongside a $5,000 maximum property damage or unpaid rent compensation offered to landlords by the state of Oregon.

You can expand voucher utility and mobility:

• Pass local and state laws banning discrimination against Section 8 voucher holders.
• Adopt neighborhood-based payment systems so voucher holders can afford higher-cost areas.
• Provide counseling, landlord recruitment, and short-term financial assistance for security deposits and application fees.
• Compensate landlords for property damage or unpaid rent to ease participation concerns.
• Educate voucher holders about homeownership options and work with lenders to offer favorable mortgages and down payment assistance.

3. Holding Creators of Segregation Accountable

Mid-century developers, banks, and title companies systematically embedded racial exclusion into suburban neighborhoods. Successor firms that absorbed these corporations inherited their moral liabilities and should create substantial funds to subsidize black families seeking to purchase homes in those exclusive areas.

Private institutions, developers, and real estate professionals that enforced historical housing discrimination retain moral and financial obligations to fund remedies.

The Chevy Chase Land Company and its founder Francis Newlands created a whites-only Washington D.C. suburb. Today, the firm engages in local charity but provides no affordable housing in Chevy Chase, where African Americans comprise only six percent of the population. In Chevy Chase, median household income reaches $200000 and typical property values are $1 million.

Major firms like Wells Fargo offer down payment grants, but the funds are too small to afford homes in affluent suburbs like San Mateo where their predecessor, American Trust Company, established exclusionary zoning. National Association of Realtors president Charles Oppler apologized for past discrimination in 2020 but claimed the industry could not fix past mistakes, refusing to implement financial reparations. Real estate commissions generate immense transaction volumes, and dedicating a portion of these earnings would create a multi-billion-dollar annual fund. In 2021, the industry handled 6 million home sales with an average home price of $325000, bringing total sales worth to $2 trillion. Dedicating one-sixth of commissions would create a $20 billion annual fund for black homeownership.

Industry Accountability

Newspapers profited from publishing explicitly whites-only employment and real estate advertisements. The Baltimore Sun published classified ads for restricted housing developments and employment alongside centuries of promoting racial subjugation before offering a belated apology in 2022 that omitted its direct role in housing segregation. Homeowner insurance companies also discriminate against minority applicants through higher quotes, restricted policy coverage, and race-neutral proxies. A 1992 federal study of major insurers across nine cities found that State Farm discriminated against black and Hispanic applicants eighty-five percent of the time, while Allstate and Nationwide discriminated about half the time. State real estate licensing agencies fail to enforce mandatory fair housing training and refuse to penalize biased agents. Reporters who recorded six real estate continuing education courses found that five failed to include legally required nondiscrimination training, with one instructor telling agents that obeying fair housing laws is optional like speeding.

Modern Testing and Regulation

Matched-pair testing by journalists reveals that modern real estate agents frequently engage in racial steering by withholding listings and treating minority home seekers differently. A 2019 investigation by Newsday on Long Island found that nearly half of tested agents engaged in racial steering, providing white testers with fifty percent more housing listings than black testers. Black buyers experienced differential treatment fifty percent of the time, while Hispanics experienced discrimination forty percent of the time and Asians twenty percent. Newsday spent $200000 to conduct paired tests of 84 agents.

You can uncover systemic discrimination through practical testing and enforcement:

• Recruit testers through churches, social media, and acting pools.
• Provide testers with documents describing identical financial backgrounds, income, wealth, and employment histories.
• Outfit testers with buttonhole cameras to record interactions with realtors.
• Compare the number of listings and neighborhoods suggested to minority versus white testers.
• Monitor online and in-person real estate continuing education courses.
• Press state real estate groups to reform licensing agencies.
• Insist that state agencies withhold license renewals from agents who lack comprehensive fair housing training.

4. Community Stabilization and Legal Defiance

Stable, long-term residential desegregation rarely happens naturally and requires deliberate community mobilization, affirmative marketing, and the neutralization of realtors' panic-selling tactics. When neighborhoods begin to integrate, lenders and realtors often stoke white flight by calling property values down. Successful mid-century communities countered this by organizing residents, establishing codes of ethics for realtors, and utilizing housing centers and home-equity insurance programs to guarantee property values.

In West Mount Airy, Pennsylvania, Oak Park, Illinois, and Cleveland Heights, Ohio, local activists and religious councils formed community associations, created food co-ops, banned for-sale signs, and organized living room discussions to normalize and stabilize integration. These initiatives supported populations of 18,000 in West Mount Airy, 63,000 in Oak Park, and 62,000 in Cleveland Heights. Oak Park homeowners paid a 1 percent property tax to fund its home-equity insurance program.

Neighborhood integration and school integration are inextricably linked; segregated schools accelerate residential resegregation, while high-stakes standardized testing and punitive discipline pipelines undermine diverse communities. School segregation makes neighborhood integration extremely difficult. Federal laws like No Child Left Behind forced schools to publish test scores by race, giving realtors a tool to mischaracterize diverse schools as failing and scaring white families away. Furthermore, minority-dense schools face harsher security measures, criminalizing minor infractions while only 3 percent of children murdered each year are killed in schools.

In Cleveland Heights, early activists began their fight by protesting the Cleveland school board's practice of busing black students from overcrowded Glenville schools into separate classrooms within white schools. You can dismantle these barriers by adopting specific reform steps:

• Investigate community school segregation and its effects.
• Raise funds to commission local school evaluations by experts.
• Persuade university alumni to give admission preferences to applicants from diverse neighborhoods.
• Reconfigure school attendance zones to promote diverse, nearby schools.
• End zero tolerance policies and remove police officers' responsibility for nonviolent misbehavior.

Dare to Defy

The Supreme Court's claim of final authority over constitutional interpretation is a self-assigned power not supported by the Constitution, and its history on racial equality has overwhelmingly been one of repression rather than protection.

Except for the brief Warren Court era lasting 15 years from 1954 to 1969, the Supreme Court has consistently undermined civil rights and struck down remedies for segregation. Treating its rulings as infallible judicial supremacy ignores the fact that the executive and legislative branches are coequal and took separate oaths to uphold the Constitution. The Supreme Court issued pro-slavery and discriminatory rulings such as the 7-2 ruling in the 1857 Dred Scott case and the 2007 Seattle and Louisville school integration bans.

Civil rights advocates should follow the historical example of Abraham Lincoln and modern abortion opponents by openly defying Supreme Court rulings that reject constitutional principles of equality. When the Supreme Court issued the Dred Scott decision denying African American citizenship, President Lincoln and northern state legislatures openly ignored and nullified the ruling. Following the Dred Scott decision, the New York legislature made the enslavement of blacks a felony punishable by up to ten years in prison and abolished discriminatory voting property requirements. Similarly, modern abortion opponents successfully defied long-standing Supreme Court precedent until the Court reversed course, passing 6 weeks of pregnancy limit abortion bans in defiance of precedent, proving that systemic legal change requires active resistance and purposeful programs.

Broad and careless diversity initiatives that lump all minority groups together are easily blocked by courts, whereas remedies must be specifically targeted to redress the documented historic subjugation of African Americans. Government programs that attempt to distribute benefits or loan forgiveness to all minority groups without distinct evidentiary records of historic federal discrimination invite legal defeat. Effective advocacy requires focused, race-conscious policies tailored directly to correct unconstitutional housing exclusions. The Biden administration's attempts to extend loan forgiveness and post-pandemic grants to broad categories including Asians, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders were blocked by federal courts because evidence of prior government discrimination against those groups was exceedingly thin.

5. Wealth Building and Housing the Missing Middle

Closing the racial wealth gap requires targeted down payment assistance, credit scoring reform, and mixed-income housing strategies.

Median African American household wealth is about 5 percent of whites', a 20-to-1 disadvantage. About 40 percent of African American and 75 percent of white households own homes. Amortized mortgages act as a forced savings plan that builds equity over time. However, because African American households own homes at lower rates, buy less expensive properties with more debt, and reside in historically disinvested neighborhoods exposed to toxic land uses and interstates, homeownership alone cannot close the massive wealth gap.

Markita Bryant, a single mother and federal paralegal in Washington, D.C., used a city deferred interest loan and a down payment grant to purchase a town house in an affluent neighborhood for $249,000, escaping rising rents and saving her son from housing instability. The median home price in Markita Bryant's area was over $700,000.

Wealth Gap and Credit

Because white homebuyers are twice as likely to receive parental gifts or equity from previous homes, down payment grants and forgivable loans are essential to bridge the gap. Programs run by state housing agencies, federal home loan banks, and private foundations provide vital capital without increasing default rates.

San Francisco Home Loan Bank matches four dollars for every dollar saved, up to $22,000. Greenline Housing Foundation made initial grants of $42,000, $50,000, and $100,000. Lisa Wise of the property management firm Flock created a fund offering $5,000 to $15,000 grants to black and Hispanic first-time buyers through a Flock initiative initiated in 2020 with $215,000.

• Complete a homeownership education course and financial counseling.
• Apply for state housing finance agency below-market-rate loans and down payment grants.
• Seek private foundation and bank-sponsored down payment assistance programs.

Traditional credit scoring systems penalize lower-income and minority borrowers by ignoring consistent rental and utility payments while rewarding existing debt. Fannie Mae reported that almost one in five previously ineligible applicants would have been approved if rent payments were considered. A nonprofit lender in Indianapolis began considering applicants' rental payment history in 2021, prompting hundreds of inquiries and active work with fifty potential home buyers.

• Press local banks and lenders to consider utility and rent payment history.
• Supply personal checking account statements or proof of timely rent payments under Fannie Mae's policy.

Desegregation Strategies

When projects combine subsidized units for low-income households with high-priced market-rate units, class and racial tensions frequently flare. Separate rules, amenities, or physical barriers like separate entrances alienate residents and fail to achieve genuine integration. New York City sponsored a mixed-income building with 219 luxury apartments and 55 subsidized units. In Chicago, public housing high-rises were replaced with mixed-income developments that placed affluent buyers alongside former public housing residents, leading to friction over park usage, barbecuing, and social behaviors.

Creating successful desegregation requires housing the missing middle by combining market-rate, workforce, and subsidized units within the same dispersed physical spaces. The Watson features 140 apartments divided into roughly one-fifth low-income, one-fifth market-rate, and three-fifths workforce units. Massachusetts Workforce program had 32 projects in operation and 24 under construction by spring 2022. The Watson in Quincy, Massachusetts, integrated market-rate apartments, state-subsidized workforce housing for the missing middle, and deeply subsidized low-income units, fostering positive interclass and interracial interactions among tenants.

• Reserve portions of residential projects for missing-middle and lower-income families using state and federal workforce housing programs.
• Protect permanent mixed-income balance by reclassifying units as tenant incomes change rather than evicting residents.

6. Investing in Place and Protecting Tenants

Urban neighborhood investments must be paired with rent regulations, tenant protections, and community land trusts to prevent gentrification displacement.

When lower-income urban areas become attractive, higher-income residents move in, remodeling buildings, raising rents, and driving up property taxes. This process can price out longtime homeowners and renters. New middle-class residents moving into urban neighborhoods can practice conscientious gentrification to avoid destroying existing community characteristics. Luke Davenport, a forty-five-year-old data consultant, lived in several gentrifying neighborhoods and wrote a pamphlet called Becoming a Conscientious Gentrifier in 8 Easy Steps to share with friends.

• Shop at older businesses
• Join, volunteer, and donate
• Learn
• Be friendly
• Worship
• Educate
• Be bold but humble
• Advocate

Inclusionary zoning ordinances require developers of new market-rate projects to set aside a percentage of units for low- and moderate-income households to prevent displacement. Chicago's inclusionary ordinance requires projects in targeted gentrifying areas to set aside 20 percent of units at a mix of affordability levels, with specific on-site and proximity rules. By mandating that 10 to 25 percent of a development's units be offered at below-market rates, cities can preserve housing options as neighborhoods change. Across the country, inclusionary regulations have produced one hundred thousand affordable units.

Tenant Protection

Rent regulation limits annual rent increases to protect apartment dwellers and neighborhood stability, addressing the gap between stagnant wages and rising housing costs. From 2001 to 2019, renters experienced a 3 percent rise in median incomes while rents increased by 15 percent. In thirty-two states, legislatures ban rent restrictions of any kind. Tenant organizations in New York City protested Signature Bank's lending practices, leading the bank to commit to refusing loans to landlords predicting inflated revenues.

Just-cause eviction rules prohibit landlords from removing tenants except for specific legally valid reasons such as nonpayment, illegal activity, or property damage. Providing free legal representation to tenants facing eviction dramatically increases successful outcomes in housing courts. Cleveland faced 9,000 annual evictions in the 2010s before enacting a right-to-counsel policy for qualifying low-income families in 2019. In 2021, 90 percent of tenants who sought legal aid in Cleveland saw their eviction orders revoked. During the 1970s and 1980s, Cleveland tenants withheld $8,000 during a rent strike, an amount equal to about $40,000 in 2022 dollars.

Landlords frequently retain portions of security deposits unfairly, exploiting the power imbalance with renters. In a survey, 25 percent of 500 landlords admitted unfairly withholding at least some portion of security deposits. In Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Parliament created a public organization to hold security deposits for five million tenants, investigate disputes, and resolve thirty thousand cases annually. Freezing property tax assessments for rent-regulated buildings prevents landlords from passing tax hikes on to tenants and pricing them out.

Ban-the-box ordinances prohibit landlords from automatically denying housing to applicants based on arrest or conviction records. Half of black men have arrest records by age twenty-three, and 1 in 3 black men will eventually serve prison time, compared to 1 in 17 white men. New Jersey's Fair Chance in Housing Act of 2021 prohibits asking about criminal history until after accepting a tenant, allowing consideration only of serious convictions from the previous six years, backed by maximum fines up to $10,000 for landlords who repeatedly violate the rule.

Community Land Trusts

Community land trusts acquire land and separate it from building ownership to create permanently affordable housing and prevent displacement. In Durham, North Carolina, Susan Levy and community organizers established the Durham Community Land Trust in 1987, helping nurse Linda Hunt buy the trust's first home for $50,000, which equals about $104,000 in 2022. Susan Levy's house had a purchase price of $35,000 in 1986, equal to about $93,000 in 2022. The Durham trust's portfolio contains 350 homes.

7. Predatory Financial Extraction and Banking Reform

Predatory contract sales, tax overassessments, and appraisal biases drain Black wealth, but strict regulations and Community Reinvestment Act enforcement can curb these abuses.

In the mid-twentieth century, when banks denied mortgages in Black neighborhoods, speculators exploited Black families through predatory contract sales that transferred no equity and invited eviction. Ruth and James Wells bought a Chicago duplex on contract for $23,000 after the speculator purchased it for $13,500 the previous month, eventually facing eviction threats over phony fees after years of payments.

Modern private-equity firms and investment groups have revived predatory contract sales and exploitative rentals, targeting Black and Hispanic communities after the 2008 housing crisis. Harbour Portfolio Advisors raised over $60 million to buy nearly seven thousand foreclosed properties mostly in midwestern states, later facing state lawsuits and settlements for deceptive contract sales.

Exploitative Contracts and Taxes

Systemic discrimination in municipal property assessments causes homeowners in lower-income Black neighborhoods to pay disproportionately higher tax rates than those in affluent white areas. In Syracuse, New York, a 25-year gap without a citywide reassessment resulted in lower-income Black neighborhoods paying higher taxes than legally required while white neighborhoods paid less. Cook County placed 36,000 homes in its 2021 tax lien sale, with three-quarters located in majority-black or Hispanic communities and half owing less than $1,000.

Municipalities and states can protect home seekers by enacting strict regulations that classify contracts as either fully regulated rentals or standard mortgage-backed purchases. You can support these rules:

• Classify all contracts as either rentals or purchases.
• Enforce safety and code compliance for rentals without charging repair costs to renters.
• Ensure purchase contracts involve a title transfer with all rights of bank-issued mortgages and mandatory certified inspections.
• Prohibit buyers or renters from being responsible for past-due utility bills or taxes existing at signing.
• Penalize sellers who misrepresent loan terms, true interest rates, or actual appraised values.

Banking Remedies

Systemic racial bias in home appraisals depresses property values in Black neighborhoods and requires Black home buyers to provide more cash to secure mortgages. When Black homeowners removed family pictures and had white stand-ins present during reappraisals, the new appraised values jumped by figures ranging from 22 percent in Chicago to 59 percent in Baltimore.

Reforming the appraisal industry requires rigorous vetting of appraisers, expanded workforce diversity, and independent audits to eliminate systemic racial disparities. You can implement these professional changes:

• Require mortgage brokers and banks to agree to a reappraisal whenever a buyer or owner is dissatisfied.
• Establish a list of vetted appraisers through random second appraisals and evaluation of evidence by fair housing centers.
• Insist that Fannie Mae release its race and neighborhood appraisal database to the public.
• Recruit, educate, and certify African Americans, Hispanics, and women of all ethnicities into the appraisal profession.

Local governments can prevent displacement by replacing private tax lien sales with in-house collection flexibility, homeowner relief programs, and community partnerships. You can adopt municipal strategies:

• Ban tax lien sales altogether and collect back taxes in-house.
• Partner with local community groups to contact residents with outstanding bills before initiating a lien.
• Offer relief options such as payment plans, emergency loans, debt reductions, and tax deferments.
• Enforce property tax exemptions for residents in need and accommodate inherited properties.

Federal review of bank mergers and the Community Reinvestment Act provide leverage for civil rights groups to demand investments in underserved neighborhoods. After Old National Bank announced plans to acquire First Midwest Bancorp, the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition pressured the bank until it settled a lawsuit by agreeing to substantial investments in minority neighborhoods.

Aggressive and creative community advocacy can force major financial institutions to commit hundreds of billions of dollars to low-income neighborhood investments. The Greenlining Institute distributed fortune cookies containing messages about institutional failure to serve Hispanic communities inside Bank of America headquarters while a mariachi band played outside.

10 Key Ideas

1. Modern residential segregation in America is the direct result of unconstitutional, explicit government policy at every level rather than private prejudices and personal economic choices.
2. Formulating biracial committees and uncovering historical property records empower citizens to prove that segregation was engineered by public authorities.
3. Exclusionary zoning laws and flawed federal housing programs drive segregation, requiring statewide mandates and voucher reforms to open neighborhoods.
4. Private institutions, developers, and real estate professionals that enforced historical housing discrimination retain moral and financial obligations to fund remedies.
5. Stable, long-term residential desegregation requires deliberate community mobilization, affirmative marketing, and the neutralization of realtors' panic-selling tactics.
6. The Supreme Court's history on racial equality has overwhelmingly been one of repression, meaning civil rights advocates must be willing to defy unjust judicial rulings.
7. Closing the racial wealth gap requires targeted down payment assistance, credit scoring reform, and mixed-income housing strategies.
8. Urban neighborhood investments must be paired with rent regulations, tenant protections, and community land trusts to prevent gentrification displacement.
9. Predatory contract sales, tax overassessments, and appraisal biases drain Black wealth, but strict regulations and Community Reinvestment Act enforcement can curb these abuses.
10. Aggressive and creative community advocacy can force major financial institutions and public authorities to commit substantial investments to low-income and minority neighborhoods.