Six years ago, a groundbreaking book on how the federal government succeeded in creating a racially segregated country hit the shelves. In “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America,” author Richard Rothstein painstakingly detailed how policies from the government, developers, and mortgage lenders over the past century carved up the country, dictating which race could live where.

The award-winning book changed the conversation about how housing discrimination continues today. People of color who were denied the opportunity to become homeowners decades ago are still suffering the consequences. Unlike their white peers, they were prohibited from building wealth through homeownership, which could have been passed down to future generations.

For his next book, Rothstein teamed up with daughter Leah Rothstein to write about what everyday people can do to combat the legacy of racial segregation. “Just Action: How To Challenge Segregation Enacted Under the Color of Law” was released last month. Leah has a background in working as a community and union organizer and as a consultant to affordable-housing developers and local governments.

Realtor.com® spoke with Leah about how racial segregation persists today and the steps that readers can take to fight housing discrimination. Her responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.

How are the effects of segregation and other forms of housing discrimination apparent in how we live today?

Every metropolitan area in every part of the country is segregated by race today with some neighborhoods that are all or almost all white and some that are all or almost all African American. And this isn’t just a benign separation of people. This is also a separation of resources.

White neighborhoods consistently are better-resourced than African American neighborhoods. They have better-resourced schools, less pollution and lead paint, more grocery stores selling fresh food, more bank branches, more open space, transportation options, and access to jobs.

Because of this segregation of people and resources, Black children who live in segregated neighborhoods grow up to have worse health, educational, and income outcomes than white [children]. They grow up to have higher rates of cardiovascular disease and cancer and shorter life expectancies than whites, in large part because of the neighborhoods in which they live.

Government policies subsidized white homeowners to buy homes in the mid-20th century when homes were affordable. [Government policies also] explicitly prohibited African Americans from doing the same. As a result, those white families were able to accumulate wealth through their homes’ appreciation in value that they could then pass down to their children. [However], African Americans were banned from building wealth in the same way.

As a result, today, while average African American household income is 60% of white household income, average African American household wealth is only 5% of white household wealth. This wealth disparity is due to government policy and continues to limit African Americans’ ability to buy homes and where they can live.

What has changed since ‘The Color of Law’ was published in 2017?

“The Color of Law” demolished the myth that our country is segregated “de facto” or by accident, because of private action or personal preference. Through example after example, my father, Richard Rothstein, demonstrated that segregation was created and maintained by explicit and intentional actions by government at all levels—local, state, and federal—to ensure that Blacks and whites don’t live near each other. Because so many people read that book, that de facto segregation myth has less currency than it once did.

We now better understand the true history of how our communities came to be segregated: through unconstitutional actions by our government. When we understand this, we understand that we have an obligation to do something about it—to challenge segregation and remedy the harms it has caused.

We wrote “Just Action” to provide examples of the dozens of policies and strategies we can pursue on the local level to begin to challenge and redress segregation.

Do you believe that the impact of segregation and housing discrimination can ever be overcome?

Where we live impacts many aspects of our lives, and living patterns are difficult to change. But changing them is not impossible. That’s why we wrote “Just Action,” to show that there is a lot that can be done to have an impact on segregation and housing discrimination. It’s not so overwhelming that we should throw up our hands and do nothing.

In fact, there are many strategies that communities across the country are successfully implementing. We very purposefully focus on what can be done on the local level. We are so polarized on the federal level that we don’t believe we have the federal political will to enact these changes nationally. But we can build that political will locally by talking to our neighbors, learning about the issues, and taking action to change policies and practices.

Furthermore, while the federal government had a large role to play in creating segregation, once segregation was established, it has been mainly local policies that continue to maintain and perpetuate it. Groups working on local issues can have a big impact in challenging segregation by focusing on these local policies.

What sorts of actions can everyday people do to fight housing discrimination and the effects of segregation?

There are many actions we can all take. First, we need to form biracial, multiethnic groups in our own communities. To do that, we need to take the extra steps necessary to overcome barriers to building cross-race relationships. [The groups] can campaign to enact inclusionary zoning policies to require that new housing developments include affordable units and advocate that African Americans have priority to buy or rent those units.

They can support community land trusts, which create permanently affordable homeownership opportunities and can prevent displacement in gentrifying neighborhoods. They can advocate for outlawing discrimination against those who receive federal rental subsidies and then support efforts to ensure that anti-discrimination laws are enforced. They can work with local banks to reform how they calculate credit scores to have a less discriminatory impact on African Americans and provide more opportunity for African Americans to buy homes. They can start or support down payment assistance funds for African American homebuyers.

They can pressure local government and institutions to support fair housing centers to monitor and enforce anti-discrimination laws. They can support legislation to protect renters from unjust evictions and start programs that provide legal counsel to low-income tenants facing evictions. They can advocate for changing zoning laws to allow more diverse and affordable housing options in exclusive communities.

These are just a few of the many examples we describe in “Just Action.” There are many more. Which action a local group starts with will depend on their community’s unique opportunities and challenges, but there isn’t a lack of options for strategies to pursue or support. We just need to get started.

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