SUPPRESSED HISTORY - THE INTENTIONAL SEGREGATION OF AMERICA’S CITIES

Oct 15, 2026

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Excerpted discussion of Richard Rothstein’s argument about how U.S. metropolitan segregation was deliberately created through racially explicit federal, state, and local government policies. It links zoning ordinances in cities such as St. Louis—using planning commissions, surveys of occupants, and restrictions on future development—to de jure segregation rather than “de facto” outcomes from individual choices. The text emphasizes how expanding knowledge of this history supports recognition of ongoing racism and motivates action.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages6

Reading Time15 min

AccessFree to download

SUPPRESSED HISTORY

Intentional segregation through public policy

Zoning ordinances and residential exclusion

St. Louis planning and restriction mechanisms

Nationwide de jure segregation project

SUPPRESSED HISTORY THE INTENTIONAL SEGREGATION OF AMERICA’S CITIES BY RICHARD ROTHSTEIN As Phia S. Salter explains (see page 26), increasing our knowledge of African American history—without shying away from enslavement, systemic racism, and other critical truths—can have profound benefits. Using an interview with Richard Rothstein to increase college students’ knowledge of how Black people across the United States were prevented from becoming homeowners for much of the 20th century, Salter (along with a team of researchers) found that as understanding of historic racial inequities is enhanced, so is recognition of ongoing racism—and interest in taking action. Inspired by Salter’s results—and heartened by this new evidence of the power of education—we offer this excerpt from Rothstein’s The Color of Law. May it build our collective knowledge andwill to act. –EDITORS 32 AMERICAN EDUCATOR | SPRING 2021 HOME OWNERS’LOAN CORPORAT ION MAP OF ST. LOUIS, 1937, MAPP ING INEQUALITY I n 2014, police killed Michael Brown, a young African American man in Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis. Protests followed, some violent, and subsequent investigations uncovered systematic police and government abuse of residents in the city’s African American neighborhoods. The reporting made me wonder how the St. Louis metropolitan area became so segregated. Most of us think we know how segregated neighborhoodsin places like Ferguson—with their crime, violence, anger, and poverty—came to be. We say they are “de facto segregated,” that they result from private practices. That has some truth, but it remains a small part of the truth, submerged by a far more important one: until the last quarter of the 20th century, racially explicit policies of federal, state, and local governments defined where whites and African Americans should live. Today’s residential segregation in the North, South, Midwest, and West isnot the unintended consequence of individual choicesand of otherwise well-meaning law or regulation butisthe result ofunhidden public policy that explicitly segregated every metropolitan area in the United States. The policy was so systematic and forceful that its effects endure to the present time. Segregation by intentional government action is not de facto. Rather, it is what courts call de jure: segregation bylaw and public policy. To prevent lower-income African Americans from living in neighborhoods where middle-class whites resided, local and federal officials began in the 1910s to promote zoning ordinances to reserve middle-class neighborhoods for single-family homes that lower-income families of all races could not afford. Certainly, an important and perhaps primary motivation of zoning rules that kept apartment buildings out of single-family neighborhoods was a social class elitism that was not itself racially biased. But there was also enough open racial intent behind exclusionary zoning that it is integral to the story of de jure segregation. St. Louis appointed its first plan commission in 1911 and five years later hired Harland Bartholomew as its full-time planning engineer. His assignment was to categorize every structure in the city—single-family residential, multifamily residential, commercial, or industrial—and then to propose rules and maps to prevent future multifamily, commercial, or industrial structures from impinging on single-family neighborhoods. Ifa neighborhood was covered with single-family houses with deeds that prohibited African American occupancy, this was taken into consideration at plan commission meetingsand made it almost certain that the neighborhood would be zoned “first-residential,”prohibiting future construction of anything but single-family units and helping to preserve its all-white character. According to Bartholomew, an important goal of St. Louis zoning was to prevent movement into “finer residential districts Richard Rothstein is a distinguished fellow of the Economic Policy Ins

FAQs

What does the excerpt argue about why U.S. neighborhoods became segregated?

It argues that residential segregation resulted from racially explicit government policies that intentionally defined where whites and African Americans should live, rather than from unintended individual choices or well-meaning regulation.

How were zoning ordinances used to shape where African Americans could live?

Local and federal officials promoted zoning rules to reserve middle-class neighborhoods for single-family homes, excluding apartment buildings and restricting future development that could alter neighborhood racial composition.

What role did St. Louis planning efforts play in enforcing segregation?

St. Louis formed planning institutions and used engineer Harland Bartholomew’s work—categorizing structures, mapping restrictions, and considering deed provisions—to zone neighborhoods in ways that preserved all-white character.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Dipper