The Rothsteins explain how government housing policies have led to segregation and inequality

Housing policies enacted by federal, state, and local governments in the 1920s^vol century ensured that African American and white citizens could not live close to each other in metropolitan areas across the United States, says a father-daughter team who authored a book on housing and segregation.

This month, legal experts Richard and Leah Rothstein spoke about their book, “Just Action: How to Challenge Segregation Enacted Under the Color of Law,” at the University of Tulsa School of Law. The event was a joint effort between the college and the Greenwood Rising History Center to commemorate the anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

“Immediately after World War II, the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration decided to move the entire white, working, and middle-class population from urban areas to single-family homes in all-white suburbs from which African Americans would be excluded. This was racist federal policy,” said Richard Rothstein, who attended the event virtually while his daughter appeared in person.

After World War II, white families bought homes for the equivalent of $100,000 in today’s dollars. They later sold the homes for hundreds of thousands of dollars more, creating generational wealth for their children and grandchildren, Richard Rothstein said.

“African Americans have been prohibited from accumulating wealth this way,” he said, adding that because of this, African American incomes are on average about 60% of white incomes, while African American wealth is about 5% of white wealth. “This massive wealth gap can be entirely attributed to unconstitutional federal housing policy.”

Rothstein’s 2017 book “The Color of Law” is considered a seminal history of residential segregation in America. Clinical professor of law Mimi Marton said the book is a cornerstone of the clinical law program at UTulsa, teaches students to look for context, not just facts, and engages them in critical thinking.

Rothstein explained that after reading “The Color of Law” and learning about the history of legal segregation, people often ask, “How do we fix this now?” Another book, Just Action, addresses this topic, providing examples of successful programs that have driven change.

“Once a segregated system exists, local programs, practices and policies maintain it and reinforce it, even exacerbate it,” Rothstein said. “There is therefore a huge opportunity in our local communities to do something about this.”

Some of these strategies include protection against rent increases, protection against unfair evictions, and programs that offer the right to legal advice, among other things. Other obstacles to equality include credit scores, appraisal bias and African Americans overpaying property taxes.

During the discussion, Leah Rothstein stated that there is an appetite for action on racial justice, especially in Tulsa. In fact, “Just Action” opens with a photo of a 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstration in Tulsa, showing a diverse group of people marching together. “We can use this energy to build a newly revitalized civil rights movement,” she said.

Rothstein discussed the importance of building relationships between races, eliminating the wealth gap and increasing resources in low-income, primarily African American areas.

“The same policies that created segregation ensured that areas where white life was subsidized were areas of great opportunity, access to jobs and clean air, open space, grocery stores and transportation,” she explained. “And the areas where African Americans lived were deprived of those resources.”

Rothstein added that it is important to combine these place-based strategies with anti-displacement strategies to prevent people from being priced out of neighborhoods.

“We also now understand that when that happens, when resources in lower-income communities increase, things often change,” she said. “Higher-income people are suddenly interested in living here. They move in, drive up housing prices, cause gentrification, and longtime residents of these areas are displaced just as resources begin to grow.”

Marton explained that at the university’s BC Franklin Legal Clinic, law students work with city councilors on a special billing title for the project and help prevent tax foreclosure.

BC Franklin was a black lawyer who opened a law office in Greenwood shortly before the Tulsa Race Massacre broke out on May 31, 1921. The area was devastated by the attack. Immediately afterward, Franklin and his partner began practicing law in a Red Cross tent and represented survivors in lawsuits against insurance companies, the government, and others.