We will be discussing the gold medal winner for nonfiction: The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein. This book offers a timely and forceful argument on how federal, state and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation. 

Rothstein describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation with undisguised racial zoning, public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities, subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs, tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation, and support for violent resistance to African-Americans in white neighborhoods. The Color of Law forces us to face the obligation to remedy our unconstitutional past. The book has been heralded as a “masterful” (The Washington Post) and “essential” (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis.

The Reading Californians Book Discussion Group meets the first Monday every other month at The Commonwealth Club’s new building to discuss the California Book Awards’ gold and silver medal winners.