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Friend,
For generations, explicit government policies created indefensible obstacles for African American families to live where they wanted and raise children where they could flourish.
As a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute, I spent over a decade documenting how unconstitutional government policies restricted where African Americans could live and denied them access to resources that were available in segregated white neighborhoods.
My book, The Color of Law―the culmination of this research―uncovers a forgotten history of how racially explicit actions of federal, state, and local governments created the patterns of residential segregation that persist to this day.
The Civil Rights movement won important victories in the 1950s and 1960s, yet our failure to redress residential segregation underlies our most serious racial inequalities.
Schools in the U.S. today are more segregated than any time since the early 1980s because the neighborhoods in which they are located are segregated, denying black children opportunities to learn in more diverse environments and improve their access to after-school clubs, AP classes, college counselors, better libraries, and lower student-to-teacher ratios. By concentrating the most disadvantaged children in highly segregated and under-resourced schools, we have lost the ability to substantially narrow the achievement gap.
Legacies of historic policies of segregation also include racial health disparities because so many African Americans live in less healthy neighborhoods where life expectancies are shorter. The excessive incarceration of African Americans would be greatly reduced if so many young men were not growing up in communities without good jobs or the transportation to access them.
And a legacy of segregation is also our frightening and dangerous political polarization that paralyzes our ability to enact progressive economic legislation. How can we ever preserve this democracy if so many African Americans and whites live so far from each other that we have no ability to empathize with each other and develop a common national identity?
None of my work―documenting the purposeful creation of historic inequalities of neighborhoods by race, and demolishing the myth of accidental, “de facto,” segregation―would have been possible without EPI’s guidance and support. At a time when few experts or laypeople understood this history, EPI’s leaders had confidence that investing in my research could result in a narrative that would be essential if we aimed to remedy racial disparities of wealth, income, mobility, and economic security.
I hope you’ll please join me in making a year-end tax-deductible donation to EPI today to address discriminatory practices that impact all working families.
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We need to invest in developing policies that can help reverse the effects of generations of housing segregation and ensure that all Americans have access to essential community resources regardless of their race or into what neighborhood they are born. Your support helps make that possible.
Whether it’s challenging income inequality, exposing racial and gender discrimination, or spotlighting threats to collective bargaining rights, EPI plays a critical role in addressing the needs of millions of working families of all races and ethnicities.
Please make an end-of-year contribution to EPI today to invest in the research that’s helping address inequality in the U.S.
When we do, we’ll provide greater economic opportunities for current and future generations.
Thank you,
Richard Rothstein
Distinguished Fellow, Economic Policy Institute
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