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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Rothstein say was a popular tool for whites who wanted to restrict integrated neighborhoods?

2. In what way were African Americans still bought and sold even after the end of slavery?

3. What order does Rothstein say the police had been given in relation to the riot at Bill Myers’ house?

4. What was the Federal Poverty Limit for a family of three, in 2017 when Rothstein published The Color of Law?

5. What was Houston’s “Race Restriction Areas” map used for?

Short Essay Questions

1. What other local tactics does Rothstein describe?

2. What complicating variable does Rothstein include in listing the consequences of growing up in poverty?

3. Who does Rothstein say suffers for the segregation black families have faced?

4. What effect does Rothstein say the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision have on housing segregation?

5. How does Rothstein say the 2008 housing collapse affected black families?

6. How does Rothstein say wage growth affected African Americans differently than whites?

7. Who does Rothstein say was arrested when Andrew Wade, an African-American veteran, tried to move into the white suburb of Shively outside Louisville, Kentucky in 1954?

8. What strategies does Rothstein say whites used to keep black wages down?

9. How does Rothstein say tax policy was abused to the detriment of African Americans?

10. How did cities use slum clearance as a justification for segregation?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What topics would you like to research further, after reading The Color of Law? Describe why additional research or reading would be beneficial to an understanding of this book. Propose a list of articles or books you would read in order to get a better handle on The Color of Law.

Essay Topic 2

How could you address the same material as Rothstein addresses here through a reading list of films and books? What other works show other views of the experience African Americans endured as a result of American institutional racism? What artists or writers have taken this material on in different ways? How have their treatments and conclusions differed?

Essay Topic 3

When is The Color of Law most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

(see the answer keys)

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