Description: Shows how federal intervention spurred a dramatic shift in the language and logic of racial integration in residential neighborhoods after World War II - away from invocations of a mythical racial hierarchy and toward talk of markets, property, and citizenship.
Brief description:
David M. P. Freund is associate professor of history at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Review Quotes:
"Colored Property is a sophisticated analysis of the political construction of race. In this provocative examination of federal homeownership and finance programs, Freund shows how government intervention in the housing market reinforced racial differences but masked the consequences in the rhetoric of free choice. Richly detailed and rigorous, Colored Property gives the lie to the myth of colorblindness."
--Thomas J. Sugrue, author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality