American Apartheid

Segregation and the Making of the Underclass

Author: Douglas S. Massey
Secondary Author: Nancy A. Denton
ISBN: 9780674018211

This powerful and disturbing book clearly links persistent poverty among blacks in the United States to the unparalleled degree of deliberate segregation they experience in American cities. American Apartheid shows how the black ghetto was created by whites during the first half of the twentieth century in order to isolate growing urban black populations. It goes on to show that, despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968, segregation is perpetuated today through an interlocking set of individual actions, institutional practices, and governmental policies. In some urban areas the degree of black segregation is so intense and occurs in so many dimensions simultaneously that it amounts to "hypersegregation." The authors demonstrate that this systematic segregation of African Americans leads inexorably to the creation of underclass communities during periods of economic downturn. Under conditions of extreme segregation, any increase in the overall rate of black poverty yields a marked increase

Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publish Date: 1993

Subjects: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies, Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Cross-Cultural Center (Location: Black/African American (BLCK))