Un-forgetting the segregationist history of Palo Alto (and Daly City, and San Francisco, and…)

Richard Rothstein’s book The Color of Law documents how American communities—including much of the Bay Area—were purposefully segregated along racial lines. In 1954, one Peninsula real estate agent seized upon the sale of a single home on the east side of Palo Alto. (Book cover image via Liveright/W.W. Norton Publishing) Floyd Lowe, President of the California Real Estate Association at the time, quickly began amplifying racial tensions by warning residents that the one black family ...

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