Planning White Supremacy: Civil Rights and City Planning in Montgomery, Alabama, 1920-1970

Planning White Supremacy exposes how urban planners, bureaucrats, elected officials, and developers enforced racial segregation in Montgomery, Alabama from 1920 to 1970. From zoning and redlining to highway construction and urban renewal, Rebecca Coleen Retzlaff uncovers how city planning was used to suppress activism and preserve white power and highlights the resilience of Black communities who resisted, rebuilt, and reimagined their neighborhoods across decades of discrimination.

Rebecca Coleen Retzlaff is professor of political science and director of the Academic Sustainability Program at Auburn University. She is coeditor of Justice and the Interstates: The Racist Truth about Urban Highways and coauthor of Ohio Planning and Zoning Law and Regional Approaches to Affordable Housing.