I AM GRATEFUL FOR THE FUNDING SUPPORT FOR THIS PROJECT received from the Russell Sage Foundation (RSF), led by Sheldon Danziger, as well as the Carnegie Corporation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Alphonse Fletcher Fellowship (administered by Harvard University’s W. E. B. Du Bois Institute). I also wish to thank the University of Michigan faculty members who direct the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the staff at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Carolina Population Center who direct the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), especially for the access they provided to restricted-use geocoded data. I deeply appreciate the generosity of those we had the opportunity to interview who shared their stories and unique experiences with us.
This work benefited from collaborations with colleagues Kirabo Jackson at Northwestern University and my former PhD student Sean Tanner. Invaluable, industrious research assistance from Sean Darling-Hammond sharpened my thinking and breathed new life into the book’s legal storytelling (expect great scholarship from him in the future).
I would also like to thank Dan Gerstle for his detailed and thoughtful editorial support on successive drafts, the graphics designer Aaron Reeves, and all those at Basic Books and RSF who embraced my vision for this project. Finally, this work would not be possible without the enormous support and encouragement throughout from my wife, Candace; my mother, Carol; and my late father, Matthew Johnson Jr.
—Rucker C. Johnson