Segregation in the US

Racial Segregation in the United States

by Wikipedia

Facilities and services such as housing, healthcare, education, employment, and transportation have been systematically separated in the United States based on racial categorizations. Notably, racial segregation in the United States was the legally and/or socially enforced separation of African Americans from whites, as well as the separation of other ethnic minorities from majority communities. While mainly referring to the physical separation and provision of separate facilities, it can also refer to other manifestations such as prohibitions against interracial marriage (enforced with anti-miscegenation laws), and the separation of roles within an institution. The U.S. Armed Forces were formally segregated until 1948, as black units were separated from white units but were still typically led by white officers.

In the 1857 Dred Scott case (Dred Scott v. Sandford), the U.S. Supreme Court found that Black people were not and could never be U.S. citizens and that the U.S. Constitution and civil rights did not apply to them. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, but it was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1883 in the Civil Rights Cases. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), so long as "separate but equal" facilities were provided, a requirement that was rarely met. The doctrine's applicability to public schools was unanimously overturned in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In the following years, the court further ruled against racial segregation in several landmark cases including Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964), which helped bring an end to the Jim Crow laws.

FROM SLAVERY TO SEGREGATION

by eji

Today, the story of the American Civil Rights Movement is familiar: courageous activists waged an epic struggle, faced great risks, and suffered tragic losses to achieve victories that forever changed the nation. Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott; the murder of Emmett Till; the Selma to Montgomery March; and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 are well-known milestones in the movement.

The Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated the United States

by Richard Rothstein 14/11/17 ZINN EDUCATION PROJECT

Racial segregation characterizes every metropolitan area in the United States and bears responsibility for our most serious social and economic problems — it corrupts our criminal justice system, exacerbates economic inequality, and produces large academic gaps between white and African American schoolchildren.

Racial Segregation in the Church

by Equal Justice Initiative 01/01/16

The Transatlantic Slave Trade and slavery often were justified by religious leaders who argued that slave owners were performing a noble Christian duty by converting and enslaving Africans, who were inferior to whites in the eyes of the church. After the Civil War, white churches supported racial hierarchy and segregation, forcing Black people to form their own churches.

Jim Crow Laws

by PBS Shows

The segregation and disenfranchisement laws known as "Jim Crow" represented a formal, codified system of racial apartheid that dominated the American South for three quarters of a century beginning in the 1890s. The laws affected almost every aspect of daily life, mandating segregation of schools, parks, libraries, drinking fountains, restrooms, buses, trains, and restaurants. "Whites Only" and "Colored" signs were constant reminders of the enforced racial order.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice

by The Legacy Sites

On a hilltop overlooking Montgomery is the nation’s first comprehensive memorial dedicated to the legacy of Black Americans who were enslaved, terrorized by lynching, humiliated by racial segregation, and presumed guilty and dangerous.