Segregation in American history

SIGNIFICANCE: Segregation of people of color in the United States was a negative social and economic practice that kept the country from achieving “liberty, freedom, and equality,” promises upon which the nation was founded; the practice consigned millions of people to second-class citizenship.

American segregation was born in the colonial era, when the “majority” practiced de facto segregation. When most Black people were enslaved, free Black individuals suffered de facto segregation in housing and social segregation based on custom and folkways. As the northern colonies abolished slavery, de facto segregation sometimes became de jure separation supported by local ordinances and/or state law.

As long as the South maintained slavery, that institution regulated race relations, and de jure segregation was not needed. In 1865, however, enslaved people in the South were set free and legal segregation made its appearance. After the Civil War, most southern states passed legislation known as black codes, which resembled the old slave codes. Under the new laws, known as Jim Crow laws, social segregation was formally set out in a codified system. For example, most states moved immediately to segregate public transportation lines. By the end of Reconstruction (1863–77), race lines had hardened, and social segregation was the rule rather than the exception.

Unsuccessful Challenges

Some African Americans challenged segregationist laws. In 1896, a group of African Americans from Louisiana sued a public transportation company (railroad) that operated segregated passenger cars, as stipulated by Louisiana’s state laws. Black leaders argued that the state laws and the railroad’s actions violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. The case, Plessy v. Ferguson, reached the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that segregation was legal as long as “separate but equal” facilities were made available for people of color. A lone dissenter, Justice John M. Harlan, a White southerner, rejected the majority opinion, saying that the Constitution should be “color-blind” and that it should not tolerate “classes” among the citizens, who were all equal.

Despite Harlan’s dissent, the Plessy decision gave absolute legal sanction to a practice that many states, including some in the North, were already practicing by custom and tradition—Plessy froze segregation into the highest law of the land. Thereafter, segregationists, especially those in the South, used their legislatures to pass a host of new laws that extended the supposed “separate but equal” doctrine to all areas of life. For example, restaurants, hotels, and theaters became segregated by law, not only by custom. Railroad cars and railroad stations divided the races; hospitals, doctors’ offices, and even cemeteries became segregated. Some southern state laws called for segregated prisons, while prisons in other states took criminals from both races but separated them within the facility. At least one state passed a law that forbade a White and a Black prisoner to look out the same prison window at the same time. If the prisoners were physically close enough to look out at the same time, they were too close to please segregationists.

As the United States matured during the twentieth century, segregation was extended whenever technology made it seem necessary. For example, in 1915, Oklahoma became the first state in the Union to require segregated public pay telephone booths. When motor cars were first used as a taxi service, taxi companies were segregated—a “white” taxi serving White customers only and a “black” taxi serving Black customers only. Public water fountains became segregated, as did public restroom facilities.

Another problem became associated with segregation. Often, there was no separate facility for African Americans, who were denied service altogether. For example, as late as the 1960s, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s personal maid and butler experienced difficulty traveling by car from Washington, DC, back to Johnson’s Texas home. There were few if any motels along the way that would rent rooms to African Americans.

Successful Challenges

Eventually, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) launched new attacks against segregationist laws—especially in circumstances in which no separate facilities existed for African Americans.

For example, in Gaines v. Missouri (1938) and Sweatt v. Painter (1949; a Texas case), the Supreme Court ruled that Black students could attend White law schools because no separate school was available in the state for Black people. In 1950, in McLaurin v. Oklahoma, the NAACP tested the same concept and won another court battle. As McLaurin showed, the University of Oklahoma had admitted a Black student to its graduate program but then had segregated him on campus. After the Supreme Court ruled that such segregation was unfair and illegal because it denied equal education, Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP became even more determined to challenge segregation. He did so successfully when, in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Court declared segregated public education illegal.

If segregation was unjust and unconstitutional in education, it seemed clear that it was also unjust in other areas of life. In 1955, under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. and others, a nonviolent protest movement took to the streets and eventually won victories that included new laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voter Registration Act of 1965. Ultimately, a limited social and economic revolution occurred that condemned segregation and, in part, created a new American society. Despite such successes, however, the legacy of the Jim Crow era would be felt in the United States well into the twenty-first century, when voting restrictions, housing discrimination, and other forms of prejudice continued to impact the lives of Black citizens and other people of color.

Bibliography

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