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Racial Segregation

Racial segregation is the separation, either by law or by action, of people of different races in all manner of daily activities, such as education, housing, and the use of public facilities. Thus, it is a form of institutional . Racial segregation laws have existed in many countries, notably the United States, , and South Africa during the era. While no longer considered acceptable in most countries, racial segregation still exists in many communities through the individual actions of their members. Nevertheless, as the world advances toward the understanding that all people belong to one human family, such practices have become less prevalent, and an increasing number of communities have broken down the barriers dividing the races.

Definition Racial segregation is characterized by separation of people of different races in daily life when both are doing equal tasks, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a restroom, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. Segregation may be de jure (Latin, meaning "by law")— mandated by law—or de facto (also Latin, meaning "in fact"); de facto segregation may even exist illegally. De facto segregation can occur when members of different races strongly prefer to associate and do business with members of their own race, though a segregationist regime may be maintained by means ranging from racial in hiring and in the rental and sale of housing, to vigilante violence such as .

United States

After the Emancipation Proclamation abolished in the Southern United States, became regulated by the so-called , which mandated strict segregation of the races. Though such laws were instituted shortly after fighting ended in many Sign for "Colored waiting room," Georgia, 1943 cases, they only became formalized after the end of Republican-enforced Reconstruction in the 1870s and 1880s, during a period known as the "nadir of American race relations." This legalized segregation lasted up to the 1960s, primarily through the deep and extensive power of the southern Democratic Party. While the majority, in 1896, Plessy vs. Ferguson overtly upheld only "" facilities (specifically, transportation facilities), Justice John Marshall Harlan in his dissenting opinion protested that the decision was an expression of ";" he predicted that segregation would "stimulate aggressions … upon the admitted rights of colored citizens," "arouse race hate" and "perpetuate a feeling of distrust between [the] races."[2] In the post-Civil South, Democrats used the race issue to solidify their hold on Southern politics, playing on white resentment of black political power. Democrats were the agents in passing segregation laws, as well as laws disenfranchising blacks (and sometimes poor whites) politically. In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson ordered the segregation of the federal Civil Service. White and black people would sometimes be required to eat separately and use separate schools, public toilets, park benches, train and restaurant seating, etc. In some locales, in addition to segregated seating, it could be forbidden for stores or restaurants to serve different races under the same roof. Segregation was also pervasive in housing. State constitutions (for example, that of California) had clauses giving local jurisdictions the right to regulate where members of certain races could live. White landowners often included restrictive covenants in deeds through which they prevented blacks or Asians from ever purchasing their property from any subsequent owner. In the 1948 case of Shelley v. Kraemer, the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled that such covenants were unenforceable in a court of law. However, residential segregation patterns had already become established in most American cities, and have often persisted up to the present. With the migration up north of many black workers at the turn of the twentieth century, and the friction that occurred with white and black workers during this time, segregation was and continues to be a phenomenon in northern cities as well as in the south. Whites generally allocate tenements as housing for poor blacks.[3] "Miscegenation" laws prohibited people of different races from marrying. As one of many examples of such state laws, Utah's marriage law had an anti-miscegenation component that was passed in 1899 and repealed in 1963. It prohibited marriage between a white and anyone considered a Negro, mulatto (half Negro), quadroon (one-quarter Negro), octoroon (one-eighth Negro), Mongolian, or member of the Malay race (presumably a Polynesian or Melanesian). No restrictions were placed on marriages between people that were not "white persons" (Utah Code, 40-1-2, C. L. 17, §2967 as amended by L. 39, C. 50; L. 41, Ch. 35). In I, blacks served in the United States Armed Forces in segregated units. Black soldiers were often poorly trained and equipped. The 369th Infantry, however, (formerly 15th New York National Guard) Regiment distinguished themselves, and were known as the "Harlem Hellfighters."[4] World War II saw the first black pilots in the U.S., the Tuskegee Airmen, 99th Fighter Squadron,[5] and also saw the segregated 183rd Engineer Combat Battalion participate in the liberation of Jewish survivors at Buchenwald.[6] During World War II, people of Japanese, Italian, and German descent (whether citizens or not) were placed in internment camps, on the basis of their race. However, the German Americans were not sent to internment camps to the same extent as the Japanese. Pressure to end racial segregation in the government grew among African Americans and progressives after the end of World War II. On January 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981, ending segregation in the United States Armed Forces. Institutionalized racial segregation was ended as an official practice by the efforts of such American Civil Rights Movement activists as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., working during the period from the end of World War II through the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, supported by President Lyndon Johnson. Many of their efforts were acts of civil disobedience aimed at violating the racial segregation rules and laws, such as refusing to give up a seat in the black part of the bus to a white person (Rosa Parks), or holding sit-ins at all-white diners. Not all racial segregation laws have been repealed in the United States, although Supreme Court rulings have rendered them unenforceable. For instance, the Alabama Constitution still mandates that "Separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race."[7] A proposal to repeal this provision was narrowly defeated in 2004. However, in a different arena, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in February 2005, in Johnson v. California (125 S. Ct. 1141) that the California Department of Corrections' unwritten practice of racially segregating in its reception centers—which California claimed was for inmate safety (gangs in California, as throughout the U.S., usually organize on racial lines)—is to be subject to strict scrutiny, the highest level of constitutional review. Although the high court remanded the case back to the lower courts, it is likely that their decision will have the impact of forcing California to alter its practice of segregating by race in its reception centers. A law need not stipulate de jure segregation in order to have the effect of de facto segregation. For example, the "eagle feather law,"[8] which governs the possession and religious use of eagle feathers, was officially written to protect then dwindling eagle populations while still protecting traditional Native American spiritual and religious customs, of which the use of eagles are central. The eagle feather law later met charges of promoting racial segregation due to the law’s provision authorizing the possession of eagle feathers to members of only one ethnic group, Native Americans, and forbidding Native Americans from including non-Native Americans in indigenous customs involving eagle feathers— a common modern practice dating back to the early 1500s. Despite all of the legal changes of the latter half of the twentieth century, however, the United States remained a segregated society, with housing patterns, school enrollment, church membership, employment opportunities, and even college admissions all reflecting significant de facto segregation. Supporters of argue that the persistence of such disparities reflects either racial discrimination or the persistence of its effects. Educational segregation in the United States In the Brown v. Board decision, Chief Justice Earl Warren, writing for a unanimous court, said that …in the field of public education the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal… To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. The decision implied that the justices were influenced in part by studies by Kenneth B. Clark showing that segregated education had a negative psychological effect upon black school children. Clark's work included his "doll study," in which black students in segregated schools were shown both black and white dolls and asked which one they liked better. A majority of black students preferred the white doll, which was believed by Clark to demonstrate lowered black self-esteem as a result of segregation. According to the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, the actual desegregation of U.S. public schools peaked in 1988; since that time the schools have, in fact, become more segregated. As of 2005, the present proportion of Black students at majority white schools "a level lower than in any year since 1968."[9]