Segregation Against Minorities In The United States

Segregation played a major role throughout the lives of the African Americans. They were viewed as unequal, and were set apart from the norms of society. In the South, the African Americans were forced to use water fountains for blacks only. They were refused service at many local restaurants, and forced to give up their seat on the bus to a white individual. African Americans wanted and needed to take action to gain equality. Throughout the years, they tried all they could to obtain equality and enjoy the same freedoms as the white population.

The 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education intended to signal the end of racial segregation in school, but the actual outcome was more complicated. The court decided the previous ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson of separate but equal was unconstitutional, and that unequal educational opportunities based on race have detrimental impacts (“Transcript of Brown” n.pag.). As schools began integrating after the case, a backlash emerged and many white southerners resisted the addition of Black children to their schools. In no way did Brown v. Board solve or end racism in the school system, even though it advanced integration and established a legal standing on the issue. One of the most prevalent, widely discussed ways that segregation has continued is with disparities in race between schools. In fact, a 2013 study showed that Black students are more isolated now than 40

In Spite of the devastating history of segregation in the United States. A lot has changed in the past fifty years since segregation ended. The United States shifted from arresting African Americans for using “white only” facilities to integrated schools all over the country. Influential individuals such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr helped pave the way for African Americans to live as equals to along with their white counterparts in the United States of America.

Equality was once a repulsive concept within America, today it seems to be a foregone conclusion. Indeed, we have made so many strides in the way that we view race that it seems a gross misstep every time that it needs to be addressed. Even our President, an African American who overcame tremendous odds to rise to the highest office does not have the answers to our issues with race, rather he calls on us all to “ask some tough questions about how we can permit so many of our children to languish in poverty, or attend dilapidated schools, or grow up without prospects for a job or for a career.” For most, these questions point to sources outside of themselves, but perhaps there a bit of introspection is the answer. Systematic segregation can

The term "Jim Crow" was first created in the 1830s by White American audiences who watched Thomas "Daddy" Rice, a white man performing in blackface, portraying a comic black slave who danced and sang with glee. By the early 1900s, the term had come to describe the institutionalized system of segregation that kept blacks and whites separate in schools, restaurants, theaters, bathrooms, pools, buses, bars, markets, libraries and all other public facilities in the American South. Rand Paul stated, “The history of African-American repression in this country rose from government-sanctioned racism. Jim Crow laws were a product of bigoted state and local governments.

United States in the 1910s was a very different place than what it is today. One of the many ways that the US varied from its modern day counterpart is through racial segregation. Way back in the early 1900’s it wasn’t out of the ordinary to see a person of color be treated far harsher than someone that was white. This is the harsh reality that is our countries history. One of the many cases of the harsh treatment of someone that was African American during these times is Ota Benga. Ota Benga was a Mbuti pygmy that is known for being put in a cage and put on display in the Bronx Zoo in the early 1900s.

At a time when African Americans were faced with laws plainly stating that the Black race was inferior to Whites and when Slavery had been transformed into Jim Crow and the convict leasing system, the African American struggle was at its worst. After States had formed Black Codes in order to limit African American rights and wages, Jim Crow laws were introduced to further racial segregation. An African American during the Jim Crow era could be incarcerated for an act as simple as vagrancy and placed into the convict leasing system which proved to be a treacherous post-slavery and devastating to the dream of equal rights. Though White society had once again found ways to repress the African American community, it was by way of education, journalism and art that African Americans were able to form a common and activist voice. Radical and eloquent minds of African Americans began to form publicly and also became socially accepted as artists, writers and politicians. It is the social struggle which propelled these extraordinary humans across the lines of racial and social injustice in the United States. It is in the struggle that we understand ourselves.

As children we are taught to love and accept other, however, this is not always the case. More often than not we never taught to love those different from us, instead we go on through life only loving those who are similar to us, our unintentional intolerance remaining uncorrected. Growing up without that nurturing hand teaching us to live in a world that is far more diverse than it has ever been, leaves us as intolerant and uneducated adults, whether it is, or is not, by our own doing. In American society, time and time again, the failure to practice what is preached in our so-called values has been our only success. From the segregation of African-Americans to the oppression of Women, and now the fearful and sometimes violent discrimination against LGBTQ oriented individuals is the nation’s most recent atrocity. By standardizing the image of what love and the human identity is to a typical heterosexual individual, society is limiting the diversity of the nation and degrading the lives of so many valuable people. What’s more is the fact that this intolerance that is permeating all levels of society is almost centralized in the most significant aspect of any society: its schools. Schools everywhere are ignoring the high concentration of LGBTQ discrimination by their students and even faculty. It is extremely hard to believe that this kind of behavior is tolerated in schools, not to mention the fact of its being taught in churches all across the nation. With

Race is invisible to white, because they don’t have to think about it. When white people are in poverty, they never think to consider their skin color as a factor to why they are. Whites are mostly oblivious to this happening in general, because it does not happen to them.

During the early 1960s, Birmingham, Alabama was considered to be one of the most racially divided cities in the United States despite the city's population of approximately 350,000 people and 60 percent being white and 40 percent being African Americans. Birmingham, Alabama’s law enforcement, firefighters, salesperson in department stores, school bus drivers, bank tellers, and cashiers had no employed African Americans. African Americans who were secretaries were not allowed to work for white professionals. Many jobs available for African Americans consisted of manual labor in factories, provided maid and yard services, or working in other African American neighborhoods. Jobs that had to lay off employees for whatever reasons would often lay

The Union was in a state of exceedingly high tension as it split into two on the issue of slavery. It was a question of moral integrity and whether it should be allowed to continue. Racism permeated the institution of slavery. The color of a man’s skin did not keep him from fighting for freedom in the wars that took place in America, although it was a way white people sought to justify their mistreatment of them. Slaves were viewed as inferior beings by southern whites and as the abolition movement gained momentum in the north, the slave owners began to see northerners as inferior as well for sympathizing with such barbarians. The Dred Scott case only serves to further this point; slaves were by law not seen as citizens. Consequently,

Segregation caused distress and anger between the races in America. Jim Crow laws segregated blacks and whites all throughout America. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) backed desegregation of public places 100% (Stokes 80). After the reconstruction period was over, America had extreme economical and industrial growth (“Racial Segregation” 2). Brown vs. Board also helped desegregate America in schools. Segregation affected many people in many ways and created violence and distress between blacks and whites within the country.

Body 1: During the Civil rights era the oppression of African American citizens was a very common thing. So, much so that seeing coloured citizens being abused, treated badly or being in a segregated area was just a normal part of everyday life. Most of this segregation came from the “Jim Crow” laws. These laws were ironically named after a group called the “Virginia Minstrels” which was a group of white men who smeared black cork on their face and played songs and danced. These laws effectively created two separate societies the African Americans and the Caucasians. This meant that blacks and whites could not ride together in the same rail car, sit in the same waiting room, sit in the same theatre, attend the same school or eat in the same

Bradley, Stefan. "Watching Jim Crow: The Struggles over Mississippi TV, 1955-1969." The Journal of African American History 90.1-2 (2005): 171+. World History Collection. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

Without the history and events that happened in the past, America would be nowhere near it is today. There has been so much struggle in the country, especially regarding race. Segregation has been difficult to fix and has been a struggle for so many years. African Americans specifically had to deal with so much inequality and unfairness throughout their lives and are still dealing with it now. Back then, before the Civil Rights Movement, blacks lived in fear because of the violence and anger towards them. Besides the fact that blacks have been trying to fight for their own freedom and equality for so long, people think the Civil Rights Movement is over and was fully successful, but the fight still exists, just in a lesser manner. To focus on