Racial segregation in the United States has had a long and interesting history. But unfortunately, because of white America’s underlying sense of shame and the unresolved hurt and anger of many African-Americans surrounding anything to do with slavery, segregation, the Civil Rights Movement and modern race relations, students of all races are being shortchanged. In an effort to avoid calling attention to any residual resentment or tensions between people of color and whites it seems that many school districts opt for an incomplete and sanitized version of the truth.
Perhaps, if we spent the time to really delve into the “good, the bad and the ugly” of segregation and other sensitive race related topics, all Americans would finally be able to move past issues of race in a way that allows everyone to feel validated and better understood. The following overview of the major events associated with racial segregation in America is simply one small contribution to that cause.
Colonial Period
As English settlers began to arrive in what would eventually become the United States of America it soon became apparent that massive amounts of cheap labor would be required to clear the land and build the infrastructure needed to sustain life for the colonists and their families. Initially, this demand for labor was filled by indentured servants. Indentured servants were usually either Africans or economically disadvantaged whites. The servants were not segregated by race; whites and blacks worked alongside one another and when the agreed upon period of servitude ended, all indentured servants, both black and white, were freed.
In the earliest days of the Colonial Period free blacks enjoyed the same rights as whites, with some going on to own land and hold indentured servants of their own. The concept of lifetime servitude or slavery seems initially not to have been based upon race, but rather upon religion. The English believed that lifetime servitude could justifiably be conferred upon people who were “non-Christians or who had been captured during a just war.”
The evolution from indentured servitude to racially based slavery appears to have begun with the case of John Punch, a Negro indentured servant in Virginia. In 1640, Punch and two other indentured servants (both white) ran away from their master’s plantation. All three were apprehended and the two white servants had four years added to their period of indentured service as punishment. Punch, however, was sentenced to service for the rest of his life. Presumably, this may have been because Punch was not a Christian, but the act opened the way for the spread of lifetime servitude for blacks in the American colonies.
Interestingly, the gradual expansion of slavery in America and the racial segregation that resulted from it seems not to have been borne out of racism or bigotry as we might suspect, but rather by economics and greed. The problem with indentured servitude was that generally by the time the servant had reached a high level of experience and proficiency in his work, his period of indenture would conclude and he would have to be replaced. The landowner or employer, therefore would be forced to acquire a new indentured servant and “start over” with regard to training that individual.
Also, upon gaining their freedom, the previously indentured servant could theoretically acquire land or a business of his own; thereby using the knowledge and experience he had gained during his indenture to become a direct competitor of his former master. If however, landowners and businessmen could find some way to justify lifetime servitude, both of these problems would be resolved.
Rather than using Christianity, since a non-Christian could simply change his status by being baptized and adopting Christian beliefs and practices, it gradually dawned upon landowners that race might be a more effective measure of relegating individuals to lifetime slavery. Race is unchanging and the darker complexion of the Negro slave would make him more conspicuous and easier to recapture in the event of an attempted escape.
To perpetuate the status of slavery, new laws were passed indicating that the children of slaves would automatically be considered slaves as well. To prevent the thorny problem of how to classify mixed-race individuals or children with one slave parent and one free parent, laws against interracial marriages and other strategies to keep the races from mixing socially began to take hold.
Revolutionary War
While many history books briefly mention the death of Crispus Attucks in the Boston Massacre in 1770 there are a number of lesser known examples of blacks and whites serving together throughout much of the Revolutionary War.
A number of sources indicate that General George Washington barred blacks from enlisting in the Continental Army in 1775. His position was eventually reversed but scholars seem to disagree, however on the reasons behind both his original decision and later reversal.
Some report that General Washington was bowing to the fears of slaveholding colonies, concerned that arming blacks would give way to widespread rebellion among the slaves, while others paint Washington as simply a slave-holding segregationist who believed that blacks were inferior.
Whatever General Washington’s underlying motivation, he was apparently forced to reconsider when the British began capitalizing on the ban by recruiting slaves to fight for the British Crown by promising them their freedom in exchange for their service.
The Continental Navy is reported to have openly recruited sailors without regard to race as early as 1775, however. There is also the little known 1st Rhode Island Regiment, an integrated fighting force created by merging Rhode Island’s two white battalions and recruiting slaves to make up the shortfall.
Despite the service of African-Americans in the Revolutionary War and Thomas Jefferson’s earlier assertion in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal”, the drafters of the U.S. Constitution did not deign to include the abolition of slavery within the document. Conversely, some sections of the Constitution actually seem to strengthen the institution of slavery and provide further justification for segregation.
The Enumeration Clause, for example, designated slaves as “3/5 of a whole person” for the purposes of population based representation in Congress. While the original intent was political (northern states without slaves believed that counting a slave as a full person would give slaveholding states an unfair advantage in Congressional representation), it also seemed to reinforce the idea that slaves were “less than” other citizens and should be segregated.
Reconstruction
Having missed the opportunity to end racial segregation at the end of the Revolutionary War, the post Civil War/Reconstruction period would seem to have been the next logical opportunity.
Although President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 most scholars agree that the gesture was mainly symbolic; Lincoln really had no legal power to declare the slaves free without the ratification of a Constitutional Amendment. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery; the Fourteenth Amendment conferred American citizenship upon the former slaves and the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed all people of color the right to vote.
Unfortunately, despite the successful passage of these Constitutional Amendments designed to place African-Americans on an even playing field with whites following the end of the Civil War, it appears that the U. S. Federal Government was ill-prepared to cope with the task of acclimating the former slaves to life as freed citizens and did not devote enough effort to soothing the anger and rebuilding loyalty among the southern states.
The Freedman’s Bureau was established by Congress in March of 1865 and was charged with helping both black and white war refugees make the transition to post-war life. While responsible for everything from providing food, clothing, medical care, education, reuniting families and providing protection the Bureau received no federal funds and limited manpower so their chances at overwhelming success seemed rather doubtful.
Even more problematic was the fact that the Freedman’s Bureau agents also had to contend with the anger, hostility and often unabashed violence from white southerners who, angry and bitter following the Civil War defeat, viewed the Freedman’s Bureau and the federal troops that tried to assist them in keeping order as more of an occupying enemy army than as fellow United States citizens. And as the newly minted black citizens of the former Confederate states began to exercise their rights, the hostility and separation between whites and blacks grew even more severe.
Amid the controversy, Reconstruction came to a rather abrupt end in 1877 before the work of transitioning the former slaves and regaining true loyalty among the southern states had been completed. In the Compromise of 1877, newly elected President Rutherford B. Hayes agreed to remove all Federal troops from the former Confederate states. This action seemed to mark the beginning of the end in terms of any hope for true equality for southern blacks and initiated a period of growing segregation and violence.
With the departure of federal troops in 1877, southern politicians began the work of systematically dismantling the gains of the Reconstruction period and replicating the condition of slavery for African-Americans as much as possible.
In 1896 the United States Supreme Court’s decision in the Plessey vs. Ferguson case set a precedent for the “separate but equal” doctrine. Bolstered by the decision, southern states began implementing all sorts of separate facilities, marking the beginning of the Jim Crow era.
Schools, hotels, restaurants, public transportation, public restrooms, water fountains, movie theater seating, libraries, hospitals, churches and even the Red Cross’s blood supplies were separated.
The problem, however was that the accommodations for black citizens were hardly ever “equal.” The Plessey vs. Ferguson case, for example dealt specifically with accommodations in railroad cars; however African-American passengers were generally forced to ride on bench seats in the baggage car, which could hardly be considered “equal” to the accommodations of white passengers riding in coach seats in the regular railway cars. “Colored Only” facilities were, almost without exception, markedly inferior to facilities for whites.
Sadly the Jim Crow era ushered in a time not of just simple segregation, but also the deliberate and systematic destruction of opportunity, value and self-worth for African-Americans. Terrorist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan used mob violence and lynching to intimidate non-whites. Black schools, businesses, churches and homes were burned and blacks were prevented from participating in the political process with tactics such as literacy tests and poll taxes designed to prevent them from voting.
World War II
World War II appears to have been a catalyst that paved the way for the modern Civil Rights movement to end the Jim Crow era. Although the United States military was still segregated at the start of the war, African-American servicemen who were deployed to Europe experienced a level of freedom, equality and respect on foreign soil that was virtually unknown to them in their own hometowns, especially in the American south.
Upon their return, many began to question why they should be denied basic rights in a country that they had so bravely defended.
On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 ending segregation in the U.S. military forces. With this bold first step Truman set the stage for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s to begin.
Brown vs. Board of Education
In 1954, Oliver Brown, who was black, sued the Topeka, Kansas Board of Education when it refused to allow his young daughter, Linda to attend an all-white elementary school that was closer to their home than the black school she was forced to attend. The case advanced all the way to the United States Supreme Court and effectively struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine established by Plessey vs. Ferguson in 1896.
Despite the unanimous Supreme Court ruling many southern schools were slow to embrace the new law. Three years after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision the nation watched the drama unfold at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas when nine black students attempted to enroll in the all-white school in the fall of 1957.
Change did not come quickly, despite admonitions from the high Court’s recommendation for schools to desegregate “with all deliberate speed.” Mississippi, for example proved to be one of the most resistant holdout states with school desegregation not occurring in some smaller, rural districts until 1970, some sixteen years after the Brown vs. the Board of Education decision.
Civil Rights Movement
Rosa Parks, a Montgomery, Alabama seamstress who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger in 1955 is credited with being a true pioneer in the modern Civil Rights Movement.Mrs. Parks’ simple action caught the attention of the NAACP and the young Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and led to the organization of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The year- long boycott resulted in lost profits for the bus company and eventually prompted the city of Montgomery to end the practice of segregated seating on all public transportation.
From there the Civil Rights efforts to systematically topple segregation continued. Sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, the Freedom Rides and marches in Birmingham, Selma and finally the historic March on Washington in 1963 paved the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Post-Civil Rights Era Segregation
While the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s represented a major triumph in the struggle to end racial segregation, America continued to face various challenges in the years that followed. The 1970s saw violent altercations in Boston, Massachusetts, when forced busing was implemented in an attempt to achieve racial balance in the public schools.
The 1980s and 90s uncovered fewer and fewer instances of illegal segregation; however, de facto segregation continued to prevail.
The Future
The election of Barack Obama has given rise to hope for improved race relations within the United States and statistics on the African-American population definitely suggest progress. As of 2007 it was estimated that 82% of all African-Americans have at least a high school diploma and 19% have a Bachelor’s degree. These higher levels of education have resulted in better jobs with an estimated 27% of African-Americans employed in management, professional or technical occupations and 46% owning homes.
But, despite the fact that it has now been 113 years since the Plessey vs. Ferguson decision there is also evidence that many of the detrimental effects of racial segregation are still lingering. The African-American community appears to be polarizing, with an educated and upwardly mobile middle class at one end of the spectrum and a poverty stricken black underclass spiraling downward at the other.
In his article, Segregation is Still Wrong and Still Pervasive, Myron Orfield presents a disturbing assessment of the “re-segregation” of America. He writes that as whites move to the suburbs, businesses and job opportunities often move with them, leading to fewer employment opportunities available for the blacks and Latinos who are “left behind” in declining inner city neighborhoods.
With the declining tax base the inner city schools become poorer, quality of education declines and minority children become less competitive for college and jobs, resulting in the discouraging statistics that we are already beginning to see: 24% of African-Americans living below the poverty level, 19% of African-Americans lacking health insurance and 64% of African-American households headed by single mothers.
And finally, to be completely fair, not all modern day segregation is forced upon African-Americans or other people of color by whites. There remains a significant level of voluntary self-segregation. Examples such as predominantly black housing developments in metropolitan areas like Atlanta to ethnocentric college dorms are becoming more and more prevalent. Writer Elena Neuman reported that some African-Americans contend that this self-segregation is important in the development of “self-respect, cultural identification and social acceptance.” While that may be true to some degree, it may also serve to perpetuate the lack of understanding and empathy among the various races which seems to have led to most of the race related problems in the first place.
I think, perhaps, that Coretta Scott King had one of the most insightful perspectives on segregation when she said, “Segregation was wrong when it was forced by white people, and I believe it is still wrong when it is requested by black people.
