De jure segregation, or the legal separation of races--in this case African Americans and whites-- developed in the late nineteenth century. Prior to this, de facto segregation, or the separation of races on the basis of custom, was carried out by the institution of slavery. A series of constitutional amendments helped bring an end to de facto segregation. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and…
The first segregation laws to be passed dealt with separation of the races on trains. A majority of southern states passed laws that designated African American and white seating laws for both trains and railway station waiting rooms by 1910. In time, streetcars, theaters, amusement parks, hospitals, jails, swimming pools, drinking fountains, and schools, were all targeted by state and local segre…
The NAACP finally got its test case when Oliver Brown, of Topeka, Kansas, a welder for the railroad, decided to challenge segregation laws. Brown refused to send his daughter through the switchyard of a railway, to an all-African American school a mile away, when a school was located merely seven blocks from his home. That school, which happened to be all-white, denied Linda Brown admittance when …
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