Desegregation

Abstract

AbstractDesegregation refers to the elimination of racial segregation especially when the segregation was due to law rather than social custom, although the term is sometimes applied in both situations. The term is most commonly used to refer to changes occurring in the United States as a result of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. The roughly 4 million slaves in the United States at the time of the Civil War (1861–1865), the vast majority of whom were of African descent, were freed in 1865. For a little more than a decade after that, various laws were passed to protect their rights. However, in the late 1870s the pendulum swung in the other direction and a set of laws, called Jim Crow laws, was passed in the southern states where slavery had been common. These laws mandated racial segregation in virtually all aspects of life, including public accommodations, places of work, and educational institutions. The Jim Crow laws were legitimated in 1896 by the US Supreme Court'sPlessy v. Fergusondecision which declared that “separate but equal” facilities for Whites and African Americans were legal. However, although equal facilities were theoretically provided in segregated situations, in reality those provided for African Americans were generally vastly inferior to those provided for Whites.