" Under slavery there had been considerable social
contact between the races. Segregation as a social system was
begun in the North prior to the Civil War, but, during the last
two decades of the nineteenth century, Southern states made it a
legal requirement. Its relentless growth is carefully outlined
by C. Vann Woodward in his book The Strange Career of Jim Crow.
Finally the South developed two societies with two sets of
institutions: separate railroad cars, separate waiting rooms,
separate wash rooms, separate drinking fountains, separate
hospitals, separate schools, separate restaurants, separate
cemeteries and, although there was only one judicial system,
separate Bibles for taking oaths.
In 1896 the Supreme Court gave its blessing to the Jim Crow
system. Plessy, a Louisiana mulatto, insisted on riding in the
white car on the train. He was arrested and found guilty of
violating the state statute. He appealed to the U. S. Supreme
Court, but it upheld his conviction by claiming that "separate
but equal" facilities were not a violation of his rights. Because
the court did not define what it meant by equal and did not
insist on enforcing that equality in concrete terms, its decision
was, in fact, a blatant justification for separate and inferior
facilities for Negroes.
Pages:
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184