Racial segregation in the United States

===In the South===
{{see also|Racial segregation in Atlanta}}
<!-- This section is linked from [[Mutual Broadcasting System]] -->
[[File:Ku Klux Klan members and a burning cross, Denver, Colorado, 1921.jpg|thumb|Founded by former [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] soldiers after the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] (1861–1865), the [[Ku Klux Klan]] (KKK) used [[Terrorism|violence and intimidation]] to prevent blacks from voting, holding political office and attending school.]]

After the end of Reconstruction and the withdrawal of federal troops, which followed from the [[Compromise of 1877]], the Democratic governments in the South instituted state laws to separate black and white racial groups, submitting African-Americans to ''de facto'' second-class citizenship and enforcing [[white supremacy]]. Collectively, these state laws were called the [[Jim Crow]] system, after the name of a stereotypical 1830s black minstrel show character.<ref name="Remembering_Jim_Crow">[http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/remembering/ Remembering Jim Crow] – Minnesota Public Radio</ref> Sometimes, as in Florida's [[Florida Constitutional Convention of 1885|Constitution of 1885]], segregation was mandated by state constitutions.

Racial segregation became the law in most parts of the [[Southern United States|American South]] until the [[Civil Rights Movement]]. These laws, known as [[Jim Crow laws]], forced segregation of facilities and services, prohibited intermarriage, and denied suffrage. Impacts included:
* Segregation of facilities included separate schools, hotels, bars, hospitals, toilets, parks, even telephone booths, and separate sections in libraries, cinemas, and restaurants, the latter often with separate ticket windows and counters.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nps.gov:80/malu/documents/jim_crow_laws.htm|title="Jim Crow" Laws|website=National Park Service|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060821012733/http://www.nps.gov/malu/documents/jim_crow_laws.htm|archive-date=August 21, 2006|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>Estes, R. (1960). "Segregated libraries." ''Library Journal'' (December 15), 4418–4421.</ref>
** After Reconstruction, many southern states passed Jim crow laws and followed the "separate but equal" doctrine created during the [[Plessy v. Ferguson|''Plessy v. Ferguson'' case.]] Segregated libraries under this system existed in most parts of the south. The [[East Henry Street Carnegie Library|East Henry Street Carnegie]] library in [[Savannah, Georgia|Savannah]], built by African Americans during the segregation era in 1914 with help from the Carnegie foundation, is one example. Hundreds of segregated libraries existed across the United States prior to the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]]. &nbsp;These libraries were often underfunded, understocked, and had fewer services than their white counterparts. Only during the landmark [[Brown v. Board of Education|''Brown v. Board'']] was the acknowledgement that separate was never equal and that African Americans were not segregating by choice.<ref>{{Citation|title=African-Americans and U.S. Libraries: History|date=December 17, 2009|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1081/e-elis3-120044938|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, Third Edition|pages=42–50|publisher=CRC Press|doi=10.1081/e-elis3-120044938|isbn=978-0203757635|access-date=April 22, 2021}}</ref> During the Civil rights movement, several demonstrations and sit-ins were orchestrated by activist including nine [[Tougaloo College|Tugaloo College]] students who were arrested when they requested service from the all-white Jackson Public Library in Mississippi. Another example was the St. Helena Four, where four local teenagers made several attempts to use the Auburn Regional Library located in [[Greensburg, Louisiana|Greenburg, Louisiana]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Wiegand|date=2017|title="Any Ideas?": The American Library Association and the Desegregation of Public Libraries in the American South|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.5325/libraries.1.1.0001|journal=Libraries: Culture, History, and Society|volume=1|issue=1|pages=1–22|doi=10.5325/libraries.1.1.0001|issn=2473-0343}}</ref> Police were typically called on these civil rights activists usually resulting in some form of intimidation or incarceration.  Libraries in several states continued their segregation practices even after the "separate but equal" doctrine was overruled by the Civil Rights Act. In 1964 E.J. Josey, the first African American member of ALA, put forth a resolution preventing ALA officers and staff members to attend segregated state chapter meetings.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=February 2020|title=AONL 2020|journal=Nurse Leader|volume=18|issue=1|pages=21–22|doi=10.1016/j.mnl.2020.01.001|issn=1541-4612|doi-access=free}}</ref> The segregated states being targeted by this resolution were Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. This resolution led to the integration of these state's libraries within a few years.
* Laws prohibited blacks from being present in certain locations. For example, blacks in 1939 were not allowed on the streets of [[Palm Beach, Florida]] after dark, unless required by their employment.<ref>{{citation|title=Florida. A Guide to the Southernmost State|date=1939|place=New York|author=Federal Writers' Project|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=229}}</ref>
* [[Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States|State laws prohibiting interracial marriage]] ("[[miscegenation]]") had been enforced throughout the South and in many Northern states since the Colonial era. During [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]], such laws were repealed in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Texas and South Carolina. In all these states such laws were reinstated after the Democratic "[[Redeemers]]" came to power. The [[SCOTUS|Supreme Court]] declared such laws constitutional in 1883. This verdict was overturned only in 1967 by ''[[Loving v. Virginia]]''.<ref name="Hist_Jim_Crow">{{Cite web|url=http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/history/creating2.htm|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060602172112/http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/history/creating2.htm|url-status=dead|title=The History of Jim Crow|archivedate=June 2, 2006}}</ref>
* The [[Black suffrage in the United States|voting rights of blacks]] were systematically restricted or denied through suffrage laws, such as the introduction of [[poll tax (United States)|poll taxes]] and [[literacy test]]s. Loopholes, such as the [[grandfather clause]] and the understanding clause, protected the voting rights of white people who were unable to pay the tax or pass the literacy test. (See [[Benjamin Tillman#Disenfranchising the African American: 1895 state constitutional convention|Senator Benjamin Tillman's open defense of this practice]].) Only whites could vote in [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] primary contests.<ref name="Hist_Jim_Crow"/> Where and when black people did manage to vote in numbers, their votes were negated by systematic [[Gerrymandering in the United States|gerrymander]] of electoral boundaries.

[[File:Wallace at University of Alabama edit2.jpg|thumb|[[Stand in the Schoolhouse Door]]: Governor [[George Wallace]] attempts to block the enrollment of black students at the [[University of Alabama]].]]
* In theory the segregated facilities available for negroes were of the same quality as those available to whites, under the separate but equal doctrine. In practice this was rarely the case. For example, in [[Martin County, Florida]], students at [[Stuart Training School]] "read second-hand books...that were discarded from their all-white counterparts at [[Martin County High School|Stuart High School]]. They also wore secondhand basketball and football uniforms.... The students and their parents built the basketball court and sidewalks at the school without the help of the school board. 'We even put in wiring for lights along the sidewalk, but the school board never connected the electricity.{{'"}}<ref>{{cite news
|title=Students remember receiving hand-me-down books, uniforms
|newspaper=[[Palm Beach Post]] ([[West Palm Beach, Florida]])
|date=January 16, 2000
|page=27
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/32215654/stuart_training_school_reunion/}}</ref>