Racial+Segregation

Racial Segregation was a big deal in the early 1900s. Blacks were very discriminated against, especially in the southern states. Blacks had to go and do a lot of things separately. In some states they had schools, [|resteraunts], [|bathrooms], [|waiting rooms], [|bus stops], and [|movie theatres] for whites and other ones for blacks. Blacks were not treated equally until the late 1900s.

Racism and segregation continued on through the 1920s and 1930s. Restriction and rules were placed in communities in the north. Blacks were denied the rights to buy or rent property. They were forced to live in small, crowded, multiple family homes. These houses were also near factories and industrial buildings. The concentration of black people in these communities caused a demand for more houses and living areas. The cause of this demand was inflation of rent and housing prices. The Great Depression posed a living problem; there were no houses being built. During an interview, when asked if the conditions were rougher in the 1930s during the Depression or if it was the same, Mrs. Barge replied, "We were always poor, but the Depression was definitely worse. People who had had jobs lost them or, like my father, were laid off for periods of time. And if you worked, the pay was often something like three or four dollars a week. What my mother always said that people used the old plantation skiffs to survive: growing gardens, canning, making absolutely everything and buying almost nothing."

In the 1930s, blacks and whites had to be separated to black and white [|schools]. Approximately ten percent of all white children from fifteen to nineteen years of age in the south attended a high school, in contrast, lest than three percent of blacks did. On average, white teachers were paid twice as much as black teachers in the south. If a black student lived a minute away from a white school, they would have to walk the long distance for a separated black school. An example of this was the Brown vs. Board court case. Mr. Oliver L. Brown along with twelve other parents were mad at the School systems. Mr. Brown’s daughter had to walk a mile through a railroad switchyard then ride a bus two miles to her separated school, Monroe Elementary, when there was a school just seven blocks away. Some of the other parents had to go across the town to take their child to school. The thirteen annoyed parents decided to get help from the National Association of the Advancement of Colored people (NAACP). The NAACP directed the parents to take their children to an all white school, Topeka, and try to enroll them. After the parents were denied they argued that segregated schools were sending the message that black children were inferior to white people, making schools unequal. The Board of Education argued that the segregated schools prepared blacks for the rest of their life which would be segregated as well. They also said that segregated schools were not hurtful to black children and great African Americans such as Fredric Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and George Washington Carver went to all black schools. Later, after the 1930s, the separate but equal doctrine was appealed in Plessy vs. Ferguson case, which stated that segregation did not conflict with the 14th amendment as long as the black schools were equal to the white schools.

People thought that blacks should not have as important jobs as the whites. Most women would just work around the house. They sometimes nursed or taught, but they always had to nurse and [|teach for black children]. They were not allowed to help the whites. A lot of women worked as maids. Black sales clerks were not allowed in stores. A lot of black men worked in mines, factories, and as tailors. Black men could become doctors, dentists, or preachers, but only in the black community. They were not allowed to become firemen, policemen, or salesmen.

No one cared about the [|rights of blacks], and if they did there was not much anyone could do about it. Blacks were considered a lower class and not as equal as everybody else. As years went on racial discrimnation kept getting less and less strong. Now blacks are treated equal to every other race. This is the way it should have been back in the early 1900's.

Works Cited: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.cgi?path=181571179775531 http://www.fofweb.com/NuHistory/default.asp?ItemID=WE01&NewItemID=True http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/brown-segregation.html [|http://www.skidmore.edu/~dkarp/Social Issues/E/history.html] http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/mculley.html http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/sepbutequal.htm http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761580651/Segregation_in_the_United_States.html http://www.kawalley.k12.ks.us/brown_v_board/segregation