This exhibit will explore the history of segregation in the United States and its impact on the lives of African Americans. Segregation meant that African-Americans had to use separate facilities, like bathrooms, schools, houses, hospitals, and restaurants. White people did not want to mix with African-Americans, so they created and enforced segregation laws in the United States. This museum exhibition will dive into the history of segregation, especially after Jim Crow laws were passed at the end of the Reconstruction Era in 1877. Jim Crow laws were passed by southern state legislatures to enforce racial segregation. Even though the end of the Civil War meant that slavery was over, southern states did not want to give up control over African-Americans. As a result, they passed laws requiring the separation of White Americans and African-Americans.
The southern states were segregated after the Reconstruction Era ended in 1877. The south had laws requiring the separation of American Americans and White Americans. These southern states became the home of racial segregation before the Civil Rights Movement. A lot of people in the South did not want to share spaces with African Americans because African Americans were seen as second-class citizens. Public school systems and many other institutions in the south also became very segregated. Only a small number of places were admitting African Americans. Although slavery had ended, it did not mean that African Americans were free. In the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy v Ferguson, a decision was made by the United States Supreme Court that supported segregation. As long as “separate but equal’’ facilities were provided, then it was fine to be separated by race. School segregation was one of the major challenges that African-Americans faced. In 1954, the Supreme Court Case of Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka is one of the most important events that happened during the segregation era. The case was sent to the Supreme Court after an African American girl was denied the right to attend a school near her house. The girl was eventually allowed to attend the school, but a lot of White people protested the decision and did not want to send their children to schools with African-Americans.
Segregation in housing was also nothing new. For most of the 20thCentury, a lot of white property owners believed that the existence of African American in a white neighborhood would lower the value of their property. The government made low-interest mortgages available to families, but African Americans families were sometimes denied the right to get the loans just because they were African-Americans. Because White people did not want to live with African-Americans, many of them moved to the suburbs. These White families got the loans for their mortgages more frequently than African-American families did. Furthermore, the government built highways through African Americans communities, which destroyed thousands of homes and decreased the value of these neighborhoods. In 1917, the Supreme Court announced the acceptance of residential segregation after ruling in the case of Buchanan v Warley. White property owners were not to sell to African Americans. Housing segregation has become established in most American states even today. Most African Americans live in urban cities that are sometimes labeled as the ghetto. On the other hand, the majority of white Americans live in the suburbs where they have access to good education in public school systems. The housing inequalities that exist today were created a long time ago, which is why they are hard to eliminate.
Public segregation was challenged by a couple of African Americans citizens, which later became so important to the United States history. One of the most memorable and important events that took place during the Civil Rights movement was Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Her actions led to her arrest. Some African American citizens looked at how they are being viewed as negative by the whites. A lot of African Americans women faced conflict while on public transportation. Many African Americans rode the bus every day because they weren’t many transportation options at that time. Once Rosa Parks was arrested, it led to the beginning of something new. Her actions are known today as The Montgomery Buss Buscott. This boycott went on for a couple months where African Americans decided they would not take any public transportation. Rather, they walked to their destinations.
Even though the Civil War ended, it didn’t end segregation nor discrimination against African Americans, especially in the South. The way the American system and white Americans treated African American has a direct effect on American History as it related to African American lives nowadays.