The Negative Effects Of Segregation In The United States

The segregation that took place in the United States South was an infamous practice that took place following the abolition of slavery after the Civil War. This segregation was a separation of races, mainly whites from blacks that predominantly treated blacks unfairly despite claims that the races were “separate, but equal.” Segregation was a dark time in America’s history that was caused by deep-seated racist roots from long before the Civil War, consisted of deplorable practices that treated blacks unfairly, and left a negative effect on the United States. The unfortunate truth is that what preceded segregation was something even worse, slavery. Slavery has come in many different forms in many different times throughout history, but in

This led to numerous conflicts, which eventually triggered the Civil War. One conflict in particular, the Supreme Court case of Dred Scott in 1857, demonstrated just how firm Americans’ racist beliefs were. In simple terms, this case was about Scott, a slave, who was trying to legally win his freedom. His former master who had died, brought him North beyond the 36-30 Line, where slavery supposed to be illegal. The real purpose of this case was to have the Supreme Court declare that slavery was illegal North of this line, which would void the vote that had recently made slavery legal in the Kansas Territory. Unfortunately for Scott and all African Americans, this case greatly backfired, as the Supreme Court ruled that people of African descent are not citizens of any state or the United States and therefore, have no rights. Furthermore, the Supreme Court said that because slaves were private property, which is protected by the Constitution, that slave owners could legally bring their “property” wherever they wanted. This extremely racist ruling showed that a prevalent belief was that slaves, despite being

However, many racist whites made it their mission to limit these rights and freedoms as much as possible. While segregation had began prior to the Civil War on a small scale, it now spread throughout the country, especially the South. This separated the different races by law in various places. Blacks had to go to different schools, sit in different train cars, and attend black churches, and where they were in the same place as whites such as a theater, they would have to go to a specific section separate from others. The main justification for these laws was that the races were “separate, but equal” and whether or not some actually wanted this, it certainly was not the case. One major example was black schools, which tended to be much worse than whites’. Blacks were also often barred from doing things such as entering certain restaurants. This obscene racism went on for many years and was supported by the Supreme Court in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson. After a man named Homer Plessy who was one-eighth black rode in a white train car in Louisiana where this was illegal, he was arrested. He did this strategically in an effort to get his case to the federal courts in the hopes that they would rule in his favor and establish segregation as a violation of the 14th amendment. After two losses, Plessy managed to bring