#racialsegregation

On June 10, 1954, governors and representatives from 12 Southern states met in Richmond, Virginia, and resolved to defiantly resist the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Released less than a month earlier, the Brown decision struck down racial segregation laws—prevalent in the South—that required separate public schools for Black and white children. Virginia Governor Thomas Stanley called the Richmond meeting to discuss the Southern states' options for responding to Brown. The governors of Georgia, South Carolina, and Mississippi had already publicly stated their intent to maintain the separation of white and Black students, even if it required dissolving the public education systems in their respective states. The governors of Louisiana, North Carolina, and Virginia had been less radical in their public comments but still expressed interest in exploring legal methods of avoiding integration. After a six-hour meeting, representatives from all but three of the 12 states present agreed that they would work to resist the desegregation ruling. Maryland, West Virginia, and Kentucky were the states that declined to make that commitment; notably, all three of those states also had comparatively small African American populations. Bold and unapologetic vows of resistance, expressed by the highest figures in Southern state governments, inspired and encouraged white communities to wage their own campaigns of massive resistance, characterized by threats, economic intimidation, and violence that spanned decades and spread beyond the South. Those outcomes were the foreseeable result of public rhetoric that denounced desegregation as a threat to civilization and stoked fears of Black children—but political officials who sparked the flame largely denied culpability. "No one had any thought of doing anything wrong," said Virginia's Governor Stanley after the resistance meeting. "Everyone is just trying to find a solution to what they consider a major problem." The Brown decision signaled the start of a cultural shift in racial dynamics in the U.S. and also launched an organized mass movement of opposition. Most white Americans, especially in the South, supported segregation and resisted all efforts at integration. This campaign of massive resistance to integration in the South discussed at this meeting in 1954 was largely successful. By 1960, only 98 of Arkansas’s 104,000 Black students attended desegregated schools; as did 34 of 302,000 in North Carolina; 169 of 146,000 in Tennessee; and 103 of 203,000 in Virginia. In the five Deep South states, every single one of 1.4 million Black schoolchildren attended segregated schools until the fall of 1960. By the start of the 1964-65 school year, less than 3% of the South’s Black children attended school with white students, and in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina that number remained substantially below 1%. Learn more about this campaign of massive resistance from the Equal Justice Initiative's report, Segregation in America.

Posted @withregram • @supercalifragilistiche Erano le 13.15 del 21 marzo 1960 quando a Sharpeville, nei pressi di Johannesburg, la polizia sudafricana aprì il fuoco su una folla di dimostranti inermi. Le stime ufficiali parlarono di 69 morti e 180 feriti, molti dei quali colpiti alla schiena, prova tangibile che stavano cercando di fuggire. Una manifestazione di neri e “colorati” come molte altre di quell’anno, indette per protestare contro la stretta della segregazione razziale imposta dal National Party nel secondo dopoguerra e che dal 1952 aveva aggiunto ai provvedimenti di segregazione razziale nell’educazione, nel lavoro, nella sfera familiare, nelle libertà civili e politiche fondamentali, anche la cosiddetta “legge del lasciapassare”, che prevedeva che i cittadini sudafricani neri dovessero esibire uno speciale permesso se fermati dalla polizia in un’area riservata ai bianchi. I lasciapassare venivano concessi però solo ai neri che avevano un impiego regolare nell’area in questione, un elemento non di poco conto: la norma si poneva così da anni come un ulteriore limite alla libertà di movimento (oltre che di residenza) per non bianchi all’interno del territorio nazionale. La spinta emozionale suscitata dal massacro di Sharpeville fu tale che nel 1966 l’Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite, su impulso dei Paesi afro-asiatici di nuova indipendenza che in quegli anni erano entrati a far parte della struttura multilaterale,individuò nella data del 21 marzo la Giornata Internazionale per l’Eliminazione della Discriminazione Razziale. #sharpeville #sharpevillemassacre #racism #racialsegregation #southafrica https://www.instagram.com/p/B9_mxfBqpFl/?igshid=kvos47zqqew1

On August 22, 1905, an African American man named Charles Julius Miller, and an unnamed African American woman entered the Café Neapolitan in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The couple was immediately refused service and ordered to leave. When Mr. Miller refused to exit, a “free-for-all” ensued in which white patrons and staff attacked Mr. Miller, who pulled out a gun for protection after being attacked. The violence left many people injured and resulted in approximately 50 arrests. Mr. Miller was among those hospitalized for his injuries. Racial segregation and violence plagued the U.S. throughout the early 20th century, and was not an exclusively Southern problem. Riots and disturbances like these took place throughout the country, and racial segregation and bias remained pervasive problems nationwide. As was common at the time, mainstream, white-run newspapers reported the Pittsburgh restaurant incident as having been caused by the African American who dared enter an establishment where he did not belong, and made no critique of the injustice of racial segregation.

On August 6, 1942, Southern Railway, an interstate railroad company based in Washington, D.C., adopted a policy effectively denying dining service to Black passengers on its rail cars. For years, the Southern Railway policy mandated that trains serve white passengers and Black passengers meals at different times, which often resulted in the denial of meals to Black passengers. In 1942, Southern Railway further entrenched its commitment to segregation and to denying its Black customers service by adopting a policy which reserved 10 of the train’s 11 dining tables exclusively for white passengers at all times. The one remaining table in the dining car that was theoretically open to Black passengers was also available for use by white passengers and was to be given to white passengers upon request. If Black passengers requested service while white passengers were dining, “they should be advised that they will be served just as soon as those compartments are vacated.” In 1942, Elmer W. Henderson, a Black attorney, civil rights leader, member of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fair Employment Practices Commission, and one of the first Black graduates of Georgetown University Law Center, boarded a Southern Railway train, traveling first-class from Washington, D.C., to Atlanta, Georgia. The train’s dining car remained occupied with white passengers for the duration of his journey, and railroad employees denied Mr. Henderson a dining table based on his race. At 9 pm, the train reached Greensboro, North Carolina, and the dining car ceased serving passengers. Neither Mr. Henderson, nor any other Black passengers, ever had a chance to eat dinner. Mr. Henderson subsequently filed a complaint with the federal Interstate Commerce Commission, alleging that the railroad’s policy violated the Interstate Commerce Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The ICC denied relief, finding that Mr. Henderson “had sustained no compensable damage as a result of the disadvantage caused him” by Southern Railway. It would take six years for the Supreme Court to reexamine Mr. Henderson’s case. While ruling in Henderson v. United States that Southern Railway’s policies violated the Interstate Commerce Act, the Court avoided declaring racial segregation unconstitutional, paving the way for that practice to continue for years. To learn more about America’s long and enduring history of racial segregation, as well as its ongoing legacy, read EJI’s report, Segregation in America.

Could it possibly get any worse?

#ViolaDesmond . . Canadian civil and women's rights activist and businesswoman of Black Nova Scotian descent. . . . PERSISTENCE . . . #10dollarbill #racialsegregation #blackhistorymonth #penillustration #handdrawn #canadahistory #womenrightsactivist (Calgary, Alberta에서) https://www.instagram.com/p/CoY3uiEuVZe/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Kamala Harris Visits Historic Woolworth's Lunch Counter Where Sit-In Movement Began In a surprise stop throughout a check ou......Read the rest by clicking the link below! https://worldwidetweets.com/kamala-harris-visits-historic-woolworths-lunch-counter-where-sit-in-movement-began/?feed_id=50454&_unique_id=607eff4c4d9f3

Kamala Harris Visits Historic Woolworth's Lunch Counter Where Sit-In Movement Began In a surprise stop throughout a check ou......Read the rest by clicking the link below! https://worldwidetweets.com/kamala-harris-visits-historic-woolworths-lunch-counter-where-sit-in-movement-began/?feed_id=50453&_unique_id=607eff4b383ab