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Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition

Segregation

by James Smallwood

Definition: Physical separation of one group, especially a racial or ethnic group, from another

Type of ethics: Race and ethnicity; Civil rights

Significance: Now deemed to be unconstitutional, racial segregation in the United States was originally the product of overt and unapologetic racist ideologies. When racism and white supremacy initially became less defensible as legal principles, however, segregation remained in place, but it was justified on grounds of social harmony. It was argued that maintaining separate but equal facilities and institutions would prevent the disorder that racial mixing would supposedly produce.

Segregation, historically, was born in the colonial era when the “majority” practiced de facto segregation. When most black Americans were slaves, free blacks suffered de facto segregation in housing and social segregation based on “custom” and “folkways.” As the northern colonies abolished slavery, de facto segregation sometimes became de jure separation supported by local ordinances and state law.

As long as the South maintained slavery, that institution “regulated” race relations, and de jure segregation was not needed. In 1865, however, the southern slaves were set free, and legal segregation made its appearance. After the Civil War, most southern states passed legislation known as black codes, which resembled the old slave codes. Under the new codes, social segregation was often spelled out. For example, most states moved immediately to segregate public transportation lines. By the end of the Reconstruction (1865-1877), race lines had hardened, and social segregation was the rule rather than the exception.

Unsuccessful Challenges

Some African Americans challenged segregationist laws. In 1896, blacks from Louisiana sued a public transportation company (railroad) that operated segregated passenger cars, as stipulated by Louisiana’s state laws. Black leaders argued that the state laws and the railroad’s actions violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

The case, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that segregation was “legal” as long as “separate but equal” facilities were made available for minorities. A lone dissenter, Justice John M. Harlan, who happened to be a white southerner, rejected the majority opinion, saying that the Constitution should be “color-blind” and that it should not tolerate “classes” among the citizens, who were all equal.

Despite Harlan’s dissent, the Plessy decision gave absolute legal sanction to a practice that many states, including some in the North, were already practicing by custom and tradition: Plessy “froze” segregation into the highest law of the land. Thereafter, segregationists, especially those in the South, used their legislatures to pass a host of new laws that extended the supposed “separate but equal” doctrine to all areas of life. For example, restaurants, hotels, and theaters became segregated by law, not only by custom. Railroad cars and railroad stations divided the races; hospitals, doctors’ offices, and even cemeteries became segregated.

The laws of some southern states called for segregated prisons, while prisons in other states took criminals from both races but separated them within their facilities. At least one state passed a law that forbade a white and a black prisoner to look out the same prison windowat the same time. If the prisoners were physically close enough to look out at the same time, they were too close to please segregationists.

As the United States matured during the twentieth century, segregation was extended whenever “technology” made it seem necessary. For example, in 1915, Oklahoma became the first state in the Union to require segregated public “pay” telephone booths.

When motor cars were first used as a “taxi” service, taxi companies were segregated—a “white” taxi serving whites only and a “black” taxi serving African Americans only. Public water fountains became segregated, as did public restroom facilities.

Another problem became associated with segregation. Often, there was no separate facility for blacks, who were denied service altogether. For example, as late as the 1960’s, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s personal maid and butler-handyman experienced difficulty traveling by car from Washington, D.C., back to Johnson’s Texas home. There were few if any “motels” along the way that would rent rooms to African Americans.

Successful Challenges

Eventually, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) launched new attacks against segregationist laws—especially in circumstances in which no separate facilities existed for African Americans.

For example, in Gaines v. Missouri (1938) and Sweatt v. Painter (1949; a Texas case), the Supreme Court ruled that blacks could attend white law schools because no separate school was available in state for African Americans. In 1950, in McLaurin v. Oklahoma, the NAACP tested the same concept and won another court battle. As McLaurin showed, the University of Oklahoma had admitted a black student to its graduate program but then had segregated him on campus. After the high court ruled that such segregation was unfair and illegal because it denied “equal” education, Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP became even more determined to challenge segregation. He did so successfully when, in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Court declared segregated public education illegal.

If segregation was unjust and unconstitutional in education, it seemed clear that it was also unjust in other areas of life. Thus, in 1955, under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., and others, a nonviolent protest movement took to the streets and eventually won victories that included new laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voter Registration Act of 1965.

Ultimately, a limited social and economic “revolution” occurred that condemned segregation and, in part, created a new American society.

Further Reading

1 

Blauner, Bob. Racial Oppression in America. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.

2 

Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988.

3 

Feagin, Joe R., and Clairece Booher Feagin. Racial and Ethnic Relations. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003.

4 

Forman, James. The Making of Black Revolutionaries.

5 

Ill. ed. Forward by Julian Bond. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997.

6 

Garrow, David J., ed. We Shall Overcome: The Civil Rights Movement in the United States in the 1950’s and 1960’s. 3 vols. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson, 1989.

7 

Hacker, Andrew. Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal. New York: Scribner, 2003.

8 

Powledge, Fred. Free at Last? The Civil Rights Movement and the People Who Made It. Boston: Little, Brown, 1991.

9 

Schnell, Izhak, and Wim Ostendorf, eds. Studies in Segregation and Desegregation. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2002.

10 

Sitkoff, Harvard. The Struggle for Black Equality, 1954-1992. New York: Hill & Wang, 1993.

See also: Apartheid; Bigotry; Brown v. Board of Education; Caste system, Hindu; Civil Rights movement; Integration; Plessy v. Ferguson; Racial prejudice; Racism; Slavery.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Smallwood, James. "Segregation." Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition, edited by George Lucas & John K. Roth, Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Ethics_0985.
APA 7th
Smallwood, J. (2019). Segregation. In G. Lucas & J. K. Roth (Eds.), Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Smallwood, James. "Segregation." Edited by George Lucas & John K. Roth. Ethics: Questions & Morality of Human Actions, 3rd Edition. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2019. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.