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Racial segregation in the United States included the legally or socially enforced separation of
African Americans from
White Americans, as well as the separation of other
ethnic minorities from majority communities. Facilities and services such as
housing,
healthcare,
education,
employment and
transportation in the United States have been systematically separated based on
racial categorizations. The
Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of segregation in
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), so long as "
separate but equal" facilities were provided, a requirement that was rarely met. The doctrine's applicability to public schools was unanimously overturned in
Brown v. Board of Education (1954), and several landmark cases including
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964) further ruled against racial segregation, helping to bring an end to the
Jim Crow laws. During the
civil rights movement,
de jure segregation was formally outlawed by the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the
Fair Housing Act of 1968, while
de facto segregation continues today in areas including
residential segregation and
school segregation, as part of ongoing
racism and
discrimination in the United States. This photograph, taken in 1939 by
Russell Lee, shows an African-American man drinking at a water dispenser, with a sign reading "
Colored", in a streetcar terminal in
Oklahoma City.
Photograph credit: Russell Lee; restored by Adam Cuerden
