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Racial segregation exists where governments have passed laws either allowing or requiringdiscrimination on the basis of race. Both South Africa and the United States passed laws requring or permitting separation of the races in daily life. The practice of segregating the races was called apartheid for many years in South Africa. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of states to pass discriminatory legislation. Segregation continued until 1954 when the court reversed its earlier decision. Segregaton is characterized by forced separation of the races in daily life when both are doing equal tasks, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. Segregation often allows close contact in hierarchical situations, such as allowing a person of one race to work as a servant for a member of another race. Segregation can involve spatial separation of the races, and/or the use of different institutions, such as schools by different races. See also: racism.

Overview

Although many societies throughout history have practiced racial segregation, it was by no means universal, and some multiracial societies such as the Roman Empire were notable for their rejection of racial segregation. Most modern societies do not officially practice racial segregation, and officially frown upon racial discrimination. However, anxieties about racial, religious and cultural differences still find expression in other forms of political and social controversy, either as an official pretext for culturally accepted discrimination, or as a socially acceptable way to discuss cultural, religious and economic friction that results from racial discrimination. For example, immigration and religious controversies often mask concerns about the culture or racial composition of the immigrants. Issues of race relations also appear in seemingly race-neutral disputes, over such issues as poverty, healthcare, taxation, religion, enforcement of a particular set of cultural norms, and even fashion.

Racial segregation differs from racial discrimination in a number of ways. Discrimination ranges from individual actions, to socially enforced discriminatory behavior, to legally mandated differences in status between members of different races. Segregation represents the most extreme option in that it is a legally mandated difference in status; however, it goes even further by mandating separation of the members of differing races and the social systems that serve them

USA

After the Civil War abolished slavery in the South, racial discrimination became regulated by the so-called Jim Crow laws, which mandated strict segregation of the races. Though such laws were instituted shortly after fighting ended in many cases, they only became formalized after the end of Republican-enforced Reconstruction in the 1870s and 80s during a period known as the nadir of American race relations. This legalized segregation lasted up to the 1960s, primarily through the deep and extensive power of the Democratic Party.

In the post-Civil War South, Democrats used the race issue to solidify their hold on Southern politics, playing on white resentment of black political power. Democrats were the agents in passing segregation laws, as well as laws disenfranchising blacks (and sometimes poor whites) politically. White and black people would sometimes be required to eat separately and use separate schools, public toilets, park benches, train and restaurant seating, etc. In some locales, in addition to segregated seating, it could be forbidden for stores or restaurants to serve different races under the same roof.

Segregation was also pervasive in housing. State constitutions (for example, that of California) had clauses giving local jurisdictions the right to regulate where members of certain races could live. White landowners often included restrictive covenants in deeds through which they prevented blacks or Asians from ever purchasing their property from any subsequent owner. In the 1948 case of Shelley v. Kraemer, the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled that such covenants were unenforceable in a court of law. However, residential segregation patterns had already become established in most American cities, and have often persisted up to the present (see white flight).

"Miscegenation" laws prohibited people of different races from marrying. As one of many examples of such state laws, Utah's marriage law had an anti-miscegenation component that was passed in 1899 and repealed in 1963. It prohibited marriage between a white and anyone considered a Negro, mulatto (half Negro), quadroon (one-quarter Negro), octoroon (one-eighth Negro), Mongolian, or member of the Malay race (presumably a Polynesian or Melanesian). No restrictions were placed on marriages between people that were not "white persons." (Utah Code, 40-1-2, C. L. 17, §2967 as amended by L. 39, C. 50; L. 41, Ch. 35.).

In World War I, blacks served in the United States Armed Forces in segregated units, and participated in the liberation of Jewish Survivors at Buchenwald . Black soldiers were often poorly trained and equipped. Still, the 93rd Division, fought alongside the French (who needed troops, and with their use of Algerian, Moroccan. The 369th Infantry (formerly 15th New York National Guard) Regiment distinguished themselves, and were known as the "Harlem Hellfighters". The first black military pilots in the U.S., the Tuskegee Airmen, 99th Fighter Squadron, faced a battle against racism during World War II.

During World War II, people of Japanese descent (whether citizens or not) were excluded from the West Coast and placed in internment camps, on the basis of their race; see Japanese American internment.

Pressure to end racial segregation in the government grew among African Americans and progressives after the end of World War II. On January 26, 1948 President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981, ending segregation in the United States Armed Forces.

Institutionalized racial segregation was ended as an official practice by the efforts of such civil rights activists as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., working during the period from the end of World War II through the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 supported by President Lyndon Johnson. Many of their efforts were acts of civil disobedience aimed at violating the racial segregation rules and laws, such as refusing to give up a seat in the black part of the bus to a white person (Rosa Parks), or holding sit-ins at all-white diners.

Not all racial segregation laws have been repealed in the United States, although Supreme Court rulings have rendered them unenforceable. For instance, the Alabama Constitution still mandates that Separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race. A proposal to repeal this provision was narrowly defeated in 2004. However, in a different arena, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in February 2005 in Johnson v. California (125 S. Ct. 1141) that the California Department of Corrections' unwritten practice of racially segregating prisoners in its prison reception centers — which California claimed was for inmate safety (gangs in California, as throughout the U.S., usually organize on racial lines)— is to be subject to strict scrutiny, the highest level of constitutional review. Although the high court remanded the case back to the lower courts, it is likely that their decision will have the impact of forcing California to alter its practice of segregating by race in its reception centers.

Despite all of the legal changes of the past half-century, however, the United States remains a segregated society, with housing patterns, school enrollment, church membership, employment opportunities, and even college admissions all reflecting significant de facto segregation. Supporters of affirmative action argue that the persistence of such disparities reflects either racial discrimination or the persistence of its effects.

According to the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, the actual desegregation of U.S. public schools peaked in 1988; since that time the schools have, in fact, become more segregated. As of 2005, the present proportion of Black students at majority white schools "a level lower than in any year since 1968."