Separate but equal

Separate but equal (English for " separate but equal " ) was in the United States as a social and legal principle of dealing designated as racial segregation with the African-American minority and the ratio between the two main population groups defined from 1896 to 1954 in the southern states. According to this principle comparable facilities or services were for white and black Americans in many walks of life made ​​available, but they were strictly separated according to the skin color in terms of their use, which is considered as an expression of a policy of segregation.

Historical Aspects

The principle of separate but equal in 1896 by the decision of the Supreme Court legalized in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. In this judgment, the Court declared a law to be legal, which required separate compartments in railway trains for whites and blacks in the state of Louisiana. The judgment in the case of Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education and three years later legitimized racial segregation in public schools.

In the aftermath concerned the provision of separate facilities for whites and blacks broad areas of public life in the southern United States, such as schools and colleges, hospitals, public transport or hygienic facilities such as water dispenser and public toilets. Although " separate but equal " principle by the officially prescribed was that the benefits for whites and blacks in terms of scope and quality should be the same, they were in reality usually do not. So were schools for black children usually significantly less government funding than schools for white children. The original court order did not provide for penalties in the event that the separate facilities were not equivalent, nor guidelines as to who should check out this condition.

The fight against separate but equal was a central part of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Through the decisions of the Supreme Court in the cases Brown v. Board of Education and Bolling v. Sharpe in 1954, finally, the racial segregation in public schools in all states including the Federal District Washington, DC declared unconstitutional. Thus, the principle was separate but equal at least officially abolished, even if the implementation is still in practice took some time to complete.

Was abolished definitively racial segregation in the United States by the in July 1964, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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