Knowra Racial segregation Racial segregation Racial segregation is the enforced or customary separation of people into distinct social, residential, educational, or public spaces based on race. It restricts access and interaction through law, policy, or social practice.
Jim Crow laws : State and local laws that enforced racial subordination and separation in the American South after Reconstruction. They made separation in schools, transport, and public facilities legally enforceable.
Plessy v. Ferguson : An 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld racial separation under the doctrine of “separate but equal.” The ruling gave constitutional protection to state-mandated segregation.
Rosa Parks : An American civil rights activist whose 1955 arrest for refusing to surrender her bus seat helped spark the Montgomery bus boycott. Her protest became a catalyst in the campaign against segregated buses.
Racial wealth gap : The difference in accumulated wealth among racial groups, shaped by income, inheritance, asset access, and policy. Exclusion from property ownership and credit compounded wealth disparities across generations.
Desegregation : The process of ending the separation of people by race in institutions or public spaces. It directly reverses formally enforced racial separation, though not necessarily its lingering effects.
Redlining : The discriminatory denial of credit and services to people or neighborhoods, often based on race. Mortgage discrimination helped maintain racially separated neighborhoods.
Brown v. Board of Education : A 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The decision rejected separate public schools as inherently unequal.
Thurgood Marshall : An American lawyer and jurist who argued major civil rights cases, including Brown v. Board of Education. His litigation helped dismantle legally enforced school segregation.
Environmental racism : The disproportionate exposure of racialized communities to pollution and environmental hazards. Residential segregation has often concentrated hazards near communities of color.
Integration : The inclusion of people from different groups in shared institutions, spaces, or social relationships. Integration concerns shared participation, not merely the removal of segregation rules.
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