"Facilities and services such as housing, healthcare, education, employment, and transportation have been systematically separated in the United States on racial grounds."
The history of systemic racism in the United States, including the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, and mass incarceration.
Slavery: The practice of owning and exploiting people as property, which was the foundation of the American economy for over two centuries.
Jim Crow laws: A system of racial segregation and discrimination that lasted from the end of Reconstruction until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
Civil Rights Movement: A social and political movement aimed at ending racial discrimination and securing African Americans' equal rights under the law.
Systemic Racism: A form of racism that is embedded in social institutions and policies, perpetuates inequality, and can be difficult to identify.
Redlining: The practice of denying access to housing and other services based on race.
Environmental Racism: The disproportionate exposure of communities of color to environmental hazards.
Police brutality: The excessive force used by law enforcement against people of color, often with little or no consequences.
Mass Incarceration: The practice of imprisoning large numbers of people, particularly people of color, for nonviolent offenses or minor infractions.
White Supremacy: A belief in the superiority of white people and the idea that they should dominate and control society.
Anti-Racism: The practice of actively working to challenge and dismantle racism in all its forms.
Slavery: The history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and enslavement of Africans and their descendants in the Americas, including the legacy of generational trauma, economic exploitation, and White supremacy.
Native American genocide: The history of the forced displacement, assimilation, cultural erasure, and physical destruction of Indigenous peoples in the Americas, including government policies, wars, and environmental exploitation.
Jim Crow: The history of racial segregation, discrimination, and violence against Black people in the United States from the late 19th century to the mid-1960s, including laws, practices, and attitudes that institutionalized racism.
Asian exclusion: The history of racial prejudice, discrimination, and marginalization of Asian Americans throughout U.S. history, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II to current issues of hate crimes and xenophobia.
Immigration policies: The history of discriminatory immigration laws and practices in the United States, including exclusionary quotas, xenophobia, and anti-Muslim sentiment.
Civil rights movement: The history of social and political activism by people of color and allies to challenge systemic racism and demand equal rights, including nonviolent resistance, legal victories, and cultural expression.
Intersectionality: The study of how different forms of oppression, such as racism, sexism, classism, and ableism, intersect and compound each other for people who belong to multiple marginalized groups.
Critical race theory: The interdisciplinary approach to understanding how race and racism are embedded in social institutions, power structures, and individual experiences, and how they can be challenged and transformed.
Decolonization: The movement to address the ongoing impacts of European colonization on Indigenous peoples and to redefine sovereignty, self-determination, and land rights.
Reparations: The idea of compensating the descendants of enslaved Africans and other victims of racial injustice for the harms and losses incurred by their ancestors, through financial, educational, or other means.
"The term is mainly used in reference to the legally or socially enforced separation of African Americans from whites."
"The term is also used in reference to the separation of other ethnic minorities from majority and mainstream communities."
"While mainly referring to the physical separation and provision of separate facilities, it can also refer to other manifestations such as prohibitions against interracial marriage (enforced with anti-miscegenation laws), and the separation of roles within an institution."
"Notably, in the United States Armed Forces up until 1948, black units were typically separated from white units but were still led by white officers."
"In parts of the United States, especially in the South, signs were used to indicate where African Americans could legally walk, talk, drink, rest, or eat."
"The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), so long as 'separate but equal' facilities were provided."
"The doctrine's applicability to public schools was unanimously overturned in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren."
"The Warren Court further ruled against racial segregation in several landmark cases including Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964), which helped bring an end to the Jim Crow laws."
"De jure segregation mandated the separation of races by law, and was the form imposed by slave codes before the Civil War and by Black Codes and Jim Crow laws following the war."
"De jure segregation was outlawed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968."
"De facto segregation continues today in areas such as residential segregation and school segregation because of both contemporary behavior and the historical legacy of de jure segregation."