This may be a surprise to you, but China is still governed by a totalitarian regime, on evolution scale, something the US "evolved" from more that 200
years ago.
History of Segregation
The history of legally sanctioned discrimination against African-
Americans in the United States is as old as the country itself. Under
the Constitution, not only was slavery permitted, but the federal
government offered its own resources to help capture runaway
slaves. Blacks were considered as only "three-fifths of a person"
for purposes of counting population. It was not until the end of the
Civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment (1865) that
slavery was finally outlawed. Shortly thereafter, the 14th
Amendment (1868), guaranteeing equal protection under the law,
was approved. This was followed by the 15th Amendment (1870)
which said no citizen could be denied the right to vote because of
race or color.
In spite of these Constitutional protections, so-called "Jim Crow"
laws flourished throughout the South. Jim Crow laws mandated
segregated public and private facilities for Whites and Blacks.
These laws meant that African-Americans had to attend separate
schools, ride in the back of public busses, drink from separate
water fountains, and eat at separate restaurants. Blacks were not
allowed to use any public building or property. It was understood
that "public" meant "Whites only." Blacks could not use the public
library, the public swimming pool, the public parks and
playgrounds. Blacks could only go to the zoo on certain days at
certain times. They were not allowed to work at certain jobs, for
example, being bank tellers, or sales clerks in department stores.
Blacks were told what kind of clothes to wear. In parts of
Mississippi, only teachers and ministers were allowed to wear suits
in public during the week. In some places, Blacks were told what
makes and models of cars to drive. In other places, they were not
allowed to have new cars, only used cars. If a white person was
walking down the sidewalk, a black person had to get off the
sidewalk so the white person could walk by. There were laws
which prohibited Blacks to look at white people in the eye, and a
black person could be sent to jail for "assault (reckless eyeballing)."
Blacks were offered inferior everything Ð bathrooms, schools,
housing - by those in charge. Blacks who sought to challenge the
Jim Crow laws, such as Rosa Parks, were arrested or brutalized
by Whites. Blacks who dared to challenge the rules were lynched
by the thousands. Men and women were lynched. Lynchings were
public events and white men, women and children went to watch
Blacks being tortured and burned or hanged. In less extreme cases,
Blacks who challenged the system could lose their jobs, be put out
of their homes or be run out of town. In some cases, Whites
literally got away with murder for killing "uppity" Blacks. Racist
judges and juries made it impossible for Blacks to seek redress in
Southern courtrooms. Blacks were not allowed to serve on juries
or to give testimony in a court of law. Blacks could not testify
against Whites in court. Blacks could not sue Whites.
Key Court Cases
Prior to the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision, the
Supreme Court made several key rulings against
African-Americans. In the Dred Scott case (1857), the Court ruled
that slaves had no legal standing to sue because they were not
citizens, but rather the private property of their slave owners. After
the Civil War, when Southern states sought to reinstate, under
names other than slavery, the conditions of subordination and white
control, the Supreme Court upheld them in Plessy vs. Ferguson
(1896), the doctrine of Òseparate but equal." This ruling stated that
separation of the races was constitutionally legal as long as equal
accommodations were made for Blacks. However, this allowed the
continuation of "separate but unequal" which had existed all along.
Accommodations were far from equal in many parts of the country;
for instance, African-American students attended public schools
that were completely unequal compared to white schools. Black
schools received significantly less funding than white schools; in
some cases a school district would spend $50 per pupil in the
white schools and $1 per pupil in the black schools. Black teachers
were paid significantly less than white teachers, regardless of
qualifications, education or experience. Black schools were given
only the books that the white schools threw away. The buildings
were often in very poor repair. The black school facilities were
often inferior, lacking libraries, gymnasiums, and playing fields.
Black schools often did not have indoor plumbing. They had
broken equipment and furniture, which had been discarded by
white schools. They were not allowed to offer special advanced
academic courses to their students. Black students could not use
public school busses to get to school.
In addition, in many places, black families were not allowed to
send their children to schools for a full school year. In some
locations, the black schools were open only a few months of the
year. The owner of the plantation where the family sharecropped
could tell the parents that "Sammy is old enough to be working in
the fields. He doesn't need to go to school anymore," and a
ten-year-old would be withdrawn from school to work. Failure to
comply meant the family would be driven from their home. Blacks
who sought to continue with their education were considered to be
"uppity."
The Supreme Court unanimously overturned the Plessy ruling in
1954, with the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. The Court
said that the "separate but equal" doctrine violated the 14th
Amendment and was thus unconstitutional. But, while the Brown
decision should have marked the end of segregated schools,
Southern school officials and politicians refused to comply with the
ruling. Not eager to challenge the states' authority, the federal
government was slow to act. It was not until 1957, when the
Governor of Arkansas refused to allow nine African-American
students to enroll at Little Rock Central High School, that President
Eisenhower was compelled to order federal troops to enforce the
Brown decision.
While Little Rock marked the first attempt by the federal
government to enforce the Supreme Court decision, in reality,
school systems remained segregated. In some locations, Whites
simply closed down the public school system and created "private,
Whites-only academies" in their place. In other places, they
drastically reduced the amount of money available to the public
schools after they created the white academies, leaving the black
schools as impoverished as before.
Voting Rights
Further, African-Americans were still being denied their
constitutional right to vote. Through such tactics as the poll tax and
the literacy test, African-Americans who tried to register to vote
were turned down. Those who persisted were told in no uncertain
terms that their personal safety and livelihood depended on staying
away from the registrar's office.
In 1965, a peaceful, nonviolent civil rights march in Selma,
Alabama was broken up by police. Using tear gas and horses, the
police attacked and beat the unarmed marchers. Shortly thereafter,
the United States Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which
was the first significant federal protection of African-American
voting rights since the 15th Amendment, nearly a hundred years
previous. The Act eliminated voter literacy tests and enabled
federal examiners to register voters. The 24th Amendment (1964)
approved a year earlier had eliminated the poll tax in federal
elections. Other constitutional amendments which expanded the
voting rights of Americans were the 19th Amendment (1920),
which granted women the right to vote; the 23rd (1961), which
permitted residents of the District of Columbia to vote for President
and Vice-President; and the 26th (1971), which extended the right
to vote to eighteen-year-olds.
Don't make me post about Native Americans......
Al |
