After slavery was abolished in the United States, Black Americans were marginalized for quite some time via diminished or segregated access to education, housing, career opportunities and so much more.

What Is Segregation?

Segregation was (and still is) the practice of requiring separate services, education and housing for people of color. Segregation was actually made a law in the 18^th and 19^th century because people then believed that the Black and White community could not co-exist.

After the 13^th Amendment

During the liberation of all the slaves under the 13^th Amendment, according to the abolitionists, was that they should all be freed. Among these were also some people who believed in colonization – either by creating their own homeland or returning to Africa.

It was in 1862 that President Abraham Lincoln had found that ex-slave countries like Liberia and Haiti were going to open channels for colonization while the Congress was willing to allocate $600,000 to help out. While this plan didn’t really work, the country had instead moved forward to set a path for legally mandated segregation.

The First Step Towards Official Segregation

The very first step towards official segregation had come via the ‘Black Codes’. The Black Codes signified the laws that were passed all over the South in 1865 to dictate most of the aspects of Black people’s life. These codes were put in place to ensure that Black people could work for cheap labor and live freely as slavery had been abolished.

The Jim Crow Laws

These laws for segregation had then become an official policy that was enforced by a long list of Southern laws. These laws were called Jim Crow laws. This name, if you didn’t already know, was derived from the derogatory term that was used for Black people at the time.

With the help of these laws, legislators had managed to segregate everything from residential areas to schools and public parks. Other areas that had been segregated included cemeteries, theatres, public pools, residential homes, jails, and asylums. There were even separate waiting rooms that had been put in place in professional offices in 1915. This is when Oklahoma also became the first-ever state that had even come up with segregated public phone booths.

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