Reason 3: Manipulation of Laws and the Entire Legal System
With the blessing of the nation’s highest court, there was no federal governmental will to vindicate civil rights for black Americans. Starting in the late 1800s, states passed a series of laws and codes meant to make slavery’s racial caste system permanent by denying black Americans political power, social equality, and basic dignity. States passed literacy tests to keep black Americans from voting and created all-white primaries for elections. Black Americans were prohibited from serving on juries or testifying in court against a white person.
There are many examples of state laws enacted to impede the freedom of black Americans. Memphis had separate parking spaces for black and white drivers. Baltimore passed an ordinance outlawing black Americans from moving onto a block that was more than half white and white Americans from moving onto a block more than half black. Georgia made it illegal for black and white Americans to be buried next to one another in the same cemetery. Alabama barred black Americans from using public libraries that were paid for by their own tax dollars.
Black Americans were expected to jump off the sidewalk to let white Americans pass and were forced to call all white Americans by a title that conveyed the white person’s superiority no matter how old they were. In the North, white politicians implemented policies that segregated black Americans into slum neighborhoods and into inferior all-black schools, operated whites-only public pools, and white businesses regularly denied black Americans service, placing “Whites Only” signs in their windows.
States like California joined Southern States in barring black Americans from marrying white Americans, while local school boards in Illinois and New Jersey mandated segregated schools for black and white children.
White America savagely enforced a system of racial apartheid that excluded black people almost entirely from economic opportunities and mainstream American life. Black Americans have only been legally free and able to build wealth freely for 50 years.