black americans in the south - inequality

context

• Post-Civil War Southern states introduced Jim Crow laws to enforce racial segregation

• Legal separation in: schools, hospitals, transport, restaurants, toilets, drinking fountains

• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) upheld “separate but equal” → facilities were unequal in practice

• Voting restrictions: poll taxes, literacy tests excluded Black Americans from political participation

• By 1955, Black Americans in the South faced systemic inferiority across education, healthcare, and public life

• AO2: Jim Crow laws institutionalised racism, upheld white supremacy, and blocked Black advancement until challenged by civil rights activism

social inferiority

• Segregated facilities (fountains, restrooms, cinemas, lunch counters) reinforced racial hierarchy

• Black Americans denied dignity in public spaces; MLK: “determined to hate every white person”

political inferiority

• 80% of Black Southerners couldn’t vote

• Barriers: violence, literacy tests (“How many bubbles in a bar of soap?”), poll taxes (e.g. Rosa Parks: $16.50)

economic inferiority

• Most Black Southerners in low-paid jobs (sharecroppers, domestics)

• Segregated education underfunded: SC (1949) spent $179 per white child, $43 per Black child

• Black colleges lacked qualified staff; e.g. James Meredith sought entry to white university

legal inequality

• No protection in courts; white violence unpunished

• Emmett Till (1955): murdered for whistling at white woman → killers acquitted by all-white jury

HOW SUCCESSFUL WAS THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN ACHIEVING MORE RIGHTS FOR BLACK AMERICANS IN THE YEARS 1955 TO 1963?

• Economic gap:

  • 1953: white median income = $4,392; non-white = $2,461

  • 1960: white = $5,835; non-white = $3,233

  • Suburbia and affluence = white-only phenomena; Black Americans confined to inner cities/rural poverty

• Segregation:

  • Legal separation in schools, transport, toilets, benches, fountains persisted into 1950s

  • Discrimination in housing and jobs nationwide

• Political exclusion:

  • Despite 1868 equal protection clause, Black Americans faced systemic disenfranchisement

• AO2:

• The “American Dream” was racially exclusive

• Rising Black frustration by 1955 → triggered Civil Rights Movement to challenge Jim Crow and demand equality