Racial discrimination
In the 1800s the slaves were freed by President Abraham Licoln. After this starting in about the 1870s Jim Crow laws were introduced. These laws promoted the idea "separate but equal", meaning that the races although having to be in different areas and not allowed to intermingle were equal. The mixing of races was illegal in most places public schools, public transportation and eating establishments.[2] These laws increased discrimination, while the idea was separate but equal the black schools were not as advanced and didn’t have good supplies. Overall the areas where African Americans were designated to do daily activities were always of poorer quality than that of their white counterparts. Discrimination was blatantly done; one example of this is in the case of Rosa Parks. In her area of the country it was customary to move to the back of the bus or give up your seat for a white person. Laws like these existed all over America. The court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka made people realize that there was no such thing as separate but equal. By separating races and saying that it was wrong for them to interact showed that they thought something was wrong with one of the races. The Supreme Court of the United States decided that "separate but equal" was no longer necessary in 1954. Racial discrimination was not only used by adults but children as well thought that races should not interact with one another. An example of this is the experiences Ruby Bridges had when she was one of the first black children to be "integrated" into an all-white school.