The Rise of Legal Segregation in the South - Essay Example

Slavery and racial segregation were prevalent in the United States for more than 200 years prior to the onset of the civil war. However, after the war, things started to get worse for the blacks. The Southern governments and the former associates passed and approved laws, which were known as the black regulations. These laws strictly restricted the rights of blacks and isolated them from white (Stonaker & Shepard, 1). By the 1870s, there was a rising movement to restore control of the South to southerners. In addition, there was a growing hatred of any foreign governing of southern states by outsiders bound by the reconstruction acts (Schultz & Tishler, 4).

The legal system and police encouraged segregation. However, beyond the legal system, there was often a potential risk of terrorist aggression. The Ku Klux Klan, Knights of White Camellia, and other fanatics assassinated thousands of blacks and several whites to stop them from voting and taking part in public life (Stonaker & Shepard, 12). The execution was one of the major ways of violence. Between the years 1884 and 1900, white gangs assassinated approximately 2,000 blacks in the South. The gangs also burned them alive, shot them, or even beat them to death.  The perpetrators also executed blacks for any defilement of the Southern rules and regulations (16).

The southern states approved laws in the middle of the 1800s that obliged different accommodations for blacks and whites in schools. They also approved laws for different public transportation systems, courts, libraries, and cemeteries. Additionally, they also approved that no black man would be put in a similar insane shelter to the white man in every southern state.  Popularly, all the above laws were collectively referred to as Jim Crow laws (Schultz & Tishler, 5).

The first step towards the fight for the elimination of legal segregation occurred when colored people, factions of African Americans, and some European activists collaborated to fight the segregation of trains in New Orleans.  In 1905, W.E.B. Dubois led a number of Black activists at a meeting convened in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada to plan tactics for the elimination of racial segregation and advocate for racial equality. In the year 1909, this meeting by black activists became the Niagara Movement, which led to the formation of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). This association concerted its efforts to fight for the rights of colored people and challenge racial segregation in courts (Stonaker & Shepard, 29).