With little chance to vote and hence next to no government support, it was easy for white oppressors to get away with the excuse that they believed that their government knew best in how to deal with racial aspects, and this paved the way for under representation in all aspects of jobs, education and public transport. Education wise, in the South, there were no black colleges where it was possible to study for a PhD, and state statistics show that South Carolina spent three times more on transporting white students to and from school than any black students. Because of the inadequate education system and the fact that it was hard for black people to get jobs meant that many of the population lived in poverty and were usually confined to inadequate housing in the poorer parts of the cities (areas which were later known as the ‘ghettos’). It was no wonder that they had inferior health services and infant mortality rates were twice as high as those in the white community. Even in the armed forces, an environment which was expected to be the most unified of any, blacks were discriminated against and ‘all black units’ were set up to make sure they did not mix with other soldiers.
Inherent racism which found its way through many families, particularly in the Deep South, were always lingering in the background, and often in the open. Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan struck terror into black communities as they carried out lynching and other acts of racially motivated harassment. A good example of this is the story of Emmett Till, who after whistling at a white woman in a candy store and henceforth being forcefully taken away by the storeowner and his half-brother, was found three days later with a bullet in his skull and his head crushed. Local people raised money to pay for their defence and it took just one hour for the all-white jury to find them not guilty.
Social segregation in schooling, dining, public transport and housing was commonplace in the early 1950’s, but white oppressionists never recognized the unfairness of this situation. It was not until people began to react to the system that action was slowly enforced. Examples of this were: Schooling- Little Rock; Public Transport- The Montgomery Bus Boycott; Dining: Student sit-ins. All of these public movements showed the lurching activists that it was time to take control, and head towards equality for all. But not all movement leaders had the same approaches.
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