Racial Segregation

Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the International Criminal Court. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, such as schools and hospitals by people of different races. Specifically, it may be applied to activities such as eating in restaurants, drinking from water fountains, using public toilets, attending schools, going to films, riding buses, renting or purchasing homes or renting hotel rooms. In addition, segregation often allows close contact between members of different racial or ethnic groups in hierarchical situations, such as allowing a person of one race to work as a servant for a member of another race.

Segregation is defined by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance as "the act by which a (natural or legal) person separates other persons on the basis of one of the enumerated grounds without an objective and reasonable justification, in conformity with the proposed definition of discrimination. As a result, the voluntary act of separating oneself from other people on the basis of one of the enumerated grounds does not constitute segregation". According to the UN Forum on Minority Issues, "The creation and development of classes and schools providing education in minority languages should not be considered impermissible segregation if the assignment to such classes and schools is of a voluntary nature."

Racial segregation has generally been outlawed worldwide. In the United States, racial segregation was mandated by law in some states (see Jim Crow laws) and enforced along with anti-miscegenation laws (prohibitions against interracial marriage), until the U.S. Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren struck down racial segregationist laws throughout the United States. However, racial segregation may exist ''de facto'' through social norms, even when there is no strong individual preference for it, as suggested by Thomas Schelling's models of segregation and subsequent work. Segregation may be maintained by means ranging from discrimination in hiring and in the rental and sale of housing to certain races to vigilante violence (such as lynchings). Generally, a situation that arises when members of different races mutually prefer to associate and do business with members of their own race would usually be described as ''separation'' or ''de facto separation'' of the races rather than ''segregation''.

Historic cases from ancient times to the 1960s

Imperial China

Tang dynasty

Several laws which enforced racial segregation of foreigners from Chinese were passed by the Han Chinese during the Tang dynasty. In 779, the Tang dynasty issued an edict which forced Uyghurs to wear their ethnic dress, stopped them from marrying Chinese females, and banned them from pretending to be Chinese. In 836, when Lu Chun was appointed as governor of Canton, he was disgusted to find Chinese living with foreigners and intermarriage between Chinese and foreigners. Lu enforced separation, banning interracial marriages, and made it illegal for foreigners to own property. Lu Chun believed his principles were just and upright. The 836 law specifically banned Chinese from forming relationships with "Dark peoples" or "People of colour", which was used to describe foreigners, such as " Iranians, Sogdians, Arabs, Indians, Malays, Sumatrans", among others.

Qing dynasty

The Qing dynasty was founded not by Han Chinese, who form the majority of the Chinese population, but by Manchus, who are today an ethnic minority of China. The Manchus were keenly aware of their minority status, however, it was only later in the dynasty that they banned intermarriage.

Han defectors played a massive role in the Qing conquest of China. Han Chinese Generals of the Ming Dynasty who defected to the Manchu were often given women from the Imperial Aisin Gioro family in marriage while the ordinary soldiers who defected were given non-royal Manchu women as wives. The Manchu leader Nurhaci married one of his granddaughters to the Ming General Li Yongfang after he surrendered Fushun in Liaoning to the Manchu in 1618. Jurchen (Manchu) women married most of the Han Chinese defectors in Liaodong. Aisin Gioro women were married to the sons of the Han Chinese Generals Sun Sike (Sun Ssu-k'o), Geng Jimao (Keng Chi-mao), Shang Kexi (Shang K'o-hsi), and Wu Sangui (Wu San-kuei).

A mass marriage of Han Chinese officers and officials to Manchu women numbering 1,000 couples was arranged by Prince Yoto and Hongtaiji in 1632 to promote harmony between the two ethnic groups.

Geng Zhongming, a Han bannerman, was awarded the title of Prince Jingnan, and his son Geng Jingmao managed to have both his sons Geng Jingzhong and Geng Zhaozhong become court attendants under Shunzhi and marry Aisin Gioro women, with Haoge's (a son of Hong Taiji) daughter marrying Geng Jingzhong and Prince Abatai's (Hong Taiji) granddaughter marrying Geng Zhaozhong.

The Qing differentiated between Han Bannermen and ordinary Han civilians. Han Bannermen were made out of Han Chinese who defected to the Qing up to 1644 and joined the Eight Banners, giving them social and legal privileges in addition to being acculturated to Manchu culture. So many Han defected to the Qing and swelled the ranks of the Eight Banners that ethnic Manchus became a minority within the Banners, making up only 16% in 1648, with Han Bannermen dominating at 75%. It was this multi-ethnic force in which Manchus were only a minority, which conquered China for the Qing.

It was Han Chinese Bannermen who were responsible for the successful Qing conquest of China, they made up the majority of governors in the early Qing and were the ones who governed and administered China after the conquest, stabilizing Qing rule. Han Bannermen dominated the post of governor-general in the time of the Shunzhi and Kangxi Emperors, and also the post of governors, largely excluding ordinary Han civilians from the posts.

To promote ethnic harmony, a 1648 decree from the Manchu Shunzhi Emperor allowed Han Chinese civilian men to marry Manchu women from the Banners with the permission of the Board of Revenue if they were registered daughters of officials or commoners or the permission of their banner company captain if they were unregistered commoners, it was only later in the dynasty that these policies allowing intermarriage were done away with.

The Qing implemented a policy of segregation between the Bannermen of the Eight Banners (Manchu Bannermen, Mongol Bannermen, Han Bannermen) and Han Chinese civilians. This ethnic segregation had cultural and economic reasons: intermarriage was forbidden to keep up the Manchu heritage and minimize sinicization. Han Chinese civilians and Mongol civilians were banned from settling in Manchuria. Han civilians and Mongol civilians were banned from crossing into each other's lands. Ordinary Mongol civilians in Inner Mongolia were banned from even crossing into other Mongol Banners. (A banner in Inner Mongolia was an administrative division and not related to the Mongol Bannermen in the Eight Banners)

These restrictions did not apply Han Bannermen, who were settled in Manchuria by the Qing. Han bannermen were differentiated from Han civilians by the Qing and treated differently.

The Qing Dynasty started colonizing Manchuria with Han Chinese later on in the dynasty's rule, but the Manchu area was still separated from modern-day Inner Mongolia by the Outer Willow Palisade, which kept the Manchu and the Mongols in the area separate.

The policy of segregation applied directly to the banner garrisons, most of which occupied a separate walled zone within the cities in which they were stationed. Manchu Bannermen, Han Bannermen, and Mongol Bannermen were separated from the Han civilian population. While the Manchus followed the governmental structure of the preceding Ming dynasty, their ethnic policy dictated that appointments were split between Manchu noblemen and Han Chinese civilian officials who had passed the highest levels of the state examinations, and because of the small number of Manchus, this insured that a large fraction of them would be government officials.

Colonial societies

Belgian Congo

Though there were no specific laws imposing racial segregation and barring Black people from establishments frequented by Whites, ''de facto'' segregation operated in most areas. For example, initially, the city centres were reserved to the White population only, while the Black population was organised in ''cités indigènes'' (indigenous neighbourhoods called 'le belge'). Hospitals, department stores, and other facilities were often reserved for either Whites or Blacks.

The Black population in the cities could not leave their houses from 2100 to 0400. This type of segregation began to disappear gradually only in the 1950s, but even then the Congolese remained or felt treated in many respects as second-rate citizens (for instance in political and legal terms).

From 1952, and even more so after the triumphant visit of King Baudouin to the colony in 1955, Governor-General Léon Pétillon (1952–1958) worked to create a "Belgian-Congolese community", in which Black and White people were to be treated as equals. Regardless, anti-miscegenation laws remained in place, and between 1959 and 1962 thousands of mixed-race Congolese children were forcibly deported from the Congo by the Belgian government and the Catholic Church and taken to Belgium.

French Algeria

Following its conquest of Ottoman controlled Algeria in 1830, for well over a century, France maintained colonial rule in the territory which has been described as "quasi-apartheid". The colonial law of 1865 allowed Arab and Berber Algerians to apply for French citizenship only if they abandoned their Muslim identity; Azzedine Haddour argues that this established "the formal structures of a political apartheid". Camille Bonora-Waisman writes that "in contrast with the Moroccan and Tunisian protectorates", this "colonial apartheid society" was unique to Algeria.

This "internal system of apartheid" met with considerable resistance from the Muslims affected by it, and is cited as one of the causes of the 1954 insurrection and ensuing independence war.

Rhodesia

The Land Apportionment Act of 1930 passed in Southern Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe) was a segregationist measure that governed land allocation and acquisition in rural areas, making distinctions between Blacks and Whites.

One highly publicised legal battle occurred in 1960 involving the opening of a new theatre that was to be open to all races; the proposed unsegregated public toilets at the newly built Reps Theatre in 1959 caused an argument called "The Battle of the Toilets".

Religious and racial antisemitism

Jews in Europe were generally forced, by decree or by informal pressure, to live in highly segregated ghettos and shtetls. In 1204 the papacy required Jews to segregate themselves from Christians and wear distinctive clothing. Forced segregation of Jews spread throughout Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries. In the Russian Empire, Jews were restricted to the so-called Pale of Settlement, the Western frontier of the Russian Empire which roughly corresponds to the modern-day countries of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. By the early 20th century, the majority of Europe's Jews lived in the Pale of Settlement.

From the beginning of the 15th century, Jewish populations in Morocco were confined to mellahs. In cities, a ''mellah'' was surrounded by a wall with a fortified gateway. In contrast, rural ''mellahs'' were separate villages whose sole inhabitants were Jews.

In the middle of the 19th century, J. J. Benjamin wrote about the lives of Persian Jews:

On 16 May 1940 in Norway, the ''Administrasjonsrådet'' asked the Rikskommisariatet why radio receivers had been confiscated from Jews in Norway. That ''Administrasjonsrådet'' thereafter "quietly" accepted racial segregation between Norwegian citizens, has been claimed by Tor Bomann-Larsen. Furthermore, he claimed that this segregation "created a precedent. 2 years later (with ''NS-styret'' in the ministries of Norway) Norwegian police arrested citizens at the addresses where radios had previously been confiscated from Jews.

Fascist Italy

In 1938, the fascist regime which was led by Benito Mussolini, under pressure from the Nazis, introduced a series of racial laws which instituted an official segregationist policy in the Italian Empire, which was especially directed against Italian Jews. This policy enforced various segregationist norms, like the laws which banned Jews from teaching or studying in ordinary schools and universities, owning industries that were reputed to be very important to the nation, working as journalists, entering the military, and marrying non-Jews.
Some of the immediate consequences of the introduction of the 'provvedimenti per la difesa della razza' (norms for the defence of the race) included many of the best Italian scientists leaving their jobs, or even leaving Italy. Amongst these were the world-renowned physicists Emilio Segrè, Enrico Fermi (whose wife was Jewish), Bruno Pontecorvo, Bruno Rossi, Tullio Levi-Civita, mathematicians Federigo Enriques and Guido Fubini and even the fascist propaganda director, art critic and journalist Margherita Sarfatti, who was one of Mussolini's mistresses. Rita Levi-Montalcini, who would successively win the Nobel Prize for Medicine, was forbidden to work at the university. Albert Einstein, upon passage of the racial law, resigned from his honorary membership in the Accademia dei Lincei.

After 1943, when Northern Italy was occupied by the Nazis, Italian Jews were rounded up and became victims of the Holocaust.

Nazi Germany

German praise for America's system of institutional racism, which was previously found in Adolf Hitler's '' Mein Kampf'', was continuous throughout the early 1930s. The U.S. was the global leader in codified racism, and its race laws fascinated the Germans. The ''National Socialist Handbook for Law and Legislation'' of 1934–35, edited by Hitler's lawyer Hans Frank, contains a pivotal essay by Herbert Kier on the recommendations for race legislation which devoted a quarter of its pages to U.S. legislation—from segregation, race based citizenship, immigration regulations, and anti-miscegenation. This directly inspired the two principal Nuremberg Laws—the Citizenship Law and the Blood Law. The ban on interracial marriage (anti-miscegenation) prohibited sexual relations and marriages between people classified as " Aryan" and "non-Aryan". Such relationships were called '' Rassenschande'' (race defilement). At first the laws were aimed primarily at Jews but were later extended to " Gypsies, Negroes". Aryans found guilty could face incarceration in a Nazi concentration camp, while non-Aryans could face the death penalty. To preserve the so-called purity of the German blood, after the war began, the Nazis extended the race defilement law to include all foreigners (non-Germans).

Under the General Government of occupied Poland in 1940, the Nazis divided the population into different groups, each with different rights, food rations, allowed housing strips in the cities, public transportation, etc. In an effort to split the Polish people's identity, they attempted to establish ethnic divisions of Kashubians and Gorals ( Goralenvolk), based on these groups' alleged "Germanic component".

During the 1930s and 1940s, Jews in Nazi-controlled states were forced to wear something that identified them as Jewish, such as a yellow ribbon or a star of David, and along with Romas (Gypsies), they were discriminated against by the racial laws. Jewish doctors were not allowed to treat Aryan patients nor were Jewish professors permitted to teach Aryan pupils. In addition, Jews were not allowed to use any form of public transportation, besides the ferry, and they were only allowed to shop in Jewish stores from 3–5 pm. After ''Kristallnacht'' ("The Night of Broken Glass"), the Jews were fined for the damage which was done by the Nazi troops and the SS members.

Jews, Poles, and Roma were subjected to genocide as "undesirable" racial groups in The Holocaust. The Nazis established ghettos in order to confine Jews and sometimes, they confined Romas in tightly packed areas of the cities of Eastern Europe, turning them into ''de facto'' concentration camps. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of these ghettos, with 400,000 people. The Łódź Ghetto was the second largest, holding about 160,000.

Between 1939 and 1945, at least 1.5 million Polish citizens were transported to the Reich for forced labour (in all, about 12 million forced laborers were employed in the German war economy inside Nazi Germany). Although Nazi Germany also used forced laborers from Western Europe, Poles, along with other Eastern Europeans viewed as racially inferior, were subject to deeper discriminatory measures. They were forced to wear a yellow with purple border and letter " P" (for Polen/Polish) cloth identifying tag sewn to their clothing, subjected to a curfew, and banned from public transportation.

While the treatment of factory workers or farm hands often varied depending on the individual employer, Polish laborers, as a rule, were compelled to work longer hours for lower wages than Western Europeans – in many cities, they were forced to live in segregated barracks behind barbed wire. Social relations with Germans outside work were forbidden, and sexual relations ('' Rassenschande'' or "racial defilement") were punishable by death.

Other cases

Canada

Racial segregation was widespread and deeply imbedded into the fabric of Canadian society prior to the Canadian constitution of 1982. Multiple court decisions, including one from the Supreme Court of Canada in 1939, upheld racial segregation as valid. The last black specifically segregated school closed in Ontario in 1965, while the last black specifically segregated school closed in Nova Scotia in 1983. The last racially segregated Indigenous school closed in 1996 in Saskatchewan. Canada has had multiple white only neighbourhoods and cities, white only public spaces, stores, universities, hospitals, employment, restaurants, theatres, sports arenas and universities. Though the coloured population of Canada was significantly less than the coloured population in the United States, severe restrictions on coloured people existed in all forms, particularly in immigration, employment access and mobility. Unlike in the United States, racial segregation in Canada applied to all non-whites and was historically enforced through laws, court decisions and social norms with a closed immigration system that barred virtually all non-whites from immigrating until 1962. Section 38 of the 1910 Immigration Act permitted the government to prohibit the entry of immigrants "belonging to any race deemed unsuited to the climate or requirements of Canada, or of immigrants of any specified class, occupation or character."

In 1944, Ontario enacted the Racial Discrimination Act, which prohibited the publication or display, of any notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation on lands, premises, by newspaper or radio, that indicated racial discrimination. Ontario was the first province to do so, but the act was unenforceable due to the courts stating that this breached federal jurisdiction and that Ontario couldn't mandate laws based on race.

Historical examples:

Until 1870, Black people could not take an oath to gain the status of free men in New Brunswick. They were prohibited from practicing a trade or selling goods in the city of St John's, barred from fishing at Saint John Harbour, and could not live within the city limits unless they were employed as a servant or labourer.

Black Canadians were racially segregated in primary schools by the mid-19th century. Ontario and Nova Scotia set up legally segregated schools to keep Black students separate from white students. Black students had to attend different schools or attend at different times. In some other provinces, white families enforced an informal segregation by blocking Black students from attending school. Activists from the Black community fought against segregation in schools. The last segregated school in Ontario closed its doors in 1965; the last one in Nova Scotia closed in 1983.

Canadian universities, particularly medical schools, often rejected applications on the basis of race. This was notably the case of Dalhousie University, the University of Toronto, McGill University and Queen’s University. Admitted coloured students and jews faced restrictions that white, christian students did not have. Only a few hospitals accepted coloured medical interns.

There are many examples of land titles with restrictive covenant clauses used to prevent the sale or rental of property to non-whites. For example, a clause in Vancouver real estate deeds for entire neighbourhoods going back to at least 1928 and included as late as 1965 stated, "That the Grantee or his heirs, administrators, executor, successors or assigns will not sell to, agree to sell to, rent to, lease to, or permit or allow to occupy, the said lands and premises, or any part thereof, any person of the Chinese, Japanese or other Asiatic race or to any Indian or Negro." In the 1920s, city officials in Calgary, Alberta also codified restrictive covenants to prevent non-whites from purchasing homes outside of the boundaries of the railway yards. In Sarnia, Ontario, a 1946 property deed for a Lake Huron community of approximately 100 cottage lots specified that property could only be owned by whites of a particular background and could not be “transferred by sale, inheritance, gift, or otherwise, nor rented, licensed to or occupied by any person wholly or partly of negro, Asiatic, coloured, or Semetic icblood...” These clauses were all upheld by court decisions, until the Canadian constitution came into effect.

Racial segregation practices have also extended to many areas of employment in Canada. Black men and women in Quebec were historically relegated to the service sector – barbers, waiters, janitors, sleeping car porters, general labourers, domestic servants, waitresses, laundresses – regardless of their educational attainment. White business owners and even provincial and federal government agencies did not hire or promote Black people, with explicit rules preventing their employment

When the labour movement took hold in Canada near the end of the 19th century, workers began organizing and forming trade unions with the aim of improving the working conditions and quality of life for employees. However, Black workers were systematically denied membership to these unions, and worker’s protection was reserved exclusively for whites.

In Windsor, Ontario, the Palace Theatre maintained a “Crow’s nest” for Black customers, in reference to Jim Crow segregation laws and practices.

In Montreal, the Loew’s Windsor Theatre publicly announced that Black customers would have segregated seating in what they called a “Monkey cage,” the upper balcony of the opera house.

Edmonton's city council passed an ordinance that barred Blacks from swimming in city pools after an outcry from the white public and the Edmonton Exhibition Association which opposed mixed bathing.

Skating rinks were also places of racial segregation, with non-white skating hours in multiple cities across the country. Harry Gairey Jr. and his white friend Donny Jubas went skating at an indoor ice rink in Toronto, but they were told that Harry could not get a ticket because they weren't allowed to sell tickets to coloured people.

The Prince Edward Hotel in Windsor, Ontario denied African American civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune a room in 1954 when she and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt were invited speakers at Emancipation Day in the city. Roosevelt was offered a room, but Bethune was denied due to her skin colour. In the end they both opted to lodge in Detroit, Michigan for the night instead.

Specific court cases:

Edmonton, Alberta: Lulu Anderson, a black woman, was denied admission to the Metropolitan Theatre in Edmonton, Alberta because of her skin colour. In November 1922, Anderson sued the theatre for refusing to sell her a ticket to watch a movie, but the provincial courts ruled in favour of the theatre owners.

Montreal, Quebec: On 11 July 1936, Fred Christie and another Black acquaintance Emile King, were refused service at the York Tavern in the Forum in Montreal after watching a boxing match. Christie sued for $200 and won in provincial court. Christie was awarded $25 and the tavern was ordered to pay his court costs. However, the tavern owners successfully appealed. Determined, Christie took his case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1939. They dismissed his case, arguing that private businesses were able discriminate based on race on their choosing. Few taverns in Saskatchewan, Ontario, and British Columbia allowed Black visitors, and those that did had designated tables or side rooms for Non-Whites.

New Glasgow, Nova Scotia: In 1946, Viola Desmond, a black woman, challenged racial discrimination when she refused to leave the segregated Whites-only section of the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Viola Desmond was arrested, jailed overnight and convicted without legal representation for an obscure tax offence as a result. Despite the efforts of the Nova Scotian Black community to assist her appeal, Viola Desmond was unable to remove the charges against her and went unpardoned in her lifetime.

Indigenous peoples of Canada were treated in racially segregated hospitals called Indian hospitals or segregated wards in regular hospitals. Medical experimentation also occurred at these hospitals, frequently without consent, such as the testing of BCG vaccine on infants. Treatment at other hospitals provided a better quality of care for patients as:

Germany

In fifteenth-century north-east Germany, people of Wendish, i.e. Slavic, origin were not allowed to join some guilds. According to Wilhelm Raabe, "down into the eighteenth century no German guild accepted a Wend."

South Africa

The apartheid system carried out by Afrikaner minority rule enacted a nationwide social policy "separate development" with the National Party victory in the 1948 general election, following the "colour bar"-discriminatory legislation dating back to the beginning of the Union of South Africa and the Boer republics before which, while repressive to Black South Africans along with other minorities, had not gone nearly so far.

Apartheid laws can be generally divided into following acts. Firstly, the Population Registration Act in 1950 classified residents in South Africa into four racial groups: "black", "white", " Coloured", and "Indian" and noted their racial identities on their identifications. Secondly, the Group Areas Act in 1950 assigned different regions according to different races. People were forced to live in their corresponding regions and the action of passing the boundaries without a permit was made illegal, extending pass laws that had already curtailed black movement. Thirdly, under the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act in 1953, amenities in public areas, like hospitals, universities and parks, were labeled separately according to particular races. In addition, the Bantu Education Act in 1953 segregated national education in South Africa as well. Additionally, the government of the time enforced the pass laws, which deprived Black South Africans of their right to travel freely within their own country. Under this system Black South Africans were severely restricted from urban areas, requiring authorisation from a white employer to enter.

Uprisings and protests against apartheid appeared immediately when apartheid arose. As early as 1949, the Youth League of the African National Congress (ANC) advocated the ending of apartheid and suggested fighting against racial segregation by various methods. During the following decades, hundreds of anti-apartheid actions occurred, including those of the Black Consciousness Movement, students' protests, labor strikes, and church group activism etc. In 1991, the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act was passed, repealing laws enforcing racial segregation, including the Group Areas Act. In 1994, Nelson Mandela won in the first multiracial democratic election in South Africa. His success fulfilled the ending of apartheid in South African history.

United States

After the passage of Jim Crow laws which segregated African Americans and Whites, the people who were negatively affected by those laws saw no progress in their quest for equality. Racial segregation was not a new phenomenon, as illustrated by the fact that almost four million Blacks had been enslaved before the Civil War. The laws which were passed segregated African Americans from Whites in order to enforce a system of white supremacy. Signs were used to show non Whites where they could legally walk, talk, drink, rest, or eat. For those places that were racially mixed, Blacks had to wait until all White customers were dealt with. Rules were also enforced that restricted African Americans from entering white stores. Segregated facilities extended from white only schools to white-only graveyards.

After the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in America, racial discrimination became regulated by the so-called Jim Crow laws, which mandated strict segregation of the races. Though many of these laws were passed shortly after the Civil War ended, they only became formalized after the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877. The period that followed the Reconstruction era is known as the nadir of American race relations. The legislation (or in some states, such as Florida, the state constitutions) that mandated segregation lasted at least until a 1968 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed all forms of segregation.

While the U.S. Supreme Court majority in the 1896 '' Plessy v. Ferguson'' case explicitly permitted " separate but equal" facilities (specifically, transportation facilities), Justice John Marshall Harlan, in his dissent, protested that the decision was an expression of white supremacy; he predicted that segregation would "stimulate aggressions ... upon the admitted rights of colored citizens", "arouse race hate", and "perpetuate a feeling of distrust between heraces. Feelings between Whites and Blacks were so tense, even the jails were segregated."

Elected in 1912, President Woodrow Wilson tolerated the extension of segregation throughout the federal government that was already underway. In World War I, Blacks were drafted and served in the United States Army in segregated units. Black combat soldiers were often poorly trained and equipped, and new draftees were put on the front lines in dangerous missions. The U.S. military was still heavily segregated in World War II. The air force and the marines had no Blacks enlisted in their ranks. There were Blacks in the Navy Seabees. The army had only five African-American officers. In addition, no African-American would receive the Medal of Honor during the war, and their tasks in the war were largely reserved to noncombat units. Black soldiers had to sometimes give up their seats in trains to the Nazi prisoners of war.

A club which was central to the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City was a whites-only establishment, where Blacks (such as Duke Ellington) were allowed to perform, but they were only allowed to perform in front of a white audience. In the reception to honor his success at the 1936 Summer Olympics, Jesse Owens was not permitted to enter through the main doors of the Waldorf Astoria New York and instead forced to travel up to the event in a freight elevator. The first black Academy Award recipient Hattie McDaniel was not permitted to attend the premiere of '' Gone with the Wind'' at Loew's Grand Theatre, Atlanta, because of Georgia's segregation laws, and at the 12th Academy Awards ceremony at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles she was required to sit at a segregated table at the far wall of the room; the hotel had a no-blacks policy, but allowed McDaniel in as a favor. Her final wish to be buried in Hollywood Cemetery was denied because the graveyard was restricted to Whites only.

On 11 September 1964, John Lennon announced the Beatles would not play to a segregated audience in Jacksonville, Florida. City officials relented following this announcement. A contract for a 1965 Beatles concert at the Cow Palace in California specifies that the band "not be required to perform in front of a segregated audience".

American sports were racially segregated until the mid-twentieth century. In baseball, the " Negro leagues" were established by Rube Foster for non-white players, such as Negro league baseball, which ran through the early 1950s. In basketball, the Black Fives (all-black teams) were established in 1904, and emerged in New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and other cities. Racial segregation in basketball lasted until 1950 when the NBA became racially integrated.

Many U.S. states banned interracial marriage. While opposed to slavery in the U.S., in a speech in Charleston, Illinois, in 1858, Abraham Lincoln stated, "I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. I as much as any man am in favor of the superior position assigned to the white race". In 1967, Mildred Loving, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were sentenced to a year in prison in Virginia for marrying each other. Their marriage violated the state's anti-miscegenation statute, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which prohibited marriage between people classified as white and people classified as "colored" (persons of non-white ancestry).

In the '' Loving v. Virginia'' case in 1967, the Supreme Court invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage in the U.S.

Institutionalized racial segregation was ended as an official practice during the civil rights movement by the efforts of such civil rights activists as Clarence M. Mitchell Jr., Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and James Farmer working for social and political freedom during the period from the end of World War II through the Interstate Commerce Commission desegregation order of 1961, the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 supported by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Many of their efforts were acts of non-violent civil disobedience aimed at disrupting the enforcement of racial segregation rules and laws, such as refusing to give up a seat in the black part of the bus to a white person (Rosa Parks), or holding sit-ins at all-white diners.

By 1968, all forms of segregation had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren, and by 1970 support for formal legal segregation had dissolved. The Warren Court's decision on landmark case '' Brown v. Board of Education'' of Topeka, Kansas in 1954 outlawed segregation in public schools, and its decision on ''Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States'' in 1964 prohibits racial segregation and discrimination in public institutions and public accommodations. The Fair Housing Act of 1968, administered and enforced by the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, prohibited discrimination in the sale and rental of housing on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability. Formal racial discrimination became illegal in school systems, businesses, the American military, other civil services and the government. However, implicit racism continues to this day through avenues like occupational segregation. In recent years, there has been a trend that reverses those efforts to desegregate schools made by those mandatory school desegregation orders.

Historic cases (1970s to present)

Bahrain

On 28 April 2007, the lower house of Bahraini Parliament passed a law banning unmarried migrant workers from living in residential areas. To justify the law, Nasser Fadhala, MP, a close ally of the government, said "bachelors also use these houses to make alcohol, run prostitute rings or to rape children and housemaids".

Sadiq Rahma, technical committee head, who is a member of Al Wefaq, said: "The rules we are drawing up are designed to protect the rights of both the families and the Asian bachelors (..) these labourers often have habits which are difficult for families living nearby to tolerate (..) they come out of their homes half dressed, brew alcohol illegally in their homes, use prostitutes and make the neighbourhood dirty (..) these are poor people who often live in groups of 50 or more, crammed into one house or apartment," said Mr Rahma. "The rules also state that there must be at least one bathroom for every five people (..) there have also been cases in which young children have been sexually molested."

Bahrain Centre for Human Rights issued a press release condemning this decision as discriminatory and promoting negative racist attitudes towards migrant workers. Nabeel Rajab, then BCHR vice president, said: "It is appalling that Bahrain is willing to rest on the benefits of these people's hard work, and often their suffering, but that they refuse to live with them in equality and dignity. The solution is not to force migrant workers into ghettos, but to urge companies to improve living conditions for workers – and not to accommodate large numbers of workers in inadequate space, and to improve the standard of living for them."

Canada

Until 1965, racial segregation in schools, stores and most aspects of public life existed legally in Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia, and informally in other provinces such as British Columbia.

Since the 1970s, there has been a concern expressed by some academics that major Canadian cities are becoming more segregated on income and ethnic lines. Reports have indicated that the inner suburbs of post-merger Toronto and the southern bedroom communities of Greater Vancouver have become steadily more immigrant and visible minority dominated communities and have lagged behind other neighbourhoods in average income. A CBC panel in Vancouver in 2012 discussed the growing public fear that the proliferation of ethnic enclaves in Greater Vancouver (such as Han Chinese in Richmond and Punjabis in Surrey) amounted to a type of self-segregation. In response to these fears, many minority activists have pointed out that most Canadian neighbourhoods remain predominately White, and yet white people are never accused of "self-segregation".

The Mohawk tribe of Kahnawake has been criticized for evicting non-Mohawks from the Mohawk reserve. Mohawks who marry outside of their tribal nation lose their right to live in their homelands. The Mohawk government claims that its policy of nationally exclusive membership is for the preservation of its identity, but there is no exemption for those who adopt Mohawk language or culture. The policy is based on a 1981 moratorium which was made law in 1984. All interracial couples are sent eviction notices regardless of how long they have lived on the reserve. The only exemption is for mixed national couples married before the 1981 moratorium.

Although some concerned Mohawk citizens contested the nationally exclusive membership policy, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that the Mohawk government may adopt policies it deems necessary to ensure the survival of its people.

A long-standing practice of national segregation has also been imposed upon the commercial salmon fishery in British Columbia since 1992 when separate commercial fisheries were created for select aboriginal groups on three B.C. river systems. Canadians of other nations who fish in the separate fisheries have been arrested, jailed and prosecuted. Although the fishermen who were prosecuted were successful at trial in R v Kapp, this decision was overturned on appeal.

Fiji

Two military coups in Fiji in 1987 removed a democratically elected government led by