Racial integration, or simply integration, includes desegregation (the process of ending systematic racial segregation). In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these grou ...

that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely bringing a racial

minority Minority may refer to: Politics * Minority government, formed when a political party does not have a majority of overall seats in parliament * Minority leader, in American politics, the floor leader of the second largest caucus in a legislative b ...

into the majority culture. Desegregation is largely a legal matter, integration largely a social one.

Distinguishing ''integration'' from ''desegregation''

Morris J. MacGregor, Jr. in his paper "Integration of the Armed Forces 1940–1969", writes concerning the words ''integration'' and ''desegregation'':

In recent years many historians have come to distinguish between these like-sounding words... The movement toward desegregation, breaking down the nation's Jim Crow system, became increasingly popular in the decade after
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. Integration, on the other hand, Professor Oscar Handlin maintains, implies several things not yet necessarily accepted in all areas of American society. In one sense it refers to the "levelling of all barriers to association other than those based on ability, taste, and personal preference";Morris J. MacGregor, Jr