On
May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court of the United States sanctioned
“equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races”
on railroad trains. With this decision racial segregation throughout
the U.S became legal. That ruling was used to justify segregation
laws at state and federal levels of all public facilities including
parks, theatres, hotels, churches, cemeteries, railroad cars,
restaurants, hospitals and schools. The infamous “Plessy v.
Ferguson” decision stood as law for 58 years until May 17, 1954
when in “Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka” the law of
segregation was struck down with a unanimous decision by the Supreme
Court of the United States.
In
the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, the federal government supposedly
sanctioned facilities that were “separate but equal” but that was
hardly ever the case. Most “colored” facilities were never equal
to “White” facilities. The case of “Plessy v. Ferguson” began
on June 7, 1892 when Homer Plessy boarded a train of the East
Louisiana Railroad and sat in a car reserved for Whites. Plessy was
light enough to “pass” (7/8 White and 1/8 African) but legally he
was a “Negro” or “Colored” and was required to travel in a
“Colored” car. Plessy identified himself to the conductor as
“Colored” but refused to move from the “White” car because he
was there to challenge the segregation law. He was arrested and
brought before New Orleans’ Judge John Howard Ferguson who upheld
the state law. The law was challenged in the Supreme Court on grounds
that it contradicted the 13th and 14th Amendments. In a 17 to 1
decision the Supreme Court upheld Ferguson’s decision that
segregation was legal.
On
May 17, 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education the case which had begun
with 7 year old African American Linda Carol Brown’s family’s
challenge brought an end to legal segregation in the USA. During the
“separate but legal” era the schools to which African American
children were relegated were little more than neglected tumble down
buildings which were bitterly cold during the winter and unbearably
hot otherwise. In Topeka, Kansas where the Brown family lived (Leola
and Oliver Brown and their daughters Cheryl, Linda and Terry) there
was a White school within a 10 minute walk from their house but 7
year old Linda could not attend. The child was forced to walk 6
blocks across train tracks to get on a bus that would take her to the
“Colored” school across town. Linda had to leave home at 7:40
a.m. to get to school for 9:00 a.m. if the bus was on time. In Topeka
there were 18 neighborhood schools for White children and 4 for
African American children. Brown was one of 13 parents in a class
action law suit challenging the segregation law of Topeka, Kansas in
1950. The parents were supported by the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP.)
Racial
segregation was also part of Canadian society in all areas of social
life as de facto if not de jure law. Cases like that of the burning
of the African Canadian communities of Shelburne, Nova Scotia and
Birchtown, Nova Scotia in July 1784 are examples. On July 25, 1784 a
mob of White people attacked the homes of African Canadians who lived
in Shelburne, Nova Scotia forcing those who survived to flee to the
African Canadian town of Birchtown, Nova Scotia. These racist attacks
continued for a month as White mobs burned homes in Birchtown and
attacked vulnerable and outnumbered African Canadians who were
surrounded by Whites. Nova Scotia was a slave owning society; the
presence of free African Canadians who had risked their lives during
the “American War of Independence” fighting as “Loyalists”
and were living in Canada as members of the “United Empire
Loyalists” must have caused some anxiety in White people who
enslaved Africans in Nova Scotia and Canada as a whole. In 1791,
African members of the “United Empire Loyalists” in Birchtown
were given the option of relocating to Sierra Leone, West Africa. At
least half of the town’s families agreed to leave rather than live
in a White Supremacist culture where they were under attack. That is
how the British dealt with the loyal Africans who had supported them
during the War with the Americans.
Wherever
segregation existed whether in America or Canada “separate but
equal” was a fallacy. In Canada the Common Schools Act was passed
supposedly for the creation of separate schools along religious
lines; Protestant and Catholic, but was used to create segregated
schools for African Canadian students in certain areas. In Merlin,
near Chatham, the last segregated African Canadian school in Ontario
was closed in 1965 following advocacy of the African-Canadian
community. The last segregated school in Canada was closed in 1983 in
Nova Scotia.
Although
there may no longer be legally segregated schools in Canada, African
Canadian students and their parents are racially mistreated in 2017.
In February 2017 the community was outraged and saddened when a 6
year old African Canadian girl was shackled and handcuffed by police
in the school she attended. In February 2017 Nancy Elgie a White
woman who was public school trustee in York Region was forced to
resign because she called an African Canadian parent the “N”
word. The behaviour of Elgie who had refused to resign for months
after expressing the White supremacist mindset of casting a racist
slur at a parent is just the tip of the iceberg of what seems to be a
revival of Jim Crow North. A recent report by Professor Carl James
“Toward Race Equity in Education” finds that African Canadian
students face an achievement and opportunity gap in Toronto schools.
We have to strategize and move forward!
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