Segregation In The 19th Century

In this essay I will discuss two tools of maintaining segregation that emerged in the late 19th century as well as the early 20th century. I believe segregation in the United States stems from and is deeply rooted in immigration. In lecture we learned that some immigrants were more desirable than others and in the early 19th century immigrant enclaves like “little italy” began to emerge (Highsmith April 6th). This type of segregation can be seen as self induced segregation that responded to nativist backlash, however that is not the type of segregation I will be discussing in this paper. Jim Crow laws in the late 19th century and racial zoning in the early 20th century were two new tools that were pivotal to the preservation of racial segregation.
This played a major role in the social life of many black americans, prohibiting them from accessing certain public places that were occupied by white people and giving them (black people) lower quality services. As black americans tried to pushback against this inequality, laws like Plessy v Ferguson strengthened the ideology of white americans. The ideology of “separate but equal” spread quickly and grew to impact almost every aspect of life. This concept was deeply rooted in their ideology, however some believed that “Jim Crow encouraged black entrepreneurship and a strong sense of community within black schools and neighborhoods” (Jim Crow in America 1). I believe Jim Crow maintained segregation in two ways, it set laws that blatantly separated the services people could use but it also created a “us vs them” mentality in the black community that caused black americans to desire equal rights but maintain