Desegregation in the United States
Starting with King Philip's War in the 17th century, Black and White Americans served together in an integrated environment in the Thirteen Colonies.
[2] Thousands of Black men fought in the new continental navy, on the side of rebellious colonists in the American revolutionary war.
They were recorded and are part of the National Park Service's Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System (CWSS).
Upon entering office, President Woodrow Wilson officially segregated the United States navy for the first time in its history.
[4] During World War II, most officers were White, and the majority of Black troops still served as truck drivers and as stevedores.
[5] The Red Ball Express, which was instrumental in facilitating the rapid advance of allied forces across France after D-Day, was operated almost exclusively by African American truck drivers.
[citation needed] In the midst of the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was severely short of replacement troops for existing military units, all of which were entirely white in composition.
[6][citation needed] Mason's purpose had been to allow Black sailors to serve in the full range of billets (positions) rather than being restricted to stewards and mess men, as they were on most ships.
In February 1942, the CNO, Admiral Harold Rainsford Stark, recommended African Americans for ratings in the construction trades.
For instance, two months prior to Truman's executive order in May 1948, Richard B. Russell, Democratic senator from Georgia, unsuccessfully attempted to attach a "Freedom of Selection" amendment granting draftees and new inductees the opportunity to choose whether or not they wanted to serve in segregated military units to the Selective Service Act that was being debated in Congress.
On 26 July 1951, exactly three years after Truman issued Executive Order 9981, the US army formally announced its plans to desegregate.
Johnson called the new law one of the "promises of a century … It proclaims that fair housing for all — all human beings who live in this country — is now a part of the American way of life."
After Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the lawful segregation of African American children in schools became a violation of the 14th Amendment.
[15] In Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971), the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that forced busing of students may be ordered to achieve racial desegregation.
Middle class and wealthy White people continued moving from cities to suburbs during the 1970s and later, in part to escape certain integrated public school systems, but also as part of the suburbanization caused by movement of jobs to suburbs, continuing state and federal support for expansion of highways, and changes in the economy.
The increasing diversity of American society has led to more complex issues related to school and ethnic proportion.
In the 1994 federal court case Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District, parents of Chinese American schoolchildren alleged that racial quotas under a 1983 consent decree constituted racial discrimination in violation of the United States Constitution's Equal Protection Clause.
Originally intended to aid integration of Black students, the ruling had a negative effect on the admissions of Chinese Americans, who had become the district's largest ethnic group.
