Racial segregation was often used to secure the advantages enjoyed by a certain dominant group, e.g. "various conquerors—among them Asian Mongols, African Bantu, and American Aztecs". In recent times, it was mostly imposed by
white groups.
Imperial China Tang dynasty , circa 567/573. 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 Han Chinese females, and banned them from pretending to be Han 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.
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. 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 to
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 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".
Uganda After the end of British rule in 1962, Indian people living in
Uganda existed in segregated ethnic communities with their own schools and healthcare. Indians constituted 1% of the population but earned a fifth of the national income and controlled 90% of the country's businesses. In 1972, the
President of Uganda Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of the country's Indian minority with disastrous consequences for the local economy. The government confiscated some 5,655 firms, ranches, farms, and agricultural estates, along with cars, homes and other household goods.
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 it also required them to 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 asked the
Rikskommisariatet why radio receivers had been confiscated from Jews in Norway. That thereafter "quietly" accepted 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 subjected to discrimination by the racial laws. Jewish doctors were not allowed to treat
Aryan patients and Jewish professors were not 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 Nazi troops and
SS members. in occupied Poland, Spring 1942
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 countries 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 black population in Canada was significantly less than the black population in the United States, severe restrictions on black 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 1994,
Nelson Mandela won in the first
multiracial democratic election in South Africa. His success fulfilled the ending of apartheid in South African history. Despite this, the legacy of apartheid and segregationism is still ongoing to this day in South Africa with high
racial inequality in post-apartheid South Africa.
United States In the United States,
racial segregation was mandated by law in some states 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 segregation. After the passage of the
Thirteenth Amendment abolishing
Slavery in the United States,
Jim Crow laws were introduced to codify
racial discrimination. The laws 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. 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 would "stimulate aggressions ... upon the admitted rights of colored citizens", "arouse race hate", and "perpetuate a feeling of distrust between [the] races. 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. The U.S. military was still heavily segregated in World War II. The Army 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. 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, actress
Hattie McDaniel, was not permitted to attend the premiere of
Gone with the Wind at
Loew's Grand Theatre in
Atlanta because of
Georgia's segregation laws. During the
12th Academy Awards ceremony at the
Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, McDaniel 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 Forever Cemetery was denied because the graveyard was restricted to Whites only. 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". 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. , 1942. Many U.S. states banned
interracial marriage, with
Maryland passing the first
anti-miscegenation law in 1691. Though opposed to slavery in the U.S.,
Abraham Lincoln stated during the
Lincoln-Douglas Debates in 1858: "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". Likewise, when former president
Harry S. Truman was asked by a reporter in 1963 if interracial marriage would become widespread in the U.S., he responded, "I hope not; I don’t believe in it", before asking a question often aimed at anyone advocating racial integration: "Would you want your daughter to marry a Negro? She won't love someone who isn't her color." In 1958,
Mildred Loving, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were prosecuted in
Virginia because 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). Although their one-year prison sentence was suspended, in 1963 they sought the assistance of the
American Civil Liberties Union, which filed an appeal on their behalf that eventually found its way to the
United States Supreme Court. In 1967 the court issued a historic ruling in
Loving v. Virginia that invalidated all laws prohibiting interracial marriage in the U.S. being fingerprinted after being arrested for not giving up her seat on the bus to a white person 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) ==