New Castle Segregated School

Item

Type
Photograph
Title
New Castle Segregated School
Rationale
Depictions of segregated schools for African American people are important to understanding segregation and its effects on everyday life.
Description
This image shows a formal ceremony amongst white men exchanging a key for the New Castle Colored School. The white men in black tie are identified as James O. Betelle, Rev. Janvier, H.E. Snavely, Judge R.S. Rodney, A.J. Taylor, J.T. Eliason Jr., H.V. Holloway.

Racial segregation in the United States is the segregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation in the United States along racial lines. The term mainly refers to the legally or socially enforced separation of African Americans from whites, but it is also used with regard to the separation of other ethnic minorities from majority mainstream communities. Signs were used to indicate where African Americans could legally walk, talk, drink, rest, or eat. Segregated facilities extended from white-only schools to white-only graveyards. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), so long as "separate but equal" facilities were provided, a requirement that was rarely met in practice. The doctrine was overturned unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) by the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren, and in the following years the Warren Court further ruled against racial segregation in several landmark cases including Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964), which helped bring an end to the Jim Crow laws.

Although not reflected in the entry´s title, the institution was named "New Castle Colored School." Despite common use in the past, "colored" is considered a problematic term because it is dehumanizing. Nowadays we use Black with capital to refer to people of the African diaspora.
Date
ca. 1920
1900s
Subject
James O. Betelle
Rev. Janvier, H.E. Snavely
Judge R.S. Rodney
A.J. Taylor, J.T. Eliason Jr.
H.V. Holloway
Extent
1915-1925
600 x 453
Publisher
Hagley Museum & Library
Rights
The copyright and related rights status of this item has not been evaluated. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available (noted above in Publisher and Identifier) for more information.