"The sign on the tree (“Colored”) indicates that the water fountain was for use by Blacks, 1938" - Library of Congress
“Slavery is indeed gone, but its shadow still lingers over the country and poisons more or less the moral atmosphere of all sections of the republic."
- Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, The Color Line, 1881
Separate, But "Equal":
Despite the freedoms gained by the Black man, Whites still wanted to maintain some semblance of the old social status quo. A desire to maintain the propaganda that Blacks were innately inferior, a sentiment that originally forced them into shackles, was the key perspective that spurred the separation of Blacks and Whites within American society.
"Flag flown at NAACP headquaters, 1920" - Library of Congress
“We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff’s argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority."
- Majority Opinion, Plessy v. Fegerson
An All Encompassing Reach:
Jim Crow laws, which codified segregation, dictated who you could play checkers with, which schools you could attend and everything in between. The sheer universality of the system created a seemingly insurmountable social barrier for the Tuskegee Airmen to climb.
"A Jim Crow illustration" - Library of Congress
“It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in company with each other in any game of cards or dice, dominoes or checkers.”
- Birmingham, Alabama Segregation Code, 1930