One of the central themes of Let the Circle Be Unbroken revolves around segregation. The historical precedent for this notion of separation goes back to the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling in 1896. The Supreme Court found: <blockquote>The object of the [Fourteenth] Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before <a data-internal-link data-link-type="Symbols & Motifs" href="https://www.supersummary.com/let-the-circle-be-unbroken/symbols-and-motifs/#446207">the law</a>, but in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either.</blockquote> The court stated that the 14th Amendment guaranteeing legal equality to Black people was not violated as long as Black and white citizens received “separate but equal” treatment. This ruling amounted to government-sanctioned segregation, which would prevail until the civil rights movement of the 1960s. When segregation was legal, many state laws were passed in the South to maintain a strict separation between white and Black people. The legislation that upheld segregation came to be known as “Jim Crow laws.” The expression “Jim Crow” was coined in the early 19th century as a derogatory description of Black people. Facilities were mandated to be “equal” for both Black and white people, but Jim Crow laws ensured that Black people received inferior treatment compared to services for white people.

Historical Context: Plessy v. Ferguson and the Jim Crow South

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Mildred D. Taylor

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