666 ★ CHAPTER 17 Freedom’s Boundaries, at Home and Abroad
but equal” doctrine, facilities for blacks were either nonexistent or markedly
inferior. In 1900, no public high school for blacks existed in the entire South.
Black elementary schools, one observer reported, occupied buildings “as bad as
stables.”
More than a form of racial separation, segregation was one part of an all
encompassing system of white domination, in which each component—
disenfranchisement, unequal economic status, inferior education— reinforced
the others. The point was not so much to keep the races apart as to ensure
that when they came into contact with each other, whether in politics, labor
relations, or social life, whites held the upper hand. For example, many blacks
could be found in “ whites- only” railroad cars. But they entered as servants and
nurses accompanying white passengers, not as paying customers entitled to
equal treatment.
An elaborate social etiquette developed, with proper behavior differentiated
by race. One sociologist who studied the turn- of- the- century South reported
that in places of business, blacks had to stand back and wait until whites had
been served. They could not raise their voices or in other ways act assertively
in the presence of whites, and they had to “give way” on the streets. In shops,
whites but not blacks were allowed to try on clothing.
Segregation affected other groups as well as blacks. In some parts of Missis-
sippi where Chinese laborers had been brought in to work the fields after the
Civil War, three separate school systems— white, black, and Chinese— were
established. In California, black, Hispanic, and American Indian children were
frequently educated alongside whites, but state law required separate schools
for those of “mongolian or Chinese descent.” In Texas and California, although
Mexicans were legally considered “white,” they found themselves barred from
many restaurants, places of entertainment, and other public facilities.
The Rise of Lynching
Those blacks who sought to challenge the system, or who refused to accept the
demeaning behavior that was a daily feature of southern life, faced not only
overwhelming political and legal power but also the threat of violent repri-
sal. In every year between 1883 and 1905, more than fifty persons, the vast
majority of them black men, were lynched in the South— that is, murdered by
a mob. Lynching continued well into the twentieth century. By mid- century,
the total number of victims since 1880 had reached nearly 4,000. Some lynch-
ings occurred secretly at night; others were advertised in advance and attracted
large crowds of onlookers. Mobs engaged in activities that shocked the civi-
lized world. In 1899, Sam Hose, a plantation laborer who killed his employer
in self- defense, was brutally murdered near Newman, Georgia, before 2,000