Colored Entrance

An unknown black couple out on a date .... going to the movies in 1940's America.

After the Civil War, millions of formerly enslaved African Americans hoped to join the larger society as full and equal citizens. Although some white Americans welcomed them, others used people’s ignorance, racism, and self-interest to sustain and spread racial divisions. By 1900, new laws and old customs in the North and the South had created a segregated society that condemned Americans of color to second-class citizenship.

Sources: Freedom: A Photographic History of the African American Struggle by Phaidon; Separate Is Not Equal, Brown v. Board of Education, Smithsonian National Museum of American History