Apologies for my ignorance, but as somebody educated in the UK, my knowledge of black rights in America is quite limited, and I was curious for some more information on the matter.
I've heard things such as white GI's stationed in Britain during WW2 were horrified that pub landlords would refuse to segregate pubs. I've heard of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights Movement and segregation, but my question is, how did things come to be this way?
Obviously, there was this big war fought over the rights of slaves in the US, and Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves, so how did segregation come to be? Was that also part of the Emancipation Proclamation; slaves are free but have no rights? Was it gradually introduced over the intervening 100 years? Was Lincoln perhaps not as benevolent as I'm led to believe? I'm guessing former cecessionist states were less receptive to black people for a while, but what was it like on a Federal level?
I guess, in a less rambling way my question is, how did US society go from fighting the civil war to free the slaves, to making them second class citizens and segregating them from the white population?
There was a military occupation of the South for about ten years, a period known as Reconstruction when most Confederates were barred from voting. In this period freed Blacks and Yankee "Carpetbagger" immigrants wielded much influence, and elected many Blacks to leadership positions. This period contained a phase called Radical Reconstruction where the North basically took out all their frustration on the former rebels. Eventually the occupation ended and most of the Rebels, after re-taking and oath of loyalty to the USA, were given their rights back. This did not end well, as they now had their own perception of being "oppressed," and they'd be damned if they were supposed to suddenly treat their former property as neighbors. Thus the Jim Crow laws including segregation were enacted to keep blacks out of white society, and to just generally be petty and elitist.
Lincoln was not totally pure in this, as racialism was common at the time. He was horrified by slavery, but also had little interest in seeing them equal with Whites. His Emancipation Proclamation applied only to occupied Southern lands. The few Slaves in loyal slave-states were SOL until the 13-15th amendments were passed *after* the war. The entire reason Liberia exists is because similar minded people throughout the country wanted to "Send them back where they came from." Translation: "They are free to live anywhere, just not here."