Black activists moved from demanding equal segregation to demanding its abolition

Evidence

By 1918 the convention no longer called for “separate but equal” facilities, but rather argued for desegregation of railroad transportation: “Nothing short of a repeal of the separate laws is going to bring a permanent and satisfactory change in travel in those states where the law is in operation. The very fact that the railroads are allowed to Operate separate cars for people who pay the same fares is a temptation to make a difference in accommodations for and treatment of those people. The very purpose of the ‘Jim Crow’ car law is to make such striking differences in accommodation and treatment as will suggest the inferiority of one race to the other and humiliate the race thus discriminated against.” — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1012

Categorization

• XREF: The 1918 break with separate-but-equal aligns with Plessy-era strategy debates and with the NAACP’s evolving legal approach Higginbotham describes elsewhere. — connects to: Black women’s groups demanded equal segregated facilities before demanding desegregation — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 1010; New Black activists favored disruption over conventional protest politics — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 491; Free-colored activists radicalized by allying with the abolitionists (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Black Baptist women escalated from demanding equal separate accommodations to rejecting segregation outright. #corroborates (0.93) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1008
• New Black activists favored disruption over conventional protest politics #expands (0.78) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 491
• US Black Power activists replaced race-relations framing with an expanded concept of racism #exemplifies (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 668
• Antiracist movements sought to transform racial status quo #expands (0.74) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 114
• Free-colored activists radicalized by allying with the abolitionists #qualifies (0.72)
• The Reconstruction Amendments aimed to equalize rights and suffrage for Black Americans. #exemplifies (0.72)