Think About It
Imagine there was a rule in your neighborhood that you could only play with kids who were the exact same height as you. If someone was taller than you or shorter than you, they were not allowed to play with you. In fact, there were even separate parks where the taller kids had nice, new equipment to play on, and shorter kids had old, rusty play equipment.
Does this seem like a fun environment to live in?
Reconstruction
It seems silly to separate kids by a physical feature they can’t control such as their height. However, even after slavery had ended for good in America, people were still forced to be separated by one physical feature: their skin color. After the Civil War, during a time known as “Reconstruction” in America, there were laws put into place to keep Blacks from having the same opportunities as Whites. Blacks and Whites were segregated, or separated from each other, as much as possible, especially in public places.
