Racial integration, or simply integration, includes desegregation (the process of ending systematic

racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Intern ...

). In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely bringing a racial minority into the

majority A majority, also called a simple majority or absolute majority to distinguish it from related terms, is more than half of the total.Dictionary definitions of ''majority'' aMerriam-Webster Morris J. MacGregor, Jr. in his paper "Integration of the Armed Forces 1940–1969", writes concerning the words ''integration'' and ''desegregation'':

In recent years many historians have come to distinguish between these like-sounding words... The movement toward desegregation, breaking down the nation's Jim Crow system, became increasingly popular in the decade after
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. Integration, on the other hand, Professor
Oscar Handlin Oscar Handlin (1915–2011) was an American historian. As a professor of history at Harvard University for over 50 years, he directed 80 PhD dissertations and helped promote social and ethnic history, virtually inventing the field of immigrat ...
maintains, implies several things not yet necessarily accepted in all areas of American society. In one sense it refers to the "levelling of all barriers to association other than those based on ability, taste, and personal preference";Morris J. MacGregor, Jr
Integration of the Armed Forces 1940–1965
,
United States Army Center of Military History The United States Army Center of Military History (CMH) is a directorate within the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command. The Institute of Heraldry remains within the Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Ar ...
, Washington D.C. (1985). The linked copy is on the Army's official site. The Handlin quote is footnoted within the MacGregor piece as Oscar Handlin, "The Goals of Integration", ''Daedalus'' 95 (Winter 1966): 270. in other words, providing equal opportunity. But in another sense integration calls for the random distribution of a minority throughout society. Here, according to Handlin, the emphasis is on racial balance in areas of occupation, education, residency, and the like.

From the beginning the military establishment rightly understood that the breakup of the all-black unit would in a closed society necessarily mean more than mere desegregation. It constantly used the terms integration and equal treatment and opportunity to describe its racial goals. Rarely, if ever, does one find the word desegregation in military files that include much correspondence.

Similarly, Keith M. Woods writes on the need for precision in journalistic language: "''Integration'' happens when a monolith is changed, like when a black family moves into an all-white neighborhood. Integration happens even without a mandate from the law. ''Desegregation''," on the other hand, "was the legal remedy to segregation." In 1997, Henry Organ, who identified himself as "a participant in the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

on the (

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

) Peninsula in the '60s ... and ... an African American," wrote that the "term 'desegregation' is normally reserved to the legal/legislative domain, and it was the legalization of discrimination in public institutions based on race that many fought against in the 1960s. The term 'integration,' on the other hand, pertains to a social domain; it does and should refer to individuals of different background who opt to interact." In their book ''By the Color of Our Skin'' (1999) Leonard Steinhorn and Barbara Diggs-Brown also make a similar distinction between ''desegregation'' and ''integration''. They write "... television has ... give white Americans the sensation of having meaningful, repeated contact with blacks without actually having it. We call this phenomenon virtual integration, and it is the primary reason why the integration illusion – the belief that we are moving toward a colorblind nation – has such a powerful influence on race relations in America today." Reviewing this book in the

libertarian Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's en ...

magazine ''

Reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, lang ...

'', Michael W. Lynch sums up some of their conclusions as "Blacks and whites live, learn, work, pray, play, and entertain separately..." Then, he writes:

The problem, as I see it, is that access to the public spheres, specifically the commercial sphere, often depends on being comfortable with the norms of white society. If a significant number of black children aren't comfortable with them, it isn't by choice: It's because they were isolated from those norms. It's one thing for members of the black elite and upper middle class to choose to retire to predominantly black neighborhoods after a lucrative day's work in white America. It's quite another for people to be unable to enter that commercial sphere because they spent their formative years in a community that didn't, or couldn't, prepare them for it. Writes /nowiki>Harvard_University_ /nowiki>Harvard_University_sociology">sociologist_Orlando.html" ;"title="sociology.html" ;"title="Harvard_University.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Harvard University">/nowiki>Harvard University sociology">sociologist Orlando">sociology.html" ;"title="Harvard_University.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Harvard University">/nowiki>Harvard University sociology">sociologist OrlandoPatterson, "The greatest problem now facing African-Americans is their isolation from the tacit norms of the dominant culture, and this is true of all classes."

Distinction not universally accepted

Although widespread, the distinction between ''integration'' and ''desegregation'' is not universally accepted. For example, it is possible to find references to "court-ordered integration" from sources such as the '' Detroit News'',Ron French, Brad Heath, and Christine MacDonald
Metro classrooms remain separate, often unequal
'' Detroit News'', May 16, 2002. Accessed March 26, 2006. PBS, or even Encarta. These same sources also use the phrase "court-ordered desegregation", apparently with exactly the same meaning;President Kennedy Expresses Outrage at Alabama Deaths
(sidebar), MSN Encarta. (Premium content.) Accessed March 26, 2006. the ''Detroit News'' uses both expressions interchangeably in the same article. When the two terms are confused, it is almost always to use ''integration'' in the narrower, more legalistic sense of ''desegregation''; one rarely, if ever, sees ''desegregation'' used in the broader cultural sense.

Notes

References

* Steinhorn, Leonard and Diggs-Brown, Barbara, ''By the Color of Our Skin: The Illusion of Integration and the Reality of Race''. New York: Dutton, 1999. *Themstrom, Stephan and Abigail, ''America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible'' New York, NY: Touchstone, 1997. . *Adel Iskandar and Hakem Rustom
From Paris to Cairo: Resistance of the Unacculturated
''The Ambassadors'' online magazine. *Hong, Dorothy "Tales from a Korean Maiden in America" (iUniverse, 2003)

External links

Memphis Civil Rights Digital ArchiveNew York Civil Rights Coalition
Prominent integrationist group
Interview with Justin Massa, Founder of MoveSmartOffice of Fair Housing and Equal OpportunityFile a housing discrimination complaintStories of Race and Identity Issues in Global Cultures
Compiled by the Glimpse Foundation {{DEFAULTSORT:Racial Integration African-American history Cultural studies Racism American culture

Distinction not universally accepted

See also

Notes

References

External links