Separate and Unequal

Segregation in Federal government agencies and programmes has been little appreciated as a key trait of American race relations in the decades before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Federal government used its power to impose a segregated pattern of race relations among its employees and, through its programmes, upon the whole of American society well beyond the Mason-Dixon line. This pattern structured the relationship between ordinary black Americans and the US Federal government - whether as employees in government agencies, inmates, or officers in federal prisons, inductees in the Armed Services, consumers of federally guaranteed mortgages or job-seekers in United States Employment Service offices or visitors to National Parks in which the facilities were segregated (or in some cases, non-existent for Black American visitors). In all these instances, segregation did not imply separation simply but also profound inequality. Using extensive and original archival sources, King documents how instead of thwarting segregated race relations, the Federal government participated in their maintenance and diffusion.
This is the book's first major theme, explored through detailed examination of Federal government departments and programmes. The book's second major theme is that segregated race relations resulted in intense inequality for Black Americans.