DRAWING THE LINE: Segregation in the NC Extension Service

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century, the United States was governed by specific ideas about what specific groups of people should and should not do. That meant that groups of people were excluded from participating in society in the same way that other groups could. Usually this is referred to as segregation. Normally, segregation refers to African Americans, but in this exhibit it will be used to describe the limitations put on both African Americans and women in the North Carolina Extension Service. 

Racial segregation existed everywhere in the United States, but in the South it was mandated through a set of laws known as Jim Crow laws. These laws were enacted on the state and national levels between 1876 and 1965. Jim Crow laws required that African American people be segregated from white people in all public places. This meant that African Americans were not allowed to go to same public facilities that white people were allowed to go to. These included schools, libraries, movie theaters, etc. Jim Crow was supposed to provide "separate but equal" facilities for all people, but this was often not the case. In many circumstances, the public places provided for African Americans were under-funded and inferior to public places provided for whites. During the 1950s the Civil Rights Movement began to gain momentum in the United States, and slowly but surely, Jim Crow laws began to be overturned. Now racial segregation is illegal in the United States. 

Until the 1960s and 1970s, women also faced hardships associated with segregation. Although not required by law as Jim Crow had been, women were expected to act and perform very different tasks than men. It was expected that men would hold jobs outside of the home and provide financially for their families. Women, however, were expected to stay at home and serve their families in the domestic sphere by caring for the children, cleaning the home, and cooking the meals. Men occupied the public sphere and women occupied the private sphere. This is often referred to as the idea of separate spheres. Because of this ideology, men and women were often taught different skills throughout their lives. Although many of these stereotypes about gender still exist, it is no longer uncommon to see a family where both the man and woman hold jobs outside of the homes. In some circumstances the wife works to provide financially for the family while the husband stays home to care for the children. 

This exhibit will go further into how segregation changed the way that African Americans and women experienced the North Carolina Extension Service, both as agents and participants.