Color Line (civil Rights Issue) - Use in Modern Journalism

Use in Modern Journalism

As well as in literary theory, the phrase circulates in the modern vernacular. For example, Newsweek published a piece by Anna Quindlen entitled "The Problem of the Color Line," about the continuing plague of racial discrimination in the United States. The phrase does not only find use in the print world, either. PBS created a series entitled America Beyond the Color Line with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a documentary series that looked at communities of African Americans in four areas of the United States. The phrase's current use in modern journalism reflects a continued use of the phrase even though the legalized segregation that continued after the abolishment of slavery was outlawed. It reflects a dual meaning of the phrase, one aspect of which reflects a color line created by the law, and the other of which reflects the de facto disparity between life for African Americans in the United States and life for other citizens.