Carl Greely, age 13, of Middletown, Ohio, for his question:
HAVE THERE ALWAYS BEEN GHETTOS?
A ghetto is a section of a city settled by a racial, religious or national minority group. The term originally refered to sections of European cities where Jews settled or were forced to live. Ghettos appeared in Europe as early as A.D. 70, when the Romans conquered Palestine.
Many Jews moved to Europe about A.D. 70. At first they voluntarily settled together in separate communities so they could more easily continue their cultural traditions. It was easier to prepare their food according to traditional laws, to live closer to the synagogue and to have a closer community life.
Also, in some places Jews elected to live together because they feared other groups.
Later, however, other people forced Jaws to live in ghettos. Religious or political leaders demanded segregation of Jews, and ghettos became more common.
Persecution of the Jews increased in about 1100 A.D. when the Crusades began. In 1555, Pope Paul IV decreed that Jews in the Papal States, the area around Rome governed by the Roman Catholic Church, had to live in separate quarters.
Authorities throughout the Christian world then follwed this example. The crowded ghettos that developed were usually surrounded by walls, and the gates were locked at night.
During the 1700s and the 1800s, most enforced segregation of Jews ended. But during World War II, Nazi Germany revived the practice of forcing Jews to live in ghettos.
Today the term ghetto refers mostly to large black settlements in United States cities. Large groups of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and other Spanish speaking Americans also live in ghettos today.
Before World War I, most blacks lived in the rural South. However, industrial jobs during World Wars I and II drew hundreds of thousands of blacks to city ghettos in the North.
Almost all of the people who moved to the ghettos from the South were poor, unskilled workers. They settled in slum areas close to the factories where they worked in the city.
As the slums grew, middle class and upper income white people moved from these inner city areas to suburbs. This made ghetto conditions worsen.
Prejudice and discrimination have made it difficult for many blacks and larger numbers of other minority groups to improve their living conditions.
Legislation has been used more and more to try to eliminate ghetto conditions in the United States. But segregation, unfortunately, continues.
Racial segregation in its modern American form started in the late 1800s. Many segregation laws required that whites and blacks use separate public facilities. A Supreme Court ruling in 1896 supported the theory that "separate but equal" conditions were satisfactory in public schools, transportation, reacreation and eating facilities. But the Supreme Court has since reversed this position.
Efforts continue today on many fronts to eliminate discrimination and segregation.