Segregation has been a major problem for hundreds of years, it wasn't until 1964, when the Civil Rights Act was passed, that African Americans and other races were to be treated as equals to sad the truth, however, is that it is not over. When people think of segregation they think of separate water fountains, schools, bathrooms, buses, and even churches. Segregation is not a thing of the past as many of us would like to believe. In fact, it's a problem that still persists today. In Little Rock Arkansas we witness “one of the longest-running and best-known cases of school desegregation in the country” (Elliott). To understand continued segregation you need to understand the history and the key people who played a role in it. The escape from Britain led to a different kind of slavery in the new world. The Africans arrived with Spanish and Portuguese explorers in 1619 and were sold by the captain of a Dutch warship to settlers at Jamestown (Drewry). This was their first encounter with American culture, needless to say the welcome wasn't the warmest. As time passed Americans found it advantageous to ban the right of African Americans to learn to read and write: "For many slaves, the ability to read and write meant freedom, if not actual, physical, rather than intellectual" (I Will Be Heard) . To eliminate even this kind of freedom, in 1830 the Supreme Court passed a bill to prevent all people from teaching literature to slaves: of the same, that any free person who hereafter teaches or attempts to teach reading or writing to any slave within this State, excluding the use of ciphers, shall be liable to prosecution in any... medium of paper... ....003.web.1/9/14"" I will be heard!" Abolitionism in America." "I will be heard!" Abolitionism in America. Np, nd Web. January 18, 2014.Lewis, David Levering. "King, Martin Luther, Jr." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia.Grolier Online, 2014. Web. January 22, 2014. “Parks, Rosa Louise (1913–2005).” American Encyclopedia. Grolier online, 2014.Web. January 24, 2014Rubinstein, William D. "Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Major League Baseball." History Today 53.9 (2003): 20. History Reference Center. Network. January 24, 2014."Civil War and Reconstruction of the United States." The new book of knowledge. Grolier Online, 2014. Network. 23 January 2014. "5.9 A bill to prevent all persons from teaching slaves to read or write, excluding the use of figures (1830)." A bill to prevent all persons from teaching slaves to read or write, excluding the use of cyphers (1830). Np, nd Web. January 15.2014.