Alabama

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term “racism” first appeared in English in the United States in 1936 in a fascist pamphlet by Lawrence Dennis called The Coming American Fascism: The Crisis of Capitalism.

It is pretty clear that “racism” was in use in other European languages before English. The origin of “racism” is commonly attributed to either the Jewish communist Leon Trotsky (1930) or the Jewish sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld (1934).

In 1939, a Roper poll found that 7 out of 10 Americans believed that blacks were less intelligent than Whites. More than 8 out of 10 Americans believed that blacks should be prevented by law or social pressure from living in White neighborhoods. At that time, the Jim Crow South and much of the West practiced segregation while restrictive covenants and sundown towns were commonplace in the Midwest.

In 1942, 42 percent of Whites believed that blacks were as intelligent as Whites, 30 percent believed blacks and Whites should attend integrated schools, 51 percent believed that blacks and Whites should be segregated in public transportation, and 62 percent were bothered by the thought of having black neighbors.

In 1946, a poll found that 53 percent of Whites believed that blacks were as intelligent as Whites – this was first time in American history that a majority of White Americans professed to believe in racial equality.

By 1952, 78 percent of Whites believed that blacks were as intelligent as Whites, 49 percent believed blacks and Whites should attend integrated schools, 60 percent believed that blacks and Whites should not be segregated in public transportation, and 52 percent of Whites were not bothered by the thought of having black neighbors.

In the video below, “racism” comes into circulation in the English language in the late 1930s and explodes in usage around 1960. The first use of “racist” as an adjective was in 1938 which was also the year the American Anthropological Association passed its first resolution that condemned “racism.”