The term color line was originally used as a reference to the racial segregation that existed in the United States after the abolition of slavery. An article by Frederick Douglass that was titled "The Color Line" was published in the North American Review in 1881. The phrase gained fame after W. E. B. Du Bois' repeated use of it in his 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk. The phrase sees current usage as a reference to modern racial discrimination in the United States and legalized segregation after the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement. History Origins It is difficult to find an exact origin of the phrase "the color line." However, the phrase appeared frequently in newspapers during the Reconstruction era with specific reference to divisions between blacks and whites. For example, the July 7, 1869, issue of the Richmond Virginia Dispatch described a "color line" running between two candidates for governor. Most uses of the term in the 1870s were in newspapers from former slave states and dealt with elections. A search of Newspapers.com indicates the phrase appeared in newspapers with increasing frequency from 1873 on. Early usage includes an 1871 address as part of an anniversary celebration of the New England Society. At that event General Horace Porter referred to the color line as being the result of being in battle alongside black troops in Virginia which his audience found humorous. The term occurs several times in testimony during a United States Senate inquiry into the Mississippi election of 1875. J.W. Lee, previously Mayor of Aberdeen, Mississippi and Sheriff of Monroe County in the same state identified the policy of the Democrats as "the color line policy." In 1881 Frederick Douglass published an article with that title in the North American Review. He likened the color line to a disease of morality and gives seven propositions against it. At the First Pan-African Conference in London in July 1900, the delegates adopted an "Address to the Nations of the World", drafted by Du Bois and to which he was a signatory, that contained the sentence: "The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the colour-line". Use by Du Bois Du Bois introduces the concept of the color line in his 1899 work The Philadelphia Negro when discussing social interactions between the black and white inhabitants of Philadelphia. 'In all walks of life the Negro