color bar

noun

variants US color bar or British colour bar

plural color bars

: a set of societal or legal barriers that segregates people of color from white people (as by restricting social interaction or requiring separate facilities) and prevents people of color from exercising the same rights and accessing the same opportunities as white people : color line

"Rosetta [LeNoire] did more than dream of a theater with no color bar—she actually built one," he [Bill Clinton] said.

—Douglas Martin

—usually used with the

In London, the department funded two student hostels, which aided the many students whom the color bar prevented from finding decent lodging …

—Aminatta Forna

As a minor leaguer, he was one of five players who broke the color bar in the South Atlantic League.

—The (Mankato, Minnesota) Free Press

Examples of color bar in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

That was down from 7.2% in 2022 and was the lowest percentage since 1955, eight years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color bar in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers. —Darrell Smith, Sacramento Bee, 5 Apr. 2024

Communications were lost with the drone as the image can be seen pixelating into color bars. —Luis Martinez, ABC News, 16 Mar. 2023

Lighter blue indicates less snow, deeper blue is more snow (see color bar at left). —Tom Yulsman, Discover Magazine, 22 Apr. 2017

Massingale said his father couldn’t work as a carpenter because of a color bar preventing African Americans from joining the carpenters’ union. —NBC News, 14 Feb. 2022

Word History

First Known Use

1869, in the meaning defined above