color line

noun

barrier preventing blacks from participating in various activities with whites

• Syn: ↑color bar, ↑colour bar, ↑colour line, ↑Jim Crow

• Hypernyms: ↑ideological barrier

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noun

1. : a line of stacked rifles on which the colors rest while troops are engaged in activities without arms

2. : the line of social demarcation that some people maintain between the white race and colored races (as between whites and Negroes); also : a similar line between groups of lighter and darker colored people

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1. Also called color bar. social or political restriction or distinction based on differences of skin pigmentation, as between white and black people.

2. draw the color line, to observe a color line.

[1860-65, Amer.]

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color line,

the distinction in social, economic, or political privileges drawn between members of different races in certain countries or regions on the basis of skin color.

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n. another term for color bar (sense 1)

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noun, pl ⋯ lines [singular]

US : a set of customs or laws that does not allow black people to do the same things or be in the same places as white people

Jackie Robinson broke American baseball's color line. [=he was the first black man to play professional baseball with white players]

— called also (Brit) colour bar

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ˈcolor line [color line] (also ˈcolor bar) (both US) (BrE ˈcolour bar) noun usually singular

a social system which does not allow black people the same rights as white people

See also: ↑color bar ▪ ↑colour bar