The correct answer is A) Southerners believed contact would suggest equality.
Southern states passed segregation laws to prevent contact between whites and African Americans because Southerners believed contact would suggest equality.
People in the Southern states favored slavery. They passed laws that supported segregation and prohibit contact between white people and black people. This was very criticized by people in the Union states of the North. Southern people based part of their economy on slavery and for them it was normal and part of its life. African American people suffered many limitations and were considered property in the Southern states. Separatism and slavery were reasons that initiated the Civil War.
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