Are Jim Crow Laws Morally Wrong?

Are we morally obliged to obey even unjust laws? This moral question addresses what we commonly know as civil disobedience. In order to properly discuss civil disobedience and whether or not it is moral to disobey laws, we must first characterize civil disobedience. In Peter Singer's book, Practical Ethics he begins to characterize civil disobedience as arising from "ethical disagreement" and raising the question of whether "to uphold the law, even if the law protects and sanctions things we hold utterly wrong?" (Singer 292).

The topic that I chose for my research paper is the Jim Crow laws. I chose this topic because during this time period the Jim Crow laws were a huge obstacle that our country had to overcome in order to grow. The Jim Crow laws were created to separate whites and blacks in their everyday lives, allowing for no interaction between races. The Jim Crow Laws were enforced in the southern, United States. The laws existed between 1877 and the 1950’s, around the time the reconstruction period was ending and the civil rights movement was beginning.

The Jim Crow laws were everything but fair, and equal. Jim Crow is the name they used in the laws on separating the African Americans from the Caucasian men and women. These laws deprived African Americans from their civil rights because of the many things they were not allowed to experience due to these laws. Jim Crow laws oppressed the educational rights, voting rights, and social freedoms of American citizens, this essay will be discussing the oppression of these rights and freedoms.

Why is it important for people to stand up for what they believe in? People who do stand up for what they believe in get pushed around. In the United States of America, it is legal to stand up for any beliefs, as long as they are not causing physical harm to another individual, taking advantage of someone’s rights, or interfering with government operations. If these things happen, it will result in a fine or jail time.

     Any one can say that a law is unfair and unjust. However, who is really willing to accept the consequences for going against an unjust law? Is breaking this law really worth the punishment? The government is the one to decide whether a law is reasonable, but what if a member of the public believes that a law is not? Should he rebel against this law? Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr. answered yes to this question and believed that one should speak out against an injustice. They both believed that government had many flaws. Even though they shared many beliefs in many of the same subjects concerning Civil Disobedience, they had many different

What if you woke up one day and everything became separate? School, sports, and even parks; would you be able to cope with Jim Crow laws? Though many whites opposed the idea of integration and supported Jim Crow laws, many citizens of color fought for the right to use the same restroom, water fountain, go to the same schools, and even to intermarry. Jim Crow laws were instituted to separate those of color and whites, because of this, many blacks were discriminated against in social areas and job and school opportunities.

Jim Crow laws were laws passed during and after Reconstruction as a means of denying African-Americans the rights they are guaranteed in the Constitution as well as the new equality they achieved as a result of Reconstruction. During Reconstruction, African-Americans were enfranchised to vote and even elected to office. Some African-Americans even held land. The statement that Jim Crow laws increased African-Americans' access to goods and services is inaccurate, because Jim Crow laws were meant to withhold African-Americans of their rights as much as possible, African-Americans were still at the bottom of the economic ladder, and they lowered African-Americans' prominence in American society after the end of Reconstruction.

“The Jim Crow era was one of struggle -- not only for the victims of violence, discrimination, and poverty, but by those who worked to challenge (or promote) segregation in the South” (“Jim Crow Stories”). It is important to know the history of this significant period where everyone was treated differently based on how they looked instead of their character. During the Jim Crow era, the lives of African Americans were severely restricted making it difficult for them to succeed in everyday life.

Michael Brown, was a young African American male from Ferguson, Missouri who was shot and killed by a white police officer in 2014. Since then, Americans started to focus their attention on the numerous encounters of police brutality involving black Americans throughout America, and with the help of social media the encounters became more real and evident to the public. A large number of blacks have been killed due to incidents with police, in the years since Mike Brown's death and in the years before (Rodney King, and the LA riots).Black people were targeted by the police for anything which caused them to get arrested and forced into modern day slavery. Once the Jim Crow laws came to an end the government had to find an alternative to control the minority population. In the 1970s the "war on drugs" began, a government-led process that aimed to stop illegal drug use and distribution by increasing and enforcing penalties for offenders. The use of crack was an epidemic that it the streets of poor minority communities, so it was targeted more than cocaine. Minorities received a minimum of five years for crack possession, but whites who used cocaine received less time which is evidence the system is flawed. In 1994 Bill Clinton introduced the Crime

The Jim Crow laws robbed and stripped African Americans of their rights not just Americans but as people. Jim Crow laws prevented white and African Americans from having the same rights and interacting with each other. With the creation of the Jim Crow laws, the disrespect and abusive behavior towards the colored people was promoted and accepted by most of the society, making it hard for the African American to have equal rights.

To begin with, just because a law is a law, that does not immediately make it right. There are many cases throughout history that this is evident. One example of this is prevalent in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. Before this case, in 1820, the government made an agreement called the Missouri Compromise, which “drew a line through the Louisiana Territory… All new states and territories north of the line except Missouri would be free; everything south of the line would be open to slavery” (Morone and Kersh 153). Well, when Dred Scott, a slave, sued for freedom his argument was “… he had been taken to live in a free territory before returning to Missouri and that, as a result, he should be free” (Morone and Kersh 153). Although in my opinion his argument was valid, it was ruled that he could not be set free due to the fact that neither the territories nor the federal government could confine slavery. In this civil rights case, slavery was just reinforced and the government failed to protect individuals. Soon after this case, President Abraham Lincoln is elected into office and he completely changes the definition of freedom in America. Southern states were furious and started to withdrawal from the States and the Civil War explodes. When the northern

Have you ever felt a rule you had to follow was unjust? Have you ever felt your moral instinct tell you not to follow it? Prominent figures in American history, Martin Luther King Jr. and Henry David Thoreau, felt this way and decided to not follow the rules imposed on them by indulging in “civil disobedience”. Civil disobedience is the act of peacefully disobeying laws or customs with the purpose of combating moral injustice. This form of protest has proven to be quite effective in making change in history. In “Civil Disobedience” and the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, both Thoreau and King Jr. write their justification for their actions as well as their feelings regarding the particular disputed

Sometimes what is morally right is not always legal just like in the book Antigone. All human beings are born with the instinct of a desire to do things that make them feel right referring to Antigone, she found herself feeling that it is not right to leave her brother to be unrest so she can even give up her life for her family. “God’s law” is stronger in some people’s consciences than the instinct of self-preservation. Antigone’s actions are a strong example of moral law. However, when civil law is of more importance than moral law. Although someone may feel strongly about what they see as morally right and Henry David Thoreau’s action is the strongest action in civil

Many are unaware of the effects that race has played in their lives over the years. Some may not understand its implications, but are very oblivious to it. Race can influence such things like attitude and behavior. Nowadays being white or black means something more than just a Crayola color. No longer are they just colors, they are races with their own rules and regulations. People of color have been inferior to the white race for centuries. In their own way Zora Neale Hurston shows this concept in her story “How it feels to be Colored Me” as does Richard Wright in his autobiographical sketch “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”.

Ban animal cruelty! Give aid to the poor! Save the rainforests! Obey the law! As a human race we must strive to fulfill these commands, for they are our moral duties and obligations. Our obligation to morality sometimes leads to a dilemma. What happens when a law contradicts the morally right thing to do? Would it be moral to act illegally by breaking the law? No matter how drastic the measure, we are still required to act morally--even if one must break the law to do so. But why is it so important to be moral that one could justify something as serious as breaking the law?