Clyde Ross And The Laws Of Jim Crow

The Jim Crow laws were local and state laws that were supposedly “separate but equal,” but instead blacks were inferior to the whites due that to the social, educational, and economical disadvantages that they caused. In Woodward’s greatly influential book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, he shows supporters of segregation that this was not the way that it had always been, but instead segregation took time to develop after the Civil war and that the acceptance of the Jim Crow laws was not just because of race, but also included politic aspects. Woodward proves his thesis by showing how the state between the two races was right after the race the war and how slavery required interaction between blacks and whites. Woodward continues to

C. Vann Woodward illuminates one of the “ugliest” aspects of American societal history in his book The Strange Career of Jim Crow. His book is an overview of the development of the Jim Crow system, a set of racist laws put in place around the turn of the nineteenth century. Interestingly his book tracks the evolution of racism throughout American history. He not only shows where and when racism is developing but the different ways that the racism manifested itself in the North and South.

As much as Reconstruction had initially tried to help the South, it was the sole goal of this movement to, “undo as much as possible of Reconstruction.” State facilities originally that were supposed to help everyone were closed down, and the gap between black and white expenditures on schooling increased. Due to the depression in the 1890’s this worsened the situation for black families trying to make a living in the South couldn’t keep up their farms or the places that their children would learn. “In 1900, no public high schools for blacks existed in the South. Black elementary schools, one observer reported, occupied buildings “as bad as stables””. New laws about segregation also affected blacks in more ways than just demoralization, it also showed what kind of jobs were considered good work for them. In the instance of segregation on railroads, “many blacks could be found in “whites only” railroad cars. But they entered as servants and nurses, not as paying customers entitled to equal treatment. The rise of lynching also affected the way blacks lived their lives, by controlling the way they vote, how they treated whites, and how they couldn’t rely on the justice system to address their grievances. An example of the reduced number of voters is best seen in Louisiana, where the number of voters dropped from 130, 000 to 1, 342, which is directly linked to the use of violence as a way to intimidate black voters. Blacks also had to be careful how they acted around white, since murder wasn’t a federal crime and was handled by the state, many blacks were lynched without fair trials and accused of crimes like raping white women, murder, and theft. A majority of the accused never when to trial. All in all blacks in the South were largely affected negatively as a result in policy changes, social factors, and widespread violence. This injustice carried on

Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: New Press, 2010.

The criminal justice system in America is a system designed to work in three distinct steps. The first being to fairly identify those breaking the law, second, create a process through which to both punish and rehabilitate criminals, and lastly integrate them back into society. The current system typically goes unquestioned, as those in the system seem to be deserving of what ever happens while they are in it, even once they have served their prison sentence. It is only upon deeper inspection that we begin to realize the discrimination and unfair tactics used to introduce certain groups of society into the criminal justice system and proceed to trap them there. This is the issue addressed in Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, and it is through arrests, sentencing and further upon release from jail that this oppressive system is created and maintained.

In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander develops a compelling analogy on how mass incarceration is similar to the Jim Crow era, and is a “race-making institution.” She begins her work with the question, “Where have all the black men gone?” (Alexander, 178) She demonstrates how the media and Obama have failed to give an honest answer to this question, that the large majority of them or in prison. She argues that in order to address this problem, we must be honest about the fact that this is happening, and the discrimination with the African American communities that is putting them there.

During these years of radical reconstruction, the African Americans were going through some very tough times. The laws that were put on them were harsh and unreasonable. All they wanted to do was becomes socially and economically apart of the United States. Groups like the KKK were unfair towards the blacks and made their lives miserable by holding rallies and killing them. As a result of reconstruction, the blacks were not given social or economic equality because of laws like the black codes and Jim Crow laws, and the rebellious whites in the south. These African Americans struggled just to support themselves, but whites eventually accepted them at the end of the

The whole Jim Crow Law rules were based on the separate but equal properties. Any of the laws that enforced racial segregation in the south between the end of reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. Jim crow laws affected public places such as schools, housing jobs, parks, cemeteries, and public gathering places. Ohio was one of the first to ban interracial marriage. There was forms of segregation before the laws came into place. For instance some people had the mentality that they could work with a slave as long as the slave knew his or her place. Brown vs. Board of Education is an example of a Jim Crow law being put into action. After the supreme court unanimously held that racial segregation of children in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause.

C. Vann Woodward’s book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, has been hailed as a book which shaped our views of the history of the Civil Rights Movement and of the American South. Martin Luther King, Jr. described the book as “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” The argument presented in The Strange Career of Jim Crow is that the Jim Crow laws were relatively new introductions to the South that occurred towards the turn of the century rather than immediately after the end of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Woodward examines personal accounts, opinions, and editorials from the eras as well as the laws in place at the times. He examines the political history behind the emergence of

About a hundred years after the Civil War, almost all American lived under the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow Laws actually legalized segregation. These racially enforced rules dominated almost every aspect of life, not to mention directed the punishments for any infraction. The key reason for the Jim Crow Laws was to keep African Americans as close to their former status as slaves as was possible. The following paper will show you the trials and tribulations of African Americans from the beginning through to the 1940’s where segregation was at its peak.

This “war on drugs,” which all subsequent presidents have embraced, has created a behemoth of courts, jails, and prisons that have done little to decrease the use of drugs while doing much to create confusion and hardship in families of color and urban communities.1,2Since 1972, the number of people incarcerated has increased 5-fold without a comparable decrease in crime or drug use.1,3 In fact, the decreased costs of opiates and stimulants and the increased potency of cannabis might lead one to an opposing conclusion.4 Given the politics of the war on drugs, skyrocketing incarceration rates are deemed a sign of success, not failure. I don’t totally agree with the book (I think linking crime and black struggle is even older than she does, for instance) but I think The New Jim Crow pursues the right line of questioning. “The prison boom is not the main cause of inequality between blacks and whites in America, but it did foreclose upward mobility

Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness goes into great detail on race related issues that were specific to black males, the mass incarceration, and how that lead to the development of institutionalized racism in the United States. She compares the Jim Crow with recent phenomenon of mass incarceration and points out that the mass incarceration is a network of laws, policies, customs and institutions that have been working together to warrant the subordinating status of black males. In this paper I will go into a brief examination of the range of issues that she mentions in her book that are surrounding the mass incarceration of black male populations.

The New Jim Crow is a book that discusses how legal practices and the American justice system are harming the African American community as a whole, and it argues that racism, though hidden, is still alive and well in our society because of these practices. In the book, Michelle Alexander, author and legal scholar, argues that legal policies against offenders have kept and continue to keep black men from becoming first class citizens, and she writes that by labeling them as “criminals,” the justice system and society in general is able to act with prejudice against them and subordinate black Americans who were previously incarcerated, on probation, or on parole, by limiting their access to services as a result of their ‘criminal status’ and therefore, further degrading their quality of life. The New Jim Crow urges readers to acknowledge the injustice and racial disparity of our criminal justice system so that this new, more covert form of racism in society can be stopped.

A central theme in the book, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (2010) is The War

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”.