Jim Crow Laws

The Jim crow Law, was a system set up mostly in the southern area of america from 1877-1960’s, its goal is to change the way colored people were allowed to live in america after gain their “freedom” from slavery. These so called law are were meant to continue the segregation against those of color so that they don’t start thinking highly of them selfs and don’t come to a place thinking that they own their own lives and it their to do with what they please. Fear is a powerful thing and when learned, it can do some serious harm both physically and emotionally. Many of these law would prevent colored people from doing thing we do now on a day to day…. heck, some of these we do more then once in a day. Things like giving a hand shake, showing affection, eating together and even siting next to someone in a bus or cab was set to be done in a certain way. All this was done just so that a race of people not the same color as you don’t think their equal to you. Even now it make me wonder how people can have so much hate in their heart to live like this and be ok or even happy about it. to give an even more broader look on how bad it was i’m gonna list many of the thing colored be people went’t allowed to do in america back then.

Jim Crow laws dominated every aspect of African American life from its inception after Reconstruction up to the civil rights era and its affects can still be felt today. During this era of Jim Crow African Americans had different ways of coping with these oppressive laws. These ways of coping included these three methods, migration, agitation and accommodation. Out of these three methods the most effective at defying Jim Crow laws and fighting segregation was agitation.

“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.

I just discovered that between 1877 and the mid-1960’s, our country, especially the South, functioned under Jim Crow Laws. Jim Crow Laws were used in order to relegate African Americans to the status of second class citizens, living in a society which taught them that whites were superior to blacks in all important ways. Through the Jim Crow Laws, white people justified their thoughts of being more intelligent, having more morals, and behaving in a more civilized way, than blacks. If a black person were to question one of these, the white person could use violence in order to make sure they understand, that blacks they are at the bottom of the hierarchy. A black person could risk losing their homes, their jobs, and even their lives in some cases, if they didn’t follow the Jim

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.

Mass incarceration is known as a net of laws, policies, and rules that equates to the American criminal justice system. This series of principles of our legal system works as an entrance to a lifelong position of lower status, with no hope of advancement. Mass incarceration follows those who are released from prison through exclusion and legalized discrimination, hidden within America. The New Jim Crow is a modernized version of the original Jim Crow Laws. It is a modern racial caste system designed to keep American black men and minorities oppressed with laws and regulations by incarceration. The system of mass incarceration is the “new Jim Crow” due to the way the U.S. criminal justice system uses the “War on Drugs” as the main means of allowing discrimination and repression. America currently holds the highest rate of incarceration in the world, and even more African American men imprisoned, although white men are more likely to commit drug crimes but not get arrested. The primary targets of the criminal justice system are men of color. Mass incarceration is a rigid, complex system of racial control that resembles Jim Crow.

“Devastation and uncertainty” are two words that describe the feelings of thousands of Americans during the Great Depression(McCabe 12). From losing homes to jobs, many Americans were left devastated. These feelings during this time period were Harper Lee’s main inspiration to writing her novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Within the novel, there were many connections to the Jim Crows laws, mob mentality, and the Scottsboro trials.

Thomas Rico was a famous actor in the 1860’s, who played the character named Jim Crow, in theaters. Around the time that Jim Crow became popular, slave were being free from plantations and new laws were being made in the south. These laws were created to limit the freedom of newly freed African-Americans. White people in the south grew fond of both Jim Crow and the new laws that they started calling these laws “Jim Crow Laws”. Though the African-Americans were freed and had rights, whites would use laws so they could have power over African-Americans,

Jim Crow laws were a set of laws that separated non-colored people from colored people. I feel that these set of laws are very cruel. In this writing prompt i will be talking about the few ways that shows Jim Crow laws separate white from black.

Enacted by lawmakers bitter about the loss against the North, Jim Crow Laws blatantly favored whites and repressed those of color as many refused to welcome blacks into civic-life, still believing them to be inferior. These laws were essentially a legalized legislative barrier to the freedom promised by our constitution, and the newly won war against the southern states to end slavery. This institutionalized form of inequality spread like a wildfire in the subsequent decades, separating the races in every way imaginable; in all walks of life. Although these laws varied from state to state, we see a common trend of laws keeping blacks and whites separated, particularly in social settings and social institutions. Some of these laws include but are not limited to marriage, hospitalization, restrooms, public transportation, and prisons; all of which isolating blacks from whites. We even find laws regarding liquor licensing such as a law in Georgia which required all persons licensed to sell alcohol, to serve exclusively whites or exclusively colored people; prohibiting sales to the two races simultaneously (NPS, 2015). Laws such as this were not few and far between. Segregation of blacks became a defining custom in nearly every aspect of life in the mid-nineteenth century well into the mid-twentieth century.

Whites have always considered themselves superior to blacks, no matter if they were slave owners or not. Blacks were considered lower than humans, making them a main target of oppression of whites. So even when a small group of blacks were given their freedom, they weren’t truly liberated from the chains of slavery and oppression. Blacks were freed in the early 1800s, giving a limited amount of blacks the freedom they deserved. These blacks were usually rural, uneducated, and unskilled domestic servants who had to work hard to survive in the society that shunned them. Free blacks were still given restrictions and laws because of their status in society. In the early 1830s, a law in Virginia was made to prohibit all blacks from getting their education. They even took it to the level where free blacks who went out of state to educate themselves were not able to come back and return to their own state. The worst restriction was that blacks could not testify in court. When a slave owner claimed that a free black was their slave, they could not defend themselves, and would have to conform back to their slavery. Despite the terrible treatment given to blacks, some rose above the oppression and became successful, therefore achieving their goals and potentials of being a free black man, leaving a huge impact on society in the 1800s.

In the late 1800s to the early 1900s segregation was one of the biggest issues in the court of law. After slavery was finally abolished African Americans were able to have more freedom, but they were still treated different than any other race. The Jim Crow laws are an example of the law that affected everyday life in the African American community in the beginning of the 1890s. This law segregated schools, parks, libraries, drinking fountains, restrooms, buses, trains, and restaurants. The struggle to achieve equality was made even more difficult by the legislation of racism in the Plessy v Ferguson case.

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.

During the 1880s to the 1960s, many American states enforced the Jim Crow Laws that allowed for segregation. A few states affected by this were Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas. Legal punishment could be inflicted if people were to consort with other races. The most common law was to ensure that people would not marry people outside their race and to separate business and public institutions by black and white.

The State of Tennessee enacted 20 Jim Crow laws between 1866 and 1955, including six requiring school segregation, four which outlawed miscegenation, three which segregated railroads, two requiring segregation for public accommodations, and one which mandated segregation on streetcars. The 1869 law declared that no citizen could be excluded from the University of Tennessee because of race or color but then mandated that instructional facilities for black students be separate from those used by white students. As of 1954, segregation laws for miscegenation, transportation and public accommodation were still in effect. - See more at: