Jim Crow Laws In To Kill A Mockingbird

Since my written source was concerning the Jim Crow laws, I chose a letter which was written by the father of the abolitionist movement, Fredrick Douglass. He expresses his concerns about the unjust treatment which the African- Americans are forced to endure. He concludes that it is the old mentality of slavery and racism by the White race that has led the Jim Crow laws to be enacted. Furthermore, Fredrick Douglass documents some his observations and beliefs in this letter. He has noticed several incidences of segregation and inequality. I chose this primary source because it had a direct correlation to the Jim Crow Laws. It explores several instances of inequalities in the southern states, proving the brutal treatment of African- Americans.

The Great Depression was a devastating time where millions of Americans lost their jobs and their homes (McCabe 12). Not only did the Great Depression influence the writing of her novel, Harper Lee used other historical events to influence the creation of To Kill a Mockingbird. The Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and the Scottsboro trials are some of the historical events that inspired To Kill a Mockingbird.

The first influence on Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws were a set of rules that perpetuated racism and segregation. These rules were sickening and appalling. The Jim Crow laws were made to keep Blacks from interacting with Whites. For example, if a white woman were to fall a black man could not offer her, his hand to help her up because it was considered rape (Pilgrim 2). Many scientists and religious leaders justified these laws. One reason was that scientist thought that black peoples brains were inferior to those of white people. Also, many religious leaders believed that Whites were the chosen people and Blacks were just there to serve them (Pilgrim 2). If you were not following these laws, there were sever consequences. People believed these punishments were necessary to “keep Blacks in their place”. One example is mass lynching. This punishment is when a mob of people would take a black person, accused of breaking a rule, and beat them, torture them, and kill them. The police didn’t just not stop these rampages, often they would participate. The Jim Crow laws can be seen in To Kill a Mockingbird in many ways. One of the laws was that a black person could not say that a white person was lying (Pilgrim). This is shown in the book when Tom is accused of calling Mayella a liar, by Mr. Gilmer (Lee 224).

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.

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,

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.

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the sleepy, southern Maycomb, Alabama. A small town in the grips of 1930’s depression, To Kill a Mockingbird spans a period of three years following young Scout Finch and her family through their experiences with racism and prejudice. Jim Crow laws were a series of ordinances the prevented equal treatment of African-Americans. Beginning with the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and remaining in effect until the Civil rights movement of the 1950s, Jim Crow laws governed where colored people could live, work, eat, enter and exit a building, and use public services. “Jim Crow laws grew from theories of white supremacy and were a reaction to Reconstruction,” explained Andrew Costly of the Constitutional Rights Foundation, “In the depression-racked 1890s, racism appealed to whites who feared losing their jobs to blacks.” Ensuring that freed slaves remained weak and inferior, Jim Crow laws revoked black freedom’s and crippled their rights. And while not explicitly stated, evidence of Jim Crow Laws appears methodically throughout To Kill a Mockingbird. Strongly influenced by elements of racism, the story paints a vivid picture of life in the era of Jim Crow, for both colored and white.

The Jim Crow Laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. “The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated.”(1) A vast majority of the Southern States agreed upon the Jim Crow Laws, which were slave states. That left some of the Northern States free states which didn’t pass the Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow Laws prevented African Americans from doing a lot of things that white americans could do.

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.

The Jim Crow Laws were created to separate blacks and whites in public areas and degraded African Americans by providing unequal opportunities in housing, work, education, and government. These laws contravened with the 14th amendment according to Document A, “Article 14 Section 1: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”. The Jim Crow Laws set a “Separate but Equal” system that the government failed to comply to since the African Americans were issued with accommodations that were not the same as whites. The Jim Crow Laws also breached the 15th amendment by prohibiting African Americans to vote in almost all Southern states. As stated in Document A, the 15th amendment is “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude--”. The ballots of many African Americans were either not considered valid or thrown away for those who did

After the Civil War, most Southern and Border States deprived the basic rights of African Americans. Jim Crow was a fictitious character created by a white entertainer to ridicule African Americans. The laws were made in an attempt to keep African Americans away from whites after slavery ended (“Examples of Jim Crow”). The Jim Crow laws affected education, health care, and social events. “From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race” (“Jim Crow Laws”). These punishments could be brutal or sometimes fatal.

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.

First I’m going to talk about the background and racial things of America. Slavery was a big issue back then, blacks were treated very badly and they tried to get their rights. They fought for their right and got a little bit but years later they were still treated badly and very different than the whites. The Jim Crow Laws were a racial thing. They were made to keep blacks and whites segregated.

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