Jim Crow Laws: Segregation In The United States

1. Jim Crow was a set of laws enforcing racial segregation in the southern United States from 1877 to the 1960’s. These barbaric and corrupt laws were set mainly against African Americans, limiting their human rights such as voting. The Whites firmly believed they were the superior race over African Americans because they labeled themselves as being more intelligent and civilized.

Jim Crow laws started in the 1880s and lasted into the 1960s, a majority of American states enforced segregation through "Jim Crow" laws. From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated (Tischauser 57-68). The Jim Crow laws affected Tom Robinson’s life in many ways. He simply was segregated from the white population. Tom was discriminated by almost everyone in the community he lived in. During this time this was normal and blacks were thought to be inferior to whites. Some English Dictionaries define ‘Jim Crow’ as the name for an implement that can straighten or bend iron rails; or, along with ‘Jim Crowism’, systems or practices of racial discrimination or segregation. The American English Dictionary suggests that the name only emerged in dictionaries in 1904, but it was clearly used as early as 1876.

Jim Crow was a man who created laws, that affected many peoples lives during the 1960s. These laws made it much harder for blacks mainly in the South, but then it started to move upward in the United States. There were many purposes leading to creating these laws. During this era, blacks were excluded from many things and opportunities. These laws made many changes and changed how the things were after these laws were taken away. The Jim Crow Laws affected, harmed, excluded, and ruined many blacks and in some cases white peoples lives.

There were many forms of discrimination in America. Discrimination was everywhere in the 20th century, and the population most affected by this were African Americans. Two of the most critical injustices committed in America during the 20th century were the development of the Jim Crow laws and school segregation. However, these injustices have been rectified as a result of the Civil Rights Movement and the decision of the supreme court of Brown v. Board of Education which brought important changes to African Americans.

Before there were players such as Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Barry Bonds, Major League Baseball was strictly white players only. The color line of Major League Baseball excluded black players until the late 40’s. This didn’t stop the colored men of America from playing the beloved American sport. The creation of the Negro Leagues in 1920 by Rube Foster gave colored men a chance to play in their own professional league, similar to the Major Leagues, but for African-American men. The creation of the Negro Leagues was a result of the Jim Crow Laws, state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Enacted after the Reconstruction period in the U.S., these laws continued in force until 1965. These laws created

The old Jim Crow was a racial caste system in America that separate Black people from Whites like school and bathroom separations. Whites were privileged to have all of the superior public necessities , while blacks were free labors and viewed as inferior servants between 1877 and the 1960s. The Jim Crow system create racial caste that Whites are above all Blacks. Law was legal to prevent African Americans from going to the same school that Whites go to, and they could

Jim Crow law in U.S. history was 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 was the name of a minstrel routine performed beginning in 1828. The term came to be a derogatory epiblast for African Americans and a designation for their segregated life. Southern state legislatures passed laws requiring the separation of whites from “persons with color”. The Jim Crow law was from 1877 to 1954. (Britannica.com)

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.

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,

Daddy Rice, a famous blackface performer that was known for his “onstage character “Jim Crow,” dressed in tattered clothes and purposely acted clumsy and brainless in an attempt to mimic African Americans” (“Jim Crow”). The show became very popular amongst the white majority and overtime “Jim Crow” became a derogatory term which white people used to refer to African Americans. Before Jim Crow laws came into place, African Americans and whites shared the same railroad car, with African Americans forced to sit in the back, or sometimes the “smoking car”. In 1900, Governor J. Hoge “signed into law Virginia’s first statute requiring the railroads to furnish separate cars, or partitioned cars, for [African Americans and whites]” (417 Wynes).

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.

“Jim Crow Laws were statutes and ordinances established between 1874 and 1975 to separate the white and black races in the American South. In theory, it was to create "separate but equal" treatment, but in practice Jim Crow Laws condemned black citizens to inferior treatment and facilities.” The Jim Crows Laws created tensions and disrespect towards blacks from whites. These laws separated blacks and whites from each other and shows how race determines how an individual is treated. The Jim Crow laws are laws that are targeted towards black people. These laws determine how an individual is treated by limiting their education, having specific places where blacks and whites could or could not go, and the punishments for the “crime”

Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws, it was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second-class citizens. Some of the laws excluded blacks from public transport and facilities, juries, jobs, and neighborhoods, voting, holding public office, and school. Although the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution had granted blacks the same legal protections as whites. After 1877, and the election of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, southern and border states began restricting the liberties of blacks.

The Jim Crow laws perpetuated segregation. This set of rules to show the dominance of the white race were absolutely appalling. They were mainly operated in the southern portion of the United States, but not exclusively. The Jim Crow laws “were in place from the late 1870’s until the civil rights movement began in the 1950’s” (“Jim Crow Laws”). Blacks and whites could not use the same drinking fountains, restrooms, or attend the same restaurants, churches, and schools. It was considered rape or an unwanted advance for a black man to offer his hand to a white woman. Another law was that african-american couples could not show affection towards each other in a public area because it “offended whites” (Pilgrim) along with countless more. There

“The segregation and disenfranchisement laws known as “Jim Crow” represented a formal, codified system of racial apartheid that dominated the American South for three quarters of a century beginning in the