Racial Conflict

The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward explains the development of Jim Crow Laws starting in the period of Reconstruction until its legal demise in 1965. The book puts an argument against the question whether or not segregation had been around before the civil war, and argues that segregation had not always been that way. Before the Civil War, a close proximity was crucial between the societies in the South to maintain white supremacy above blacks. After the Civil War, a period known as Reconstruction began the physical separation of the blacks and whites to maintain white supremacy by keeping blacks and whites separated in physical facilities like schools, bathrooms, and all types of transportation. Although there was a physical separation between blacks and whites, there was not any kind of social strife between the races until the Compromise of 1877 and the forcible integration of the races. The period after Reconstruction began the push to set in laws known as Jim Crow Laws to legally separate the races, but because of the certain laws poor whites were also affected by things like literacy tests and poll taxes. The total effect of the Jim Crow Laws only benefited white elites like before the Civil War. Woodward breaks up his book between the different phases Jim Crow went through and explains the different reactions people took towards the growing segregation.

The Jim Crow Laws was a law that was made, proposing that there was going to be segregation between African Americans and white people. This law took place in the southern United States, and included African Americans and Southern whites from the 1877 to the 1950’s. I believe that the main cause of the Jim Crow Laws was because many southern white people didn’t think African Americans deserved equal rights as them. According to the cause of the conflict, I don't believe that this conflict could have been avoided because it was a person's point of view, it was the way that they saw this situation. You can't change the way a person thinks. Many of these conflicts can begin over two people who disagree on a certain point of view on something, but for this conflict it involved large groups of whites vs blacks.

After the Compromise of 1877, southern states were given back state control of the government. Consequently, white violence heightened in the south. In an article by Ida B. Wells, she discusses the unjust lynching of African Americans by white men. Wells continues in her article that the white men were not prosecuted for their actions due to their supposed need to oppress Africa Americas as result of “Negro Domination” during the Reconstruction Era (Documents in History I, 53-57). Not only was white violence a problem but so was segregation.

After the civil war and the period of reconstruction during the 20th century, many economic, social and political conditions changed for African Americans. This new freedom and opportunities given to them were not dramatically a big change. Even though the civil war had ended African Americans still faced discrimination and didn’t get as promised. One social change that came out of the civil war and reconstruction was segregation between the two races it was the process of separating the black people from the white. As shown in document 6, we see the public drinking fountain in North Carolina are kept separate from the white.

During the civil rights movement there was a set of laws called the Jim Crows. These were a set of laws which enforced segregation between the white and the blacks. The term Jim Crow was a derogatory term used to describe the African-American people. The laws affected both whites and blacks but the laws affected the blacks more negatively than the whites, the blacks were mainly affected in very unpleasant ways. In the South of America the Jim Crow laws were more strongly enforced than in the Northern part of America. African-Americans travelled North to gain a better life but with travelling bought danger and risk. In the constitution equal rights were stated, but they were not followed white people thought that the African-American race was placed on the Earth to work and that they did not deserve any respect. They thought that the black people were thought as workers, animals and slaves even after slavery was abolished.

The reaction of the South signalled a deeper division there. The Ku Klux Klan tried to suppress the blacks. State government also did this with their Black Codes. These included voting restrictions which made it difficult for blacks to vote. Thomas Nast noted this division and the hatred it contained in his cartoon in Harper’s Weekly in 1874. (Doc

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.

After the Civil War the lives of africans americans socially did not get better. In the north many African Americans may have been a

The Civil War become the beginning of the end of segregation, the differences of continuing the norm of having slave states or free states over the power of the national government prohibiting slavery in territories that had not yet become states. Following the Civil War, the millions of formerly enslaved African Americans hoped to join the larger society as full and equal citizens. (Smithsonian National Museum of American History, N/A). Throughout history many white Americans have embraced them, however the ignorance, racism and ideas to sustain them have led to the division. The 1900’s embodied the old customs of the North and South, with the additions of new laws which created the segregated society the fated African Americans to status of second-class citizenship. An example of someone who fought to change these ideals was Septima Poinsette Clark, wanting to change the way African Americans had access to the public system by educating illiterate blacks and gaining full citizenship and right to vote.

African Americans during the Civil War to the end of Reconstruction experienced two fundamental developments that attributed to a continuity and change within the country and those were the constitutional and social developments. There was only one major constitutional continuity, but many great constitutional changes. On the other hand, social continuity was scarce in the African American society while there was only one important social change. After the Civil War, life for the African American changed drastically constitutionally, but socially however, life was no different and even in some ways harder socially. The main constitutional continuity was the Civil Rights Bill which helped fuel in a great extent the continued hate from Southerners

“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.

“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”

Racial conflict has always been a very pressing problem throughout the political arena and government branches. It was one of the main causes of the Civil War and led to Confederate sympathizers assassinating a sitting President. After the Civil War ended, Reconstruction cultivated tough times and daunting experiences that newly freed slaves had to endure. For example, “As one North Carolina freedman testified, the Yankees, “tol’ us we were free,” but once the army left, the planters “would get cruel to the slaves if they acted like they were free.” It is

African Americans were a very important addition to the American Civil War such as fighting and spying for both the north and the south sides. The American Civil War was a war fought in the United States between the North and South states. The war was from 1861-1865 and was because the South wanted to establish itself as a separate nation. The northern states were called the Union and the southern states were called the Confederate. Between the north and south states were the Border States, which did not belong to either of the sides. The Border States included Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. In the north, slavery did not exist but the south was the opposite. In the war, the north and south states fought against each other while the Border States were neutral. Before the war and during the war, African Americans were treated very unfairly compared to white people. This essay will examine how African Americans were treated before, during and after the Civil War.

The United States before the civil war was basically split into two regions, the North and the South. These two regions had very different cultures, economics, and climates which led to different lifestyles and perspectives. Problems caused by the differences between the North and the South eventually led the nation into a great civil war- the bloodiest war in American history.