Social Inequality Breaks the Meaning of the Constitution

In the 1880’s after slavery was abolished, the Jim Crow laws were passed. Jim Crow laws were a set of laws that segregated the Whites from the Blacks in their everyday lives. Jim Crow was a fictional character in a play used that was to imitate a black man and mock the African American culture. Jim Crow laws were specifically for the African American community. These laws were taken more seriously in the South. The laws enforced racial segregation and were established as “separate but equal” (Jim Crow Laws). The Jim Crow laws had a negative effect on the African American population and subjected Blacks to segregation, more discrimination, and more racism than they had already received.

The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enacted that mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in southern states of the former confederacy. The blacks were said to be “separate but equal” and this separation led to conditions for the blacks that tended to be inferior to those provided for whites. Law-enforced segregation mainly applied to the southern United States whereas northern segregation had patterns of segregation in housing that was enforced by the covenants, bank lending practices, and job discrimination. For decades, this included discriminatory union practices for decades. The Jim Crow laws segregated public schools, public places, public transportation, restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains. Therefore, it did nothing to bring about social or economic equality.

Although laws promoting equality were passed, they were merely considered nothing to the people who carried animosity toward the blacks. Living their daily lives under the policy of “Separate but Equal” (Kallen 37), the blacks were treated terribly by their fellow white neighbors. The “Separate but Equal” law, passed in 1896 by the Supreme Court, stated that blacks could be segregated from whites in all public facilities as long as other facilities that were equal in quality were provided (Kallen 37). Prohibited from performing in theatres, attending performances, riding in streetcars, using the restrooms, going to school, playing at the park, and eating at restaurants, blacks were completely segregated from their community by the enforcement of laws known as the Jim Crow Laws (Kallen 38). During this time, the blacks were tired of the oppression and the derision of their natural rights that they were receiving and it motivated many to make a change in society and to have a voice.

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that reinforced racial segregation in the South between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1950’s (Urofsky). The laws mandated segregation of schools, drinking fountains, restrooms, buses, and restaurants. In legal theory, blacks received “separate but equal” treatment under the law--in actuality, public facilities were nearly always inferior to those for whites, when they existed at all. In addition, blacks were systematically denied the right to vote in most of the rural South through the selective application of literacy tests and other racially motivated criteria (PBS). Despite Jim Crow laws being abolished in 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson

Slavery was not a word that was unknown in the United States of America; the word was at the tip of almost everyone’s tongue, only it came with many names. After the civil war, slavery became more pronounced for the black people. The south then thought something ought to be done and passed laws called the black codes which begun the limitation of blacks’ rights and separated them from the whites; white supremacy began. Before, these laws would have been unnecessary because most of the black people were slaves and they were already segregated in public places like schools and theatres. In 1866, Congress did not like this and they responded to these laws by putting a stop to it. Republicans had managed to begin reconstruction on the society and understand the black community. But in 1877 things took a turn for the worse when the Democratic parties recovered control and stopped the progress of reconstruction. This in turn caused the reverse of all the progress made in the past few years to understand the black community; they lost their rights to hold political seats, vote and generally participate as though they were members of the community. Slowly but surely, the south started to restore their racially unfair laws. The aim of the laws? To ensure segregation and alienation of the black community. One of the main powers taken away was the right to vote and they did this by imposing poll taxes, having expensive fees to be paid at the voting booths and

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.

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

Jim Crow laws were laws passed during and after Reconstruction as a means of denying African-Americans the rights they are guaranteed in the Constitution as well as the new equality they achieved as a result of Reconstruction. During Reconstruction, African-Americans were enfranchised to vote and even elected to office. Some African-Americans even held land. The statement that Jim Crow laws increased African-Americans' access to goods and services is inaccurate, because Jim Crow laws were meant to withhold African-Americans of their rights as much as possible, African-Americans were still at the bottom of the economic ladder, and they lowered African-Americans' prominence in American society after the end of Reconstruction.

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.

Jim Crow Laws legalize racial segregation throughout the South. In Louisiana, the Separate Car Act forced black and white people to sit in separate railroad cars.

After the Civil War, the southern United States was in pieces. The land had been demolished, the economy was in the gutter, and plantation owners no longer had a source of cheap labor. In order to keep the newly freed African-Americans socially below white people, Jim Crow Laws were made. Jim Crow Laws were laws that segregated people of color and whites. These laws prevented African-Americans from using the same facilities as whites, completing daily tasks, and limited the exchange between African-Americans and whites. Jim Crow laws were in place for about 100 years. From the end of the Civil War, to the end of the Civil Rights Movement these laws had an effect on the

In the former Confederacy and neighboring states, local governments constructed a legal system aimed at re-establishing a society based on white supremacy. African American men were largely barred from voting. Legislation known as Jim Crow laws separated people of color from whites in schools, housing, jobs, and public gathering

Racial segregation is the separation of people of different races due to a law. Examples included separate eating areas at a restaurant, separate fountains, separate washrooms, separate schools, separate sitting areas in a bus, and separate rules for renting or purchasing a home. In America, segregation began in 1896 due to the Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, which authorized in legal separation between the two races black and white as long as it was equal. This law came to be known as “separated but equal”. However, the law during 1954 was overruled because of the decision in the case Brown v. Board of Education, which helped establish the importance that

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