The History Of Jim Crow Laws

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.

Jim Crow Laws were mainly found in the southern states of the the US, but could also sometimes be found in northern states. These laws were created around the time the 14th amendment was created in which all races had the right to vote. Jim Crow Laws were meant to limit the freedom of Africans-American. These laws included,”A black male could not offer his hand to a white man” and that blacks and whites were not suppose to eat together. An African-American couldn’t even look in the direction of a white person without being punished.

Starting in the 1890s, segregation laws known as the Jim Crow Laws dominated the United States, specifically in the South. These laws required schools, parks, libraries, forms of public transportation and even drinking fountains to be segregated into “Whites Only” and “Coloreds”. Although the Jim Crow Laws intended to treat blacks “separate but equal”, blacks received poorer conditions in their public facilities, were denied the right to vote and were treated with no respect from the whites (Jim Crow Laws). In Richard Wright’s essay, “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch”, Wright describes his first-hand experience with these laws and the negative encounters he has faced just because of the color of his skin.

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.

The Jim Crow laws were laws that kept people of color still under whites as well as separate them. Such has a white’s only restaurant, different baseball leagues based on colored, colored couldn’t show displays of affection, whites and color couldn’t dine together, and other laws that ridiculously limited colored folks. These laws were also dangerous or at least the punishments were brutal. Anyone who broke or defy these laws would be arrested or lynched.

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

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial separation in the Southern United States. Passed after the Reconstruction period, all individuals were considered separate but equal. This U.S. Supreme Court

1. Jim crow laws were started and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the southern united states. Enacted after the reconstruction period, these laws contained in forces until 1966

Jim Crow laws were the act that legalized segregation between blacks and whites back in the late 1800’s. These laws were mainly enforced in the southern states. They were created to separate blacks and whites from having even the slightest bit of contact. Some JIm Crow laws were no interracial marriage, blacks and whites had to go to separate schools, and use different tools, and also go to different hospitals. Everything that went one between the blacks and the whites had to be different. This essay will go over what some of the specific Jim Crow laws were, and how it affected the people in the united states.

My fourth resource is an article listing many of the infamous Jim Crow laws that suppressed many African Americans in the southern united states, until they were abolished in 1965. The purpose of this article is to show just how absurd and disgraceful these laws actually were. This fits well in my essay, because it shows multiple examples of how Jim Crow laws were racist, and can be used as a good basis for the case of referencing past racist events that have a conclusion. Jim Crow laws are good for referencing when making sure new racist laws are not allowed to be passed into law, but shouldn’t be used as a reason to say racism exists in today’s world.

Jim Crow is a term that came to be a derogatory epithet for African Americans. It is unknown who Jim Crow was or where the name came from but in the 1930s an actor named Thomas Dartmouth Rice would do a minstrel routine called “Jumping Jim Crow”. He wore blackface and mocked a crippled Black man that reinforced the idea that Blacks were inferior to whites. People liked this term and eventually used it as a designation for the laws that segregated Blacks (Wilkerson 41). Jim Crow became to be a racial case system exclusively in the South that enforced laws of racial segregation. These laws went against the U.S. Constitution that granted Blacks citizenships and equal rights. Jim Crow laws were horrifying because it gave whites the right to lynch Blacks at any given moment for any reason (Wilkerson 38). These laws reinforced a racial hierarchy that strengthens white supremacy.

Jim Crow laws were a complex system of laws and customs that separated races in the South. They were very restrictive to African American people, and lenient to Caucasian people.

Each state had a set of Jim Crow Laws forbidding blacks of certain acts. These laws existed from 1877 until the mid-1960s. Jim Crow Laws were not only a set of laws, but also a way of life for blacks. Jim Crow statutes regulated social interactions between whites and blacks. Inter-racial dating, marriage, and any type of sexual act were strictly forbidden between blacks and whites. Signs were also placed above water fountains, door entrances and exits, and in front of public facilities stating whether or not Blacks were allowed. There were even separate hospitals, prisons, schools (both public and private), public restrooms, hotels, churches, and even cemeteries for blacks and whites. (Pilgrim, 2012) The military was also segregated until after World War II.

Jim Crow laws are laws that stated that Native American people were limited to certain rights. The practice of Jim Crow laws deprived American citizens of their civil rights because the laws limited their education, their careers, and their personal lives outside of work and school.

Jim Crow was a series of laws and practices that segregated African Americans and privileged the White. This had increased White supremacy by separating Whites and African Americans with unfair/unequal treatment. This included African American's lifestyle,etiquette and social areas were made to separate Whites as much as possible from African Americans, thus granting Whites with more lavished lives than those of the African Americans