Essay The Strange Career of Jim Crow

The Reconstruction Era lasted up to 1877 from the time just after the Civil War. The Reconstruction failed to bring about social and economic equality to the former slaves due to the southern whites’ resentful and bitter outlook on the matter, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Jim Crow laws.

In today’s modern world, many people would be surprised to find out that there is still a racial caste system in America. After witnessing the election of a black president, people have started believing that America has entered a post-racial society. This is both a patently false and dangerous mindset. The segregation and stigma of race is still very much alive in our society. Instead of a formalized institution such as slavery or Jim Crow, America has found a new way to continue the marginalization of blacks by using the criminal justice system. In Michelle Alexander’s book “ The New Jim Crow”, she shows how America’s “ War on Drugs “ has become a tool of racial segregation and how the discretionary enforcement of drug laws has

C. Vann Woodward wrote The Strange Career of Jim Crow for a purpose. His purpose was to enlighten people about the history of the Jim Crow laws in the South. Martin Luther King Jr. called Woodward’s book, “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” (221) Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote revealed the true importance of Woodward’s book. Woodard’s book significance was based on it revealing the strange, forgotten facets of the Jim Crow laws. Assumptions about the Jim Crow’s career have existed since its creation. Woodward tried to eliminate the false theories as he attempted to uncover the truths. Woodward argued the strangest aspects of Jim Crow’s career were, it was a recent innovation and not created in the South

For many in the South during the 50’s and 60’s Americans equaled whites. Whites were the superior race and should be kept separate from those deemed inferior. This separation was perpetuated by the enforcement of Jim Crow Laws. The reactions to this segregation differed from race to race and from region to region.

“Jim Crow” was a character portrayed in Minstrelsy shows to be goofy, drunk, lazy, and uneducated. This character set a very harsh stereo type for African Americans. Jim Crow became a common racial slur. According to Dr. David Pilgrim of Ferris State University by 1838, the term "Jim Crow" was being used as a slur for African Americans which was not as offensive as nigger, but more similar to coon or darkie (Pilgrim, David, Dr. " Who Was Jim Crow."). According to PBS Jim Crow was “named after a popular 19th-century minstrel song that stereotyped African Americans, "Jim Crow" came to personify the system of government-sanctioned racial oppression and segregation in the United States” ("The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow." PBS.). The “Jim Crow” character created by Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice along with the song and dance created an image or stereotype of the African American man that helped reinforce the belief that African Americans were lazy, stupid, and overall less human. Therefore, they were unworthy of integration (Pilgrim, David, Dr. “Who Was Jim Crow."). This idea set the stage for the “Jim Crow” laws.

One idea that C Vann Woodward states to the reader is that there were two period that crucially contributed to the struggle between black and white.One of them was the reconstruction era where it eradicated the status of "slave" or being a slave.This is a time where many people believe that the south became a racial and unfair world for blacks, while the north was always happy and equal.this is actually false and in fact was somewhat the oppisite.Woodward shows this by taking a journals of Alexis de Toqueville who went and visited the north, Who then at the time was astonished "by the depth of racial bias he encountered in the north"1. As well as "The Prejudice of race..appears to be stronger..abolishhed slavery than those..never been known"2. Meanwhile in the south with slavery

In the late 1870’s the Jim Crow law was established, this law stated that African Americans and Whites were “separate but equal.” With this being put in place African Americans and Whites did not go to the same schools or eat at the same restaurants and everything was separated. The South wanted to keep control over the blacks. Although this law only lasted until the early 1960’s it caused a lot of fights and protests from African Americans.

After the Reconstruction Era ended, federal troops were removed from the South, and when they were gone white southerners began to start segregation among the African Americans.

Jim Crow Laws were state and local laws which enforced de jure racial segregation in the South of the United States. They represented the legitimization of anti-black racism. And it was not only a series of anti-black laws, but also a way of blacks’ miserable life. They mandated racial segregation in all public facilities of former Confederate State of America with a “separate but equal” status for African Americans. For this research paper, I want to focus on the origins and the content of Jim Crow Laws and how did this law influence blacks’ lives and be removed from the South of the United States.

Although, the slavery of African Americans is over, the discrimination was far from over. “Jim Crow Laws were statutes and ordinances established between 1874 and 1975 to separate the white and black races in the American South.”, Jim Crow laws were mainly created to satisfy the “separate but equal” law between the whites and blacks in the Southern states (us history). The laws created rules where blacks could only use certain water fountains, bathrooms, dining counters, bus seats, and more. If a black were to use anything labelled “whites only”, they were punished. One famous example, is Rosa Parks. Rosa sat in a “whites only” bus seat and refused to move, so as a result she went to jail. However, Rosa did start a bus boycott where blacks

Comer Vann Woodward studied wrote about the American South and race relations. He was born in 1908 in eastern, rural Arkansas. When he first enrolled into higher education he went to Henderson-Brown College. However, he transferred to Emory University and graduated. After Woodward graduated, he was an English professor at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Teach). In 1931, he continued his education with graduate school at Columbiana University. There he received a Master of Arts. In 1947, he received his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in history from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Then he taught at Johns Hopkins University. He made the achievement of becoming Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 1961 to 1977.

The Strange Career of Jim Crow is a non-fiction book written in 1955 by a scholar named C. Vann Woodward. Vann Woodward was born in 1908 and died at the age of ninety-one, and his philosophies are known to be the most influential in American history in the post-World War II era. He is remembered for leading the way to demolish the deeply rooted mythology instilled in white Americans views of race relations from the end of reconstruction. In this paper, we will be reviewing his book titled The Strange Career of Jim Crow by pointing out some of the key aspects of the book as well as pointing out the critic.

Comer Vann Woodward was an American historian who concentration emphasized on the American south and race relations in the united states. He was born in 1908 in eastern, rural Arkansas. He attended Henderson-Brown College, in Arkadelphia, Arkansas for two years. He then transferred to Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia in which his uncle was dean of students and a sociology professor. After Woodward graduated from Emory university, he became an English professor at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia teach) and taught English composition for two years. In 1931, Woodward enrolled into graduate school at Columbiana university. He received a Master’s of Arts in 1932. In 1947, he received his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in history from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was a professor at Johns Hopkins University from 1946 to 1961. He then became Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 1961 to 1977, in which he taught graduate students and undergraduates.

The Southern states deemed slavery was crucial to safeguard white superiority. Most Southern whites who had aspirations of becoming a very prominent slave-owner, were terrified of a society with considerable numbers of African-Americans who were not slaves. Segregation moved by way of public accommodations, all the way through the South.

In the South, most whites had a very hard time adjusting to blacks being freed so they came up with the Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow laws kept the white and blacks segregated, keeping whites superior to others and blacks rights very limited. “The Court