Why Did African Americans Lose Their Freedom

“Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.”(Lyndon Johnson). For generations in the United Stated, ethnic minorities have been discriminated against and denied fair opportunity and equal rights. In the beginning there was slavery, and thereafter came an era of racism which directly impacted millions of minorities lives. This period called Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system up in till mid 1960s. Jim Crow was more than just a series of severe anti-Black laws, it became a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were positioned to the status of second class citizens. What Jim Crow

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.

African Americans were deprived of many rights that they should have possessed as citizens, such as voting and having an equal education. The Jim Crow Laws made the African Americans an inferior race in society because these

The Jim Crow laws were everything but fair, and equal. Jim Crow is the name they used in the laws on separating the African Americans from the Caucasian men and women. These laws deprived African Americans from their civil rights because of the many things they were not allowed to experience due to these laws. Jim Crow laws oppressed the educational rights, voting rights, and social freedoms of American citizens, this essay will be discussing the oppression of these rights and freedoms.

From the 1930s to the 1950s, African Americans were being severely persecuted and ostracized. The Jim Crow Laws allowed for legal segregation and continued control over blacks in the South. Those laws severely restricted the rights of the African American in the southern half of the United States and essentially continued to restrain them even though the United States Constitution forbid it. The North did not have such laws, but blacks still suffered. When African Americans migrated to the North, they were disillusioned by the fact that they were still not equal. The African Americans were instead delivered a subtler form of the discriminatory actions within the South. African Americans struggled for equality everywhere because of white

During the Reconstruction era, former slaves received much violence from whites. About 5,000 blacks were murdered by whites from 1865-1866. White mobs killed 34 blacks in New Orleans and 46 blacks in Memphis during race riots in 1866. Blacks were also subjected to the violence of the Ku Klux Klan, a secret white organization. That was founded in 1865 or 1866 in Tennessee. The members of the Ku Klux Klan wore white hoods and robes and put white sheets over their horses. Blacks and white sympathizers were beaten and murdered by the Klan. The Klan did whatever it could to prevent blacks from exercising their rights. By terrorizing blacks, they kept them from voting. These attacks couldn’t even be stopped by the U.S. Army troops.

Jim Crow Laws was caused due to many unhappy white southerners who weren’t happy about the ending of slavery. In addition, many white people also didn’t agree/like the fact that they would have to work with African Americans. Later on, there were “Black Codes,” which was a law in the southern states declaring that many African Americans wouldn’t have as much freedom. Also, “black codes” would make them not get paid the same amount as white southerners, and they would get paid lower wages and debts as well. For instance, the black codes also restricted civil and political rights for African Americans: a limit of freedom of employment, freedom of movement, the right to own land, and their freedom to testify in court.

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.

Before and during the Civil War it was not uncommon for masters to physically harm their slaves, often times hurting them just enough so that they didn't die. But now as slavery was abolished, harm still came to those who were free. The only difference was that it had a new name (lynching) and some of the reasoning behind it. White southern leaders felt threatened and thought that their rights were the ones being threatened. They saw the North trying to elevate the colored population in the South, holding the freedmens' rights above the white population. Those men then began retaliating against those freedmen and any of their supporters. Where slavery usually involved the harming of the slave, lynching involved both white and black people, men and women. Many massacres occurred during this time of Reconstruction, most of them could have been avoidable if the North had stricter laws and higher security in places with high

African Americans were scared for their lives, one wrong action or comment could lead to their death. This constant fear caused African Americans to partake in the great migration, migrating North in hopes to escape persecution, running for their lives. Lynching was a common occurrence and demonstrates the effect racial divisions had on Southern society. Lynching showcases the catastrophic affect division in racial group has, senseless violence and

“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”

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

The Jim Crow laws robbed and stripped African Americans of their rights not just Americans but as people. Jim Crow laws prevented white and African Americans from having the same rights and interacting with each other. With the creation of the Jim Crow laws, the disrespect and abusive behavior towards the colored people was promoted and accepted by most of the society, making it hard for the African American to have equal rights.

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.

Jim Crow laws were laws that were in place from 1866 up until the 1960’s. These laws were meant to enforce the principle, “separate but equal” which was meant to bring equality to the races while minimizing the interactions between them. These laws created separate but unequal environments for the races. They supported the idea that the white race was superior to others and they created a constant state of fear in the lives of countless African Americans. (Pilgrim, Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memrobilia 2000)