Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow Laws:

Jim Crow laws were a set of state and local laws that promoted and enforced racial segregation and created obstacles to keep African Americans from voting, in the American South starting in the 1890’s. Although the Civil War had ended on April 9, 1865- and the subsequent implementation of the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, thereby freeing African American slaves- many whites still believed that nonwhites were inferior, and supported the oppression of, and segregation between, African Americans and whites. The Supreme Court supported this belief in 1896, legitimizing and upholding the “separate but equal” status of African Americans in its ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson—a case involving an African American man who attempted to sit in a all white railway car in New Orleans. This ruling led to an abundance of Jim Crow Laws mandating segregation of public schools, parks, libraries, drinking fountains, restrooms, buses, trains and restaurants.

By 1914, every Southern state had passed laws creating two separate societies—one for African Americans and one for whites. Although the law stated that African Americans would receive “separate by equal” treatment, in reality the public facilities for African Americans were supremely inferior, if they existed at all. Furthermore, African Americans were continuously denied their right to vote through the use of grandfather clauses, poll taxes, and literacy tests.

After decades of legal action, the first major legal triumph against the Jim Crow system occurred in 1954 with the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. This ruling overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), and declared segregation in the public schools unconstitutional. This call for desegregation was met with extreme hostility from many white southerners, often resulting in violent interactions. Nontheless, civil rights leaders, activists and politicians persisted in pursuit of equal rights. In the years proceeding, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 further prohibited any state's ability to discriminate any individual on the basis of race, and continued the move towards equality for African Americans in the United States.

Resources:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2967.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/issues/jim-crow-laws

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1559.html

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/jim-crow-laws

http://history1800s.about.com/od/thejimcrowsouth/

http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/glossary/jim-crow-laws.cfm

http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement

Images:

http://www.academia.edu/1816790/Jim_Crow_An_American_Way_of_Life

http://www.altoarizona.com/history-of-racist-us-laws.html

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/owi2001035822/PP/