Jim Crow Laws: Enhancing Racial Segregation

The Jim Crow laws were implemented in the south with the intent of enhancing racial segregation. The idea behind the Jim Crow laws was "separate but equal" in other words separating blacks and whites was necessary. It was a way to continue segregation and discrimination against African Americans typically in the south. The affects of these laws played a crucial role in the development of two different societies in the US. As a result African Americans were deprived from the same conditions as well as other governmental services that whites received. It was evident that race was a determining factor in many aspects of life such as, education and healthcare, etc. Remembering Jim Crow is a memoir of personal accounts from African- Americans living

Be that as it may, this was a misrepresentation. The black facilities and different institutions were frequently in poorer neighborhoods and horrible conditions than white facilities. The most intimidating part of the Jim Crow laws is that most white people used it as an avenue to demoralize African Americans as it was evident from the signs reading “Whites Only” at public places. Charles Gratton (of Birmingham, Alabama) in his testimony recalls when he was sick as a child he could hear the children playing at recess and he begins to think why is that I have to travel so far to get to school and here it is a school within walking distance but it’s an all white school. (Chafe, 9) After further reading the text I gathered that if he was not that far from an all white school this could indicate that he lived in a nice neighborhood. He also talks about how he was programmed, and growing up inferior was normal that challenging white authority was wrong. (Chafe, 9) In Maggie Dulin’s (of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky) testimony she talks about her experience at a furniture store, where a salesman couldn’t believe that she was able to pay eight hundred dollars gave her a hard time. It was very rare that a black person had a

Most blacks resorted to migrating north where there were better jobs and equal opportunity. W.E.B Dubois described blacks as living “behind the veil” during the Jim Crow era, which describes a system so to speak, developed by African Americans to bear the hardships of prejudice and segregation which they remained invisible- and unthreatening to whites. For example, in the chapter titled, Families and Communities Maggie talks about the time when the community came together to keep a World War veteran safe from the lynch mob because he brushed against a white woman. It brought everyone together as a tight-knit community being there for each other in time of need. The congregation is where many social and political gatherings began like the NAACP, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, and so on. Such exclusions from white society constrained blacks to construct their own social foundations that were to a great degree basic to enhancing black financial conditions and uplifting the race. A great many southern blacks survived Jim Crow by swinging to their group based houses of worship for profound help and social asylum. Black women discovered that their work within the expressly satisfying and an augmentation of their private lives into the general population circle of their black groups. The black churches permitted even the most impoverished black members to fellowship, while offering social