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Rise and fall of jim crow laws
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The Jim Crow Laws were a series of laws from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s. Jim Crow was a racial stereotype of an African-American slave (Seraile). These laws made segregation legal in the south, which excluded or divided colored people from white people (Yenerall). It took place in the form of having separate facilities, including restrooms, dining rooms, bus seating areas, water fountains, and much more. The Supreme Court started the Jim Crow Laws, which only helped return the south to a pre-civil war state, because whites strongly disliked African Americans and thought of them as a lower class. Although the Jim Crow Laws were started by the Supreme Court, the true cause of segregation in the south was slavery. Slavery forced people …show more content…
Slaves were used as laborers that were not paid and also treated poorly, often with no rights. This was a major factor in the Civil War, which involved African Americans demanding and wanting freedom from their forced labor. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln found out that the only way to win was to give them what they wanted, which was to promise them freedom. He did promise that, and he came through, giving slaves equality and freedom (Smith). This outcome of the Civil War may have been a good thing for the United States, but it wasn’t long after that until the Jim Crow Laws came along. In the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), Homer Plessy was a man who was ⅞ white, and ⅛ black. Plessy was arrested for taking a seat in a train car that was whites-only, even though the majority of him was white. He was arrested for violating the Jim Crow Laws in Louisiana. and the ruling was that he was a part of the colored race. The ruling was in favor of the judge of the case, John H. Ferguson. Even after arguments about his case, the final ruling remained the same (U.S. Supreme Court). In this case, even though Plessy was only ⅛ black, his …show more content…
Board of Education (1954), which focused on desegregating schools. This court case involved Oliver Brown, who was an African-American who wanted his daughter to attend an elementary school near his home, but the board of education of Topeka wouldn’t let him, as segregation required all colored people to attend a school that was further away. This made many concerned, as they then believed that their children would not get the same equality in terms of education and school facilities that the whites got (U.S. Supreme Court). This was also the argument made by the NAACP, or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. This was a group that supported rights for colored people, meaning that they aimed for equality for both races (Altman.) A study that was conducted then came to the conclusion that black children were given a sense of inferiority to whites, which is the same mindset that whites were given about blacks, which was that they were indeed inferior to them. This case, however, had a positive outcome, as the Supreme Court outlawed segregated public schools, one being Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, where the governor wouldn’t let colored people in the school. Many people also didn’t want the integration of blacks into previously all-white schools, so they also prevented colored people from getting in. Although the Supreme Court thought differently here and sided with the
Board of Education was a United States Supreme Court case in 1954 that the court declared state laws to establish separate public schools for black segregated public schools to be unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was filed against the Topeka, Kansas school board by plaintiff Oliver Brown, parent of one of the children that access was denied to Topeka’s none colored schools. Brown claimed that Topeka 's racial segregation violated the Constitution 's Equal Protection Clause because, the city 's black and white schools were not equal to each other. However, the court dismissed and claimed and clarified that segregated public schools were "substantially" equal enough to be constitutional under the Plessy doctrine. After hearing what the court had said to Brown he decided to appeal the Supreme Court. When Chief Justice Earl Warren stepped in the court spoke in an unanimous decision written by Warren himself stating that, racial segregation of children in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Also congress noticed that the Amendment did not prohibit integration and that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal education to both black and white students. Since the supreme court noticed this issue they had to focus on racial equality and galvanized and developed civil
The term Jim Crow was a “colloquialism whites and blacks routinely used for the complex system of laws and customs separating races in the south” (Edmonds, Jim Crow: Shorthand for Separation). In other words, it was a set of laws and customs that people used that separated white people from the colored. The Jim Crow laws and practices deprived American citizens of the rights to vote, buses, and “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” First, though, a little background on Jim Crow is in order.
In 1863 to 1877 Reconstruction brought an end to slavery, it paved the way for the former slaves to become citizens. The African Americans wanted complete freedom. However, that right became a setback and were seen as second class citizens. Before the end of the Reconstruction, a legislation was passed called the Jim Crow law. The law enforced the segregation of people of African descent. The legislation was a system to ensure the exclusion of racial groups in the Southern States. For example, separate transportation law, school division, different waiting rooms both at the bus terminals and hospitals, separate accommodations, marriage law and voting rights. The Jim Crow law was supposed to help in racial segregation in the South. Instead,
The Jim Crow system was a post-Reconstruction series of legislation that established legally authorized racial segregation of the African American population of the South soon after the Civil War. The Jim Crow system ended in the 1950s with the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. As Hewitt and Lawson note, “these new statutes denied African Americans equal access to public facilities and ensured that blacks lived apart from whites.”
“Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws. It was a way of life.” (“What was Jim Crow?”). The laws created a divided America and made the United States a cruel place for over 70 years. The Jim Crow Laws caused segregation in the education system, social segregation, and limited job opportunities for African Americans.
Jim crow law was the name of a racial system, that deprived African American citizens of their civil rights throughout the 1870s till the mid 1960s. Under the Jim crow laws, African Americans are considered second class citizens. The first Jim crow law passed in Tennessee, which segregated train cars. After that, many other states followed the same. Some laws were violated.
The laws known as “Jim Crow” were laws presented to basically establish racial apartheid in the United States. These laws were more than in effect for “for three centuries of a century beginning in the 1800s” according to a Jim Crow Law article on PBS. Many try to say these laws didn’t have that big of an effect on African American lives but in affected almost everything in their daily life from segregation of things: such as schools, parks, restrooms, libraries, bus seatings, and also restaurants. The government got away with this because of the legal theory “separate but equal” but none of the blacks establishments were to the same standards of the whites. Signs that read “Whites Only” and “Colored” were seen at places all arounds cities.
The early 1900’s in the United States was a time that will never be forgotten, these years brought much change to our society both good and bad. Depending on what race you were, you were either happy or miserable. Although the African Americans of this time had gained their freedom thanks to the 13th amendment, they were still treated as second-class citizens. They were treated as if they were not even human beings and separated from the whites thanks to the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow Laws were statutes established in the South to segregate the blacks and whites. Everything from schools, trains and restaurants were segregated. Many people know about the Jim Crow laws but wonder how and where they began. In 1862, Homer Plessy: an octaroon,
Jim Crow laws affected the United States by creating a society where white individuals and than those of color were kept separate. As America hit a turning point in history and the Civil War was fought, slavery was abolished and white supremacists created Jim Crow laws in an attempt to keep African Americans as close as possible to their previous status as slaves. These laws aimed to control every aspect of life and to create a separated society dominated by whites. America was “Jim Crowed” for almost a full century and the laws weren’t successfully opposed until 1954 during the Brown v. Board of Education case, and even then, it took several years for society to accept integration.
In chapter one of Alexander, she lays out the foundation of the original Jim Crow. With slavery abolished within the south, whites were beginning to feel that their economic success was going to begin to deteriorate. Without the ability to exploit blacks and keep them as slaves, it was difficult to find individuals to be able to work these horrific jobs. It also damaged the economic status of rich whites because they now were required to pay individuals for the labor that they did. This brings up the question of why individuals could be exploited in the first place? Before the Reconstruction Era, rich whites were able to violate the rights of blacks by no classifying them as humans. With this classification, blacks were not protected by the Constitution because they were not considered “men” and the constitution clearly states, “all men are ...
The Jim Crow Laws are a set of laws and customs that separated the white and black people. These laws affected the lives of many. Jim Crow laws were injustice because they deprive american citizens of their civil right in education and in their health.
Racism is nothing new and has held people back from doing what they want to do in life for years just due to the fact that they are a different skin color or have different cultural beliefs. Shunning people and putting them down just do the fact that they either look different or have different beliefs is one of the most destructive things possible as a human race. The majority of the white people living in the 1940s and 1950s would follow the means of what society was during that time and had little intentions of changing it. This is due to the fact of how long racism has been around and how it was implemented into the american society. There was even some laws that would make racism acceptable such as the jim crow laws. Jim Crow laws were
Jim crow laws were laws that enforced racial segregation mainly in the south, but also in the north. They started at the end of the reconstruction era, around the 1950’s. Jim Crow laws were abolished when The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed by president Lyndon B. Johnson. The laws affected both white and black people as it didn’t let them sit together. The laws required the whites and blacks to be separated everywhere- in schools, libraries, restrooms, parks, buses, trains, and restaurants. Jim Crow laws sometimes also denied African Americans the right to vote. The laws basically affected every aspect of African American lives. The laws were put in place to make sure the whites would be separated from the blacks.
There are many laws in the United States in which people might be in support of or may feel the need to oppose to because it may interfere with their personal space and rights, and may make one feel uncomfortable or unsafe. People have been feeling this since laws were first created in the United States, and it has caused them rebel to try and alter them for the good of the people’s freedom. There were many outrageous laws in history in which many people opposed to greatly. One of these laws which I believe was one of the worst and most outrageous laws created in U.S. history were the Jim Crow Laws. Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. These laws enforced the segregation of public schools, public places, public
The United States was divided in two as a war, known as the civil war, erupted between the North and the South (the Union vs the Confederates). A major issue that instigated the war was the issue on slavery and the expansion of it to more states. An act known as the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was made to give rights to slaves that were freed during the civil war and to ultimately help abolish slavery all together after the end of the war. There were many who opposed the granting of rights to blacks and thus paving the way for the creation of what were known as Jim Crow Laws. These laws were put in place to separate blacks from whites and to strip blacks from their rights. The Jim Crow laws are examples of how the American mind set was to effectively separate the two races as an effort to suppress African Americans from gaining complete freedom and equality and, ultimately, portrayed blacks as the inferior race.