Jim Crow Laws Thesis

311 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Civil rights for blacks then and now

Thesis Statement: With Jim Crow laws in effect, they have guaranteed African-Americans discrimination based on the color of their skin, ignorance of their given rights, and lack of acknowledgement for their successes. The ending of the Civil War sought as a new beginning for many African-Americans who were finally given the freedoms that many had hoped for and the equality between blacks and whites. That hope soon became false when Jim Crow laws were put into place. Through the time period of 1877 to the mid-1960s, Jim Crow laws were operated as the racial caste system primarily in southern and border states in the U.S. (Pilgrim). This system discriminated African-Americans as the status of second-class citizens that was directed under

Show More
Related

  • Jim Crow Laws Essay

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jim Crow Laws, enforced in 1877 in the south, were still being imposed during the 1930s and throughout. These laws created segregation between the two races and created a barrier for the Blacks. For example, even though African Americans were allowed to vote, southern states created a literary test exclusively for them that was quite difficult to pass, since most Blacks were uneducated. However, if they passed the reading test, they were threatened with death. Also, they had to pay a special tax to vote, which many African Americans could not afford.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Blumer's Four Key Factors To Racial Prejudice

    1656 Words  | 4 Pages

    We saw the Thirteenth Amendment occur to abolish slavery. We also saw the Civil Rights Acts which gave full citizenship, as well as the prohibiting the denial of due process, etc. Having the civil rights laws enabled African Americans to new freedoms which they did not used to have. There was positive change occurring in the lives of African Americans. However, there was still a fight to suppress African Americans and maintain the racial hierarchy by poll taxes and lengthy and expensive court proceedings. Sadly, this is when Jim Crow laws appeared. During this time African Americans were losing their stride, there was an increase in prison populations and convict labor, and the convicts were

    Read More

  • Analysis of the New Jim Crow by Professor Michelle Alexander

    761 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ty and their survival as a group in society because of restraint from the federal government in the ability to litigate their plight in Court. The Author transitions the past and present signatures of Jim Crow and the New Jim Crow with the suggestion that the New Jim Crow, by mass incarceration and racism as a whole, is marginalizes and relegates Blacks to residential, educational and constitutionally endowed service to Country.

    Read More

  • How Is Jim Crowe Laws Related To Racial Equality

    817 Words  | 2 Pages

    For 75 years following reconstruction the United States made little advancement towards racial equality. Many parts of the nation enacted Jim Crowe laws making separation of the races not just a matter of practice but a matter of law. The laws were implemented with the explicit purpose of keeping black American’s from being able to enjoy the rights and freedoms their white counterparts took for granted. Despite the efforts of so many nameless forgotten heroes, the fate of African Americans seemed to be in the hands of a racist society bent on keeping them down; however that all began to change following World War II. Thousands of African American men returned from Europe with a renewed purpose and determined to break the proverbial chains segregation had keep them in since the end of the American Civil War. With a piece of Civil Rights legislation in 1957, the federal government took its first step towards breaking the bonds that had held too many citizens down for far too long. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was a watered down version of the law initially proposed but what has been perceived as a small step towards correcting the mistakes of the past was actually a giant leap forward for a nation still stuck in the muck of racial division. What some historians have dismissed as an insignificant and weak act was perhaps the most important law passed during the nation’s civil rights movement, because it was the first and that cannot be underestimated.

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of Reconstruction

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although many laws were passed that recognized African Americans as equals, the liberties they had been promised were not being upheld. Hoffman, Blum, and Gjerde state that “Union League members in a North Carolina county, upon learning of three or four black men who ‘didn’t mean to vote,’ threatened to ‘whip them’ and ‘made them go.’ In another country, ‘some few colored men who declined voting’ were, in the words of a white conservative, ‘bitterly persecute[ed]” (22). Black codes were also made to control African Americans. Norton et al. states that “the new black codes compelled former slaves to carry passes, observe a curfew, live in housing provided by a landowner, and give up hope of entering many desirable occupations” (476). The discrimination and violence towards African Americans during this era and the laws passed that were not being enforced were very disgraceful. However, Reconstruction was a huge stepping stone for the way our nation is shaped today. It wasn’t pretty but it was the step our nation needed to take. We now live in a country where no matter the race, everyone is considered equal. Reconstruction was a success. Without it, who knows where our nation would be today. African American may have never gained the freedoms they have today without the

    Read More

  • Jim Crow Era: A Nightmare of Racial Discrimination

    2275 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Jim Crow era was a racial status system used primarily in the south between the years of 1877 and the mid 1960’s. Jim Crow was a series of anti-black rules and conditions that were never right. The social conditions and legal discrimination of the Jim Crow era denied African Americans democratic rights and freedoms frequently. There were numerous ways in which African Americans were denied social and political equality under Jim Crow. Along with that, lynching occurred quite frequently, thousands being done over the era.

    Read More

  • Adaptation Of Racism In Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow

    1151 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the first section of the first chapter of “The New Jim Crow”, Michelle Alexander talks about how “...racism is highly adaptable...” (Alexander 21) and how forms of it has been constantly repeating throughout history. She then goes on to say, “...similar political dynamics have produced another caste system in the years following the collapse of the Jim Crow-one that exists today.” (Alexander 21). The Emancipation Proclamation didn’t really accomplish much, so in an effort to make a change, the Civil War took place. After the Civil War, the Jim Crow laws emerged to restrict people of color. Accordingly, the valiant efforts to abolish slavery and get rid of the Jim Crow laws changed American society. After the collapse

    Read More

  • Jim Crow: Shorthand For Separation

    539 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness By Michelle Alexander

    2147 Words  | 5 Pages

    Today, more African American adults are under correctional control than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began (Alexander 180). Throughout history, there have been multiple racial caste systems in the United States. In her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander defines a “racial caste” as “a racial group locked into an inferior position by law and custom” (12). Alexander argues that both Jim Crow and slavery functioned as racial caste systems, and that our current system of mass incarceration functions as a similar caste system, which she labels “The New Jim Crow”. There is now a silent Jim Crow in our nation. Mass incarceration today serves the same function as did slavery before the Civil War and Jim Crow laws after the Civil War - to uphold a racial caste system.

    Read More

  • Jim Crow Law Dbq

    396 Words  | 1 Pages

    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,

    Read More

  • Reconstruction Dbq

    1245 Words  | 3 Pages

    The constant efforts and struggles of African Americans against Jim Crow laws, hate groups, social injustice, and racial bias prevailed and led to the Civil Rights Movement that has shaped our contemporary world. The struggle of African Americans to gain equal rights in a society dominated by conservative, white culture and prejudice along with the endeavor of acquiring the constitutional right to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, can safely place Jim Crow laws in archive of American

    Read More

  • Why Is Reconstruction A Turning Point For Reconstruction

    714 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the reconstruction period, African Americans benefited from the civil rights act of March 1866 and the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment. However, for African Americans in the former confederacy, opportunities were limited as in1865 and 1866 the former confederacy states passed black codes’ a replacement of the former slave codes, which once again forcibly cemented the second-class status of African Americans. The most oppressive of the codes was against vagrancy, ...

    Read More

  • Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow Laws

    1219 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jim Crow laws were laws created to strengthen racism and segregation. It was a white person’s desperate attempt to maintain a sort of superiority over black people. Nowadays it might seem impossible for laws promoting racism and segregation to exist, but they do. Concealed by inconspicuous phrasing there are still laws to this day that allow blacks and other minorities to be taken advantage of solely based on their race. The book written by Michelle Alexander titled The New Jim Crow outlines the major problems associated with the American judicial system, mainly the War on Drugs. Alexander brings to light many issues that primarily affect blacks and other minorities from this she derives that America has a new set of Jim Crow Laws. Given the

    Read More

  • Jim Crow Laws

    847 Words  | 2 Pages

    “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.

    Read More

  • Jim Crow Essay

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jim Crow, a series of laws put into place after slavery by rich white Americans used in order to subordinate African-Americans, has existed for many years and continues to exist today in a different form, mass incarceration. Jim Crow laws when initially implemented were a series of anti-black laws that helped segregate blacks from whites and kept blacks in a lower social, political, and economic status. In modern day, the term Jim Crow is used as a way to explain the mass incarcerations of blacks since Jim Crow laws were retracted. Through mass incarceration, blacks are continuously disenfranchised and subordinated by factors such as not being able to obtain housing, stoppage of income, and many other factors. Both generations of Jim Crow have been implemented through legal laws or ways that the government helps to justify the implementation of this unjust treatment of blacks.

    Read More

More about Jim Crow Laws Thesis

Open Document