Jim Crow laws are about power. Power of one race over another. These laws really highlight the flaws and weakness of human nature. One group of people asserting power over another for the pride and vanity of a system of politics that had been defeated at the cost of thousands of American lives during the civil war.
The term "Jim Crow" has its origins of interest also. The interpretation was intended to ridicule the African American by white American's in the position of power.
The Jim Crow laws were initiated after the civil war during the deconstruction of the new south and they help to create a racial caste system in the American South.
These laws were protected by the constitution and were a form of constitutional racism. When the Supreme Court ruled on Plessy v. Ferguson the Federal Government legalized racism but under the guise of a doctrine referred to as "separate but equal".
The Jim Crow laws were in place until the Supreme Court of 1954 threw them out with it's ruling on Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka. This court had a different opinion of equality.
Soon after the Reconstruction, African Americans and whites Americans ate in the same restaurants, often rode together in the same railway cars, used the same public facilities, but did not often interact as equals. The development of large black communities in urban areas and the significant black labor force in factories presented a new challenge to white Southerners. They could not control these new communities in the same informal ways they had been able to control rural black Americans, which were more directly dependent on white landowners and merchants (sharecropping system) than their urban counterparts. In the city, blacks and whites were in more direct competition than they had been in the countryside. There was more danger of social mixing. The city, therefore, required different, and more rigidly institutionalized, systems of control, henceforth Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws were a response to the new reality that required the white supremacy to move to where it would have a more rigid legal and institutional basis to retain control over the black population.
Why title these laws Jim Crow? The definition tells why;
Jim Crow or jim crow (jîm¹ kro¹) Slang. noun
The systematic practice of discriminating against and suppressing Black people.
adjective
1. Upholding or practicing discrimination against and suppression of Black people: Jim Crow laws; a Jim Crow town.
Jim Crow laws were a formal, codified system of racial apartheid that dominated the American South for three quarters of a century beginning in the 1890s. (Jim Crow Laws, PBS). Jim Crow laws had the same ideals that slave codes had. At this time slavery had been abolished, but because of Jim Crow, the newly freed black people were still looked at as inferior. One of the similarities between slave codes and Jim Crow laws was that both sets of laws did not allow equal education opportunities. The schools were separated, of course, which cause the white schools to be richer and more advanced in education than black schools. This relates to slave codes because slaves were not allowed to read which hindered their learning of when they were able to read and write. Another similarity is alcohol. In the Jim Crow era persons who sold beer or wine were not allowed to serve both white and colored people, so they had to sell to either one or the other. This is similar to slave codes because in most states slaves were not allowed to purchase whiskey at all, unless they had permission from their owners. Slaves did not eat with their white owners. In the Jim Crow era whites and blacks could not eat together at all, and if there was some odd circumstance that whites and blacks did eat together then the white person was served first and there was usually something in between them. This relates to slave codes because
The social conditions throughout the era were extremely poor. Legal discrimination was around and African Americans were denied democratic rights and freedoms. The southern states would pass strict laws to normalize interactions between white people and African Americans. For example, Jim Crow signs were placed above regularly visited places by everyone, such as water fountains, public facilities, door entrances and exits, etc. Even the most basic rights such as drinking from a water fountain was taken away from African Americans. They would also have separate buildings for African
First, though, a little background on Jim Crow is in order. The term Jim Crow dates back to the eighteenth century, although there is no evidence it is referencing an actual person. Instead, it was a “mildly derogatory slang for black Everyman (Crow, as in black like a crow)” (Edmonds, Jim Crow: Shorthand for Separation). A segregated rail car, or anything separated from the Caucasian race might be called ‘Jim Crow’ because of a “popular American minstrel song of the 1820s made sport of a stereotypic Jim Crows” (Edmonds, Jim Crow: Shorthand for Separation). Finally, “As segregation laws were put into place-first in Tennessee, then throughout the South- after Reconstruction,
were created. A Jim Crow law was any law that enforced racial segregation in the
The Jim Crow laws were laws used to separate the blacks and whites. “Jim Crow is discrimination against a racial group other than white, and especially against the Negro in the southland by either legal enforcement or traditional sanctions” (Worsmer, Richard). Most White people believed that they were superior over all of the other races, and they thought this because they were raised to learn that. But that still gives them no excuse
From 1877 through the 1960’s was a shameful time for American history. Most southern states had passed laws known as “Jim Crow Laws”. Jim Crow was a slang term for a black man. These laws were very anti-black, meaning they were established to ensure black Americans failed before they ever got to start. These laws also set out to make African Americans feel inferior to white Americans.
Racism has jumped to the forefront of conversation politically as well as socially recently. However, many fail to see the full extent of racism and the harmful effects it has had in American history. Post civil war brought a realization to the nation, that although now free, blacks, Indians and mixed descendants or mulatto’s were considered a lower class and Jim Crow Laws help cement them in this class of society. These laws, many referenced post Civil War, have origins dating pre Civil War as well. In 1835, “North Carolina passed a new constitution, which declared that ‘free Negroes, free mulattos, and free persons of mixed blood’ could not vote.” This de facto movement not only affected the lives of African Americans but also immigrants, Catholics, Jews and other groups of people.
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, a series of laws put into place after slavery by rich white Americans used in order to continue 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 help 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 which helps to justify the implementation of this unjust treatment of blacks.
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.
During the Reconstruction era, politicians from northern states were moving south to take advantage of political opportunity in the south (McPhee) and court the freedman’s vote. This practice gave blacks increased influence over the political and financial landscape of southern districts, In essence disenfranchising the white southern elite. Disturbed by their dwindling authority, white southern business owners, landlords, teachers, religious leaders and lawmakers initiated and enforced Jim Crow legislation and etiquette (Shmoop). In an effort to circumvent the newly won freedom gained by slaves (Country Studies), Jim Crow were laws that created a legal, race-based caste system that operated primarily in the southern and border state...
“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 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.
“The ‘Jim Crow’ laws got their name from one of the stock characters in the minstrel shows that were a mainstay of popular entertainment throughout the nineteenth century. Such shows popularized and reinforced the pervasive stereotypes of blacks as lazy, stupid, somehow less human, and inferior to whites” (Annenberg, 2014). These laws exalted the superiority of the whites over the blacks. Although equally created, and affirmed by the Supreme Court, and because of the Civil War officially free, African Americans were still treated with less respect than many household pets. The notorious Jim Crow laws mandated segregation and provided for severe legal retribution for consortium between races (National, 2014). Richard Wright writes about this, his life.
Money has evolved with the times and is a reflection of the progress of man. Early money was itself a physical commodity, grain, gold or silver. During the vital stage, more symbolic forms of money such as certificates of deposit, bank notes, checks, letters of credit, bonds and other forms of negotiable securities came into prominence. Social development transformed money in to a trust, “In God We Trust' it says on the back of the ten-dollar bill.” (The Ascent of Money, 27) Today money is faith in the person paying us and belief in the person issuing the money he uses or the institution that honors his money. This trust has no end it can be extended to a greater number of individuals.