Jim Crow Laws and To Kill a Mockingbird
Jim Crow Laws ”Mr. Finch, I tried. I tried to 'thout bein ' ugly to her. I didn 't wanta push her or nothin ' . . . if you was a nigger like me, you 'd be scared, too" (Lee 261). Tom Robinson is frightened by the possibility of death for interacting with a white woman, which was illegal in the 1930s. Jim Crow Laws were unjust for African Americans because segregation limited their opportunities, it restricted their rights, and it allowed whites to persecute African Americans. The Jim Crow Laws segregated African Americans, limiting their opportunity. In the Plessy v. Ferguson case, where Homer A. Plessy was arrested for being one-eighth African American and riding a railroad in a white - only car (Constitutional Rights Foundation). This proved the harsh discrimination against black people and concluded the "Separate, but equal" doctrine as almost absolute. Another example is the Brown v. Board of Education case. Oliver Brown wanted her daughter, Linda Brown, to attend a white school because it was not reasonable to have her daughter walk far for school when there is a white school nearby (Constitutional Rights Foundation).The segregation kept African Americans from being in the same school as the whites, and just to separate them, blacks had to walk further just to go to school. The segregations in public schools, "even schools of equal quality, hurt minority children", and violate the 14th Amendment (Constitutional Rights Foundation). This practice was then stopped by a unanimous vote of the Supreme Court. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Calpurnia explains to Scout why she talks differently to her "folks", saying that ”it aggravated 'em" (Lee 167). This relates to the law where colored people would "never lay claim to superior knowledge" (Pilgrim). Her statement implies that talking differently to a person, especially a white person, may provoke them and have them accuse the colored person for seeming superior. In addition, the laws reduced the rights of
Cited: "A Brief History of Jim Crow." Constitutional Rights Foundation. 27 Oct. 2013 Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 1960. Pilgrim, David. "Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia." Ferris State University. 2012. 27 Oct. 2013 "Separate but Equal." Logan: Perfect Learning Corporation 1994 U. S. Const. art. XV sec. 2