Preview

Jim Crow Laws: Segregation And Discrimination In The United States

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
764 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Jim Crow Laws: Segregation And Discrimination In The United States
Barring black Americans from a status equal to that of white Americans, Jim Crow was established as a system of segregation and discrimination in the United States of America. The United States Supreme Court had a crucial role in the establishment, maintenance, and, eventually, the end of Jim Crow. The Supreme Court's sanctioning of segregation (by upholding the "separate but equal" language in state laws) in the Plessey v. Ferguson case in 1896 and the refusal of the federal government to enact anti-lynching laws meant that black Americans were left to their own devices for surviving Jim Crow (Davis). In many instances African Americans tried to avoid the engaging of Caucasians in order to avoid possible conflict. However, in doing so African Americans were at the mercy of creating their own education systems and community support groups. This paper will address why Jim Crow laws were justified, how the segregation and discrimination of Jim Crow laws reinforced inequality and racial prejudice, and the impact of segregation on the African American community both past and present. …show more content…
White Americans believed that African Americans represented an inferior and ultimately dangerous race that needed to be contained and segregated from mixing with the white race. It is said that the founder of Jim Crow laws intent was discrimination and validated the laws using both religion and science to justify his prejudices of African
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    To What Extent Were the Jim Crow Laws Main Problems for Black Americans in the 1920s and 1930s. Essay Example
    • 2924 Words
    • 12 Pages

    To What Extent Were the Jim Crow Laws Main Problems for Black Americans in the 1920s and 1930s. Essay Example

    Historians argue why this was and why the desires of some leaders to create a homologous nation really stayed only desires. Some argue that the ethnic minorities faced discrimination in everyday life because it had legal basis in the so called “Jim Crow” laws, which promoted the “separate but equal” decision of the Supreme Court from 1896. These laws were introduced in the South to support the separation of the races and basically made the discrimination of Blacks legal. However, others argue that the reason for discrimination lay deeper in the American history and that it rooted from the established racial hierarchy. There were many half-secret organisations that fought for the white supremacy and some historians, such as David M. Chalmers argue that it was the existences of such groups that caused the discrimination against blacks. Some historians also argue that the federal apathy was another important obstacle blacks had to face. This was because of the laissez-faire policy and also because of personal…

    • 2924 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Jim Crow Law: The Plessy V. Ferguson Case
    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Jim Crow Law: The Plessy V. Ferguson Case

    After the resolution of the Civil War, rich whites in the South scrambled to regain economic control and superiority. To prevent blacks and poor whites from joining together to challenge them, a series of Jim Crow laws that segregated blacks from whites were created (Cates 50). In this time, various legal decisions played instrumental roles in the transition to a heavily segregated south. Through the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision, the government legalized segregation which led to the establishment of myriad Jim Crow laws that stripped African Americans of their Constitutional rights.…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    How Jim Crow Laws Affected The Society
    • 302 Words
    • 2 Pages

    How Jim Crow Laws Affected The Society

    In 1862, a huge quantity of laws were made. These laws are called the Jim Crow Laws. Jim Crow Laws were laws that was only used in the southern states to separate the African Americans and the other races. The African American were not able to have the same civil rights that the white people had. In this essay, I will discuss the use of the Jim Crow laws and why they were used.…

    • 302 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    How Did Jim Crow Laws Affect The Criminal Justice System
    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages

    How Did Jim Crow Laws Affect The Criminal Justice System

    Jim Crow, originating in the late 19th century, was the name given to the racial caste system that implemented many anti-black legislations. Following the Great Depression of the 1930’s, the poverty that resulted from the economic disaster created more racial tension between whites and blacks. Working class white Americans blamed black Americans for stealing their jobs and homes, which influenced local and state governments to reinforce the “separate but equal” decision from the Plessy v. Ferguson Case. Along with the violence black Americans received from white supremacists in the 1950’s, the Jim Crow Laws delayed the progress of blacks by prohibiting them from receiving equal treatment in the criminal justice system, especially in the cases…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Jim Crow Laws Research Paper
    • 304 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Jim Crow Laws Research Paper

    Thomas D. Rice was a white man but was wearing black face makeup, in 1832; Thomas started performing “Jump Jim Crow”. The Jim Crow laws came to existence in 1877 when the whites regained power in the government in the South after the war and made it law. The Civil Rights act passed in 1964 ended discrimination by law and said no one may be discriminated against race, gender, or religious reasons. There were many court cases that helped fight the Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow Laws were the laws that people had to live by, it was racial segregation towards colored people and it separated the blacks from the whites in schools, busses, bathrooms, work, and many other places. The laws were to keep the African Americans out…

    • 304 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Jim crow laws
    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Jim crow laws

    were southern blacks. Hundreds of other lynchings and acts of mob terror aimed at brutalizing…

    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    How Did Jim Crow Laws Encourage Segregation?
    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages

    How Did Jim Crow Laws Encourage Segregation?

    law for states to deny citizenship on the basis of race. Although this was a step in the right direction for a rationalized solution to citizen rights for more egalitarianism within the nation, the political and civil inequality was only set to grow further. Following the fourteenth amendment came the equal protection clause and fifteenth amendment, both set to help solidify the groundwork for a better United States. To all egalitarians dismay, the introduction of Jim Crow Laws, laws that promoted the segregation and discrimination of African Americans¬, paved the way for further inequality. Jim Crow Laws authorized the segregation of many public sites such as schools, hospitals, and even water fountains. This unjust practice was fought against by many, unfortunately, to add…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Analysis Of The New Jim Crow
    • 288 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Analysis Of The New Jim Crow

    This week’s readings discussed a concept called “The New Jim Crow” which is about how black people and Latino's are most likely to get more prison time than their counter-parts even when the crime committed is the same. The author goes on to talk about how people who are black and brown get stopped more and searched than any other race. Personally, I think the reason why people who are black and brown are most likely to be stopped and searched is because , in most cases they cannot afford a good lawyer who will stand up for their rights , There are public defenders but they have lot of cases to deal with and paper work with that being said if they can get someone to admit to the crime and do the time and get a shorter sentences they're work…

    • 288 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Jim Crow Laws Dbq
    • 292 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Jim Crow Laws Dbq

    Although new additions to the Constitution, as well as an increase in social developments, did help to add to a positive revolution, there were some bad aspects of social development such as the KKK and Jim Crow Laws that put a damper on the country. In Document I, the reader is presented with a very famous image in the history of the black race. The overall purpose of this image is to represent southern rebellion or resistance to the developments of reconstruction such as the 14th and 15th Amendments which try to promote equality regardless of race. This image counters the revolution by promoting terrorist-like activities such as lynching and the targeting of helpless victims like the degraded race the freedmen were during this time. The Jim Crow laws created in 1877, which enforced racial segregation, along with the horrific acts as seen in Document I by the KKK demonstrates the anger and continual rebellion of the white citizens which prevented such a wonderful and peaceful revolution in American history from being 100%…

    • 292 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Jim Crow Digital History
    • 1108 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Jim Crow Digital History

    The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow digital history website explores the events, organizations, and lives of those present during the era when the Jim Crow laws existed. Jim Crow refers to the set of laws sanctioned by the government that allowed racial oppression and segregation in the United States from the Reconstruction era until the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s (The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow). This website provides personal narratives, photographs, original documents, a timeline of events, student activities, and lesson plans for teachers that give insight to what it was like to live during this time. The struggle against Jim Crow is presented in a simple and interactive way creating an easy and memorable learning experience that one…

    • 1108 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Jim Crow Laws Research Paper
    • 433 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Jim Crow Laws Research Paper

    Throughout the history of the United States and the world, there has been racism and prejudice. During 1877 and the mid-1960's there was a particular set of laws that were set that were anti-black. The saying has a few rumored whereabouts, the Jim Crow laws made anti-Black racism legal. During the peak of the segregation the churches taught that Whites were the Chosen people and that Blacks were cursed to be servants.…

    • 433 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    History Of Jim Crow's Segregation
    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages

    History Of Jim Crow's Segregation

    Jim Crow’s segregation In the South had states passing codes to classify race, it became known as the "one-drop rule.'' The definition meaning is that if a single drop of "black blood" runs through your veins you’re black, this practice is known by many names such as "one black ancestor rule," "traceable amount rule," and "hypo-descent rule," it meant that mixed race people were assigned to the status of a minority group. The first registrar of Virginia’s Bureau of Vital Statistics was Dr. Walter Plecker, he used his theory of eugenics to defined “pure whites,” in the Racial Integrity Act his standards were classified by the General Assembly to state “any black ancestor, no matter how many generations ago, would disqualify someone from being…

    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Jim Crow Laws In The 1900's
    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Jim Crow Laws In The 1900's

    They couldn’t just let blacks be free, so they had to find a new way to oppress them. From there came the era of the Jim Crow laws. Laws that allowed segregation between blacks and whites to be legal. These laws, as promised, kept blacks and whites separated by providing different buildings, schools, and housing for the two races( Nation Museum of American History, Behring Center). Blacks were also denied the same rights as whites. Around the 1890’s, Southern states began literacy tests, poll systems, elaborate registration systems, and whites-only Democratic Party primaries to exclude the black vote.(National Museum of American History, Behring Center). Needless to say these laws were very effective in their purpose to exclude the black and poor vote. The black people were also terrorized by the Klu Klux Klan, a group of whites that served to terrorize blacks and promote white supremacy. With terror all around them, blacks looked to the law to protect them. In the case Plessy vs. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the the segregation between races, if it was equal, did not violate the Constitution, and segregation was not discrimination (Museum of American History, Behring Center). The rule separate but equal then came into play. However the term was badly abused as blacks and other people of color usually…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Jim Crow And Segregation Analysis
    • 172 Words
    • 1 Page

    Jim Crow And Segregation Analysis

    According to the article “Jim Crow and segregation” says the Jim Crows are just a set list of laws that violated blacks as human beings. When one thinks of the past, many images come to mind. One of the most prominent images of the early twentieth century in the South was the COLORED and WHITE signs that dotted the landscape across the South. They were separated from everything from water fountains to restaurants and even churches. I read a story of 2 young boys ages 12 and 13, Who walked into a restaurant to eat some lunch, And they were mobbed by all of the white people in the restaurant and severely beat up over the fact that they did not see the white only sign on the front door. This was just one incident back in the day.. Blacks all…

    • 172 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Argument Against Jim Crow Laws
    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Argument Against Jim Crow Laws

    For a very long time, a very large portion of the american population was radically racist. In the 1820s, an american minstrel song was written about a stereotype of a Jim Crow (Jim Crow: Shorthand for separation, par. 2). After the song became a hit, white comedians took the idea created by the song and started painting themselves black and jumping about for the entertainment of other whites during their racist comedy shows. Jim Crow became a term used by whites and blacks alike for the “complex system of laws and customs separating the races in the south” (par. 1). Therefore, Jim Crow Laws were radically racist and unconstitutional laws made in the confederate states who were still grieving their lost to the union and wanted…

    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics