Jim Crow

Kaitlin Fisher

Louis Menand wrote in the New Yorker that “From the Compromise of 1877, which ended Reconstruction, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, American race relations were largely shaped by states that had seceded from the Union in 1861, and the elected leaders of those states almost all spoke the language of white supremacy” (Menand). Jim Crow laws were named after a lyric within an insulting African American son, titled ‘Jump Jim Crowe’. The man that created this song was named, Thomas Rice. Rice created characters and acts for a living. When it finally came down to the idea of jim Crow, “Rice unveiled his new character and verses he had written at the Bowery Theatre in New York City on November 12, 1832. Performing “Jump Jim Crow,”(Richardson). While this song was being sung, all white singers would sing and dance to an all white audience.

These laws were around for around 100 years, starting directly after the 13th Amendment was ratified until 1968. These laws created a “legal racial segregation in 26 states. These laws created segregation in many different places, including the home and the workplace. The most common law was that it was illegal for Whites and African Americans to marry. These laws were established in order to control African Americans, “instead of chains, whips, and deadly fear, however, laws” jails, powerlessness, and the constant fear of death would prove those protections” (Tischauser 12).

The Jim Crow laws that were used throughout multiple states created a block in almost every area of human contact. Some examples of this would include:

- In Georgia, it was illegal for a white baseball team to play on any vacant lot or playground within two blocks of a playground devoted to the “Negro Race”

- Another Georgia law made it illegal for the official in charge of a cemetery to allow “any colored person” to be buried on ground used for the burial of white people

- In Louisiana, the law required separate buildings for black and white “blind

persons” in state institutions for the disabled.

• In Alabama, white and colored persons could be served in the same room but only if they were “effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment”

These laws might seem silly in today’s society, but they had serious consequences and purposes during this time. These laws had the complete backing from the U.S. Supreme Court, which added extra fear of these laws.

The fight to end Jim Crow laws was more than 80 years and “ was filled with bloody lynching, massacres, murders, humiliations, discriminations, unequal treatment, protests, demonstrations, boycotts, congressional debates and filibusters, racist court opinions, racist police brutality, and total loss of all constitutional rights and privileges” (Tischauser 14).

Tischauser continues to provide a specific chronological timeline that breaks down the events that occured and the laws that were set in place. To begin with on April 9 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant, ending the Civil War. Less than a month later during may 1st through the 3rd, white mobs and police in Memphis, Tennessee, killed 46 African Americans. Finally, on December 15th, The Thirteenth Amendment, outlawing slavery “except as a punishment for crime,” was ratified. A few days later on December 24, The Ku Klux Klan was formally organized as a “social club” for confederate soldiers in Pulaski, Tennessee.

Three years later in 1868, The Fourteenth Amendment, granting citizenship to all personas born in the United States, was ratified on July 9th. A few months later on

September 28th, an estimated 200–300 African Americans were massacred in Opelousas, Louisiana. Two years after these events on March 30th 1870, the fifteenth Amendment was ratified. Five short years later in 1875, congress passed the civil rights act on March 1st. Again, a terrible incident occurred on September 4th. `Whites in Clinton, Mississippi, kill more than 200 African Americans

In the spring of 1881 Tennessee passed the first Jim Crow Law. This law stated that, “Railroad companies required to furnish separate cars for colored passengers who pay first-class rates. Cars to be kept in good repair, and subject to the same rules governing other first-class cars for preventing smoking and obscene language. Penalty: If companies fail to enforce the law required to pay a forfeit of $100, half to be paid to the person suing, the other half to be paid to the state’s school fund.”

In May of 1896 the Supreme court released the decision on Plessy V. Ferguson. Deciding that Jim crow laws were constitutional. Less than twenty years later on

June 21, 1915 The supreme court found that the Oklahoma law establishing a “grandfather clause” that allowed anyone who had been eligible to vote in 1867 without having to take the literacy test, before ratification of the 15th amendment was unconstitutional. After these trails, in 1954 the Supreme court releases opinion for Brown V. Board of education. The following year in 1955 the Supreme court said that schools must begin to desegregate. Three years after this, in September of 1957, President Eisenhower orders troops into Little Rock, Arkansas. Less than ten years after the little rock incident, in 1964 President Johnson signed the civil rights act of 1964, stating that Jim Crow laws were illegal. Following this signing, on June 12, 1967, Loving V. Virginia was decided by the Supreme court stating that it was unconstitutional to prohibit interracial marriages.

Works Cited

“Jim Crow Laws: Tennessee, 1866–1955 • BlackPast.” BlackPast, 25 Mar. 2019, www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/jim-crow-laws-tennessee-1866-1955/.

MENAND, LOUIS. “In the Eye of the Law.” New Yorker, vol. 95, no. 6, Feb. 2019, pp. 18–22. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=134287879&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Richardson, Sarah. “As American as Jim Crow.” American History, vol. 53, no. 1, Apr. 2018, pp. 52–59. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=127608308&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Tischauser, Leslie Vincent. Jim Crow Laws. Greenwood, 2012.