[27] While the separation of African Americans from the white general population was becoming legalized and formalized during the Progressive Era (1890s–1920s), it was also becoming customary. "Black Public Libraries in the South in the Era of De Jure Segregation.". [41] This perspective took anti-black sentiment for granted, because bigotry was widespread in the South after slavery became a racial caste system. [4][5][6], Jim Crow laws and Jim Crow state constitutional provisions mandated the segregation of public schools, public places, and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains between white and black people. Louisiana law distinguished between "white", "black" and "colored" (that is, people of mixed European and African ancestry). As today, the key issue was racial inequality. While federal law required that convictions could only granted from an unanimous jury vote for federal crimes, states were free to decide on this process for themselves. [23], Like schools, public libraries for black people were underfunded, if they existed at all, and they were often stocked with secondhand books and other resources. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice helps demonstrate that the lynching of black people was not the fault of victims. These heroes brought down laws that segregated schools, lunch counters, and bathrooms. A scholar explains King's strategies in resistance. This Jim Crow songbook, published in Ithaca, New York, in 1839, shows an early depiction of a minstrel-show character named Jim Crow. White nationalists at the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, 2017. [51], The decisive action ending segregation came when Congress in bipartisan fashion overcame Southern filibusters to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. "The legend of Texas Western: journalism and the epic sports spectacle that wasn’t. Tragic': Black Teachers in the Jim Crow South. Blacks were still elected to local offices throughout the 1880s in local areas with large black population, but their voting was suppressed for state and national elections. It is argued that these laws suppress the vote of socially disadvantaged individuals on the lower economic scale who may not have proper identification documents. [12][13] The origin of the phrase "Jim Crow" has often been attributed to "Jump Jim Crow", a song-and-dance caricature of black people performed by white actor Thomas D. Rice in blackface, which first surfaced in 1828 and was used to satirize Andrew Jackson's populist policies. Thanks to demographic and political changes, Democratic contenders are addressing this issue for the first time. Racial gerrymandering refers to defining voting districts to lessen or eliminate a minority's voting power. [72], "Jim Crow" redirects here. In Louisiana, by 1900, black voters were reduced to 5,320 on the rolls, although they comprised the majority of the state's population. The disappearance of the three activists captured national attention and the ensuing outrage was used by Johnson and civil rights activists to build a coalition of northern and western Democrats and Republicans and push Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. [63], By 1965, efforts to break the grip of state disenfranchisement by education for voter registration in southern counties had been under way for some time, but had achieved only modest success overall. As a result of Rice's fame, "Jim Crow" by 1838 had become a pejorative expression meaning "Negro". In California, black people were not allowed to testify for or against white people. [54] Kennedy responded by sending Congress a comprehensive civil rights bill, and ordered Attorney General Robert Kennedy to file federal lawsuits against segregated schools, and to deny funds for discriminatory programs. [citation needed], Although sometimes counted among "Jim Crow laws" of the South, statutes such as anti-miscegenation laws were also passed by other states. Begin typing to search, use arrow keys to navigate, use enter to select. [53] In summer 1963, there were 800 demonstrations in 200 southern cities and towns, with over 100,000 participants, and 15,000 arrests. [57] In the 1870s, Democrats gradually regained power in the Southern legislatures,[15] after having used insurgent paramilitary groups, such as the White League and the Red Shirts, to disrupt Republican organizing, run Republican officeholders out of town, and intimidate black people to suppress their voting.

It guaranteed access to public accommodations such as restaurants and places of amusement, authorized the Justice Department to bring suits to desegregate facilities in schools, gave new powers to the Civil Rights Commission; and allowed federal funds to be cut off in cases of discrimination. Some of the early demonstrations achieved positive results, strengthening political activism, especially in the post-World War II years. [64], The Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended legally sanctioned state barriers to voting for all federal, state and local elections. [37], In 1892, Plessy bought a first-class ticket from New Orleans on the East Louisiana Railway. ", Hutchison, Phillip. This was common practice in some states. [26] Many public libraries for both European-American and African-American patrons in this period were founded as the result of middle-class activism aided by matching grants from the Carnegie Foundation. In some areas of the Deep South, white resistance made these efforts almost entirely ineffectual. An early 20th-century scholar suggested that allowing black people to attend white schools would mean "constantly subjecting them to adverse feeling and opinion", which might lead to "a morbid race consciousness". Dailey, Jane; Gilmore, Glenda Elizabeth and Simon, Bryant (eds. [citation needed]. First they started to schedule integrated teams from the North. White opposition led to their exclusion from most organized sporting competitions. Plessy refused and was immediately arrested. Instead, a patchwork of state and local laws, codes, and agreements enforced segregation to different degrees and in different ways across the nation. [34] An 1883 Supreme Court decision ruled that the act was unconstitutional in some respects, saying Congress was not afforded control over private persons or corporations. These new laws can still be challenged, but only after state legislatures have passed them.

", Spivey, Donald. It was very bad for business, and for the image of a modernizing progressive urban South.

The Civil Rights Act was passed at this time. [12], In the Jim Crow context, the presidential election of 1912 was steeply slanted against the interests of African Americans.

Guy Stephen Webster, University of Cambridge, Shannon M. Smith, College of Saint Benedict & Saint John's University, Elizabeth Thompson, American University School of International Service, Connie Hassett-Walker, Norwich University, Victoria W. Wolcott, University at Buffalo, Michael Millner, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Leigh Ann Wheeler, Binghamton University, State University of New York, Brian J Purnell, Bowdoin College and Jeanne Theoharis, Brooklyn College, Taasogle Daryl Rowe, Pepperdine University and Kamilah Marie Woodson, Howard University, Daniel Cookney, University of Salford and Kirsty Fairclough, University of Salford, Ornette D Clennon, Manchester Metropolitan University, Yolanda Moses, University of California, Riverside, Matthew Delmont, Arizona State University, Mark R Reiff, University of California, Davis, Assistant Professor of Justice Studies and Sociology, Norwich University, Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History, Bowdoin College, Visiting Research Fellow, Manchester Metropolitan University, Assistant researcher, University of Sydney, Professor, Department of History, University of Dayton, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Birmingham-Southern College, Paul and Charlene Jones Chair in Law, University of Alabama, Associate Professor of Social Work; McSilver Faculty Fellow, New York University, Associate Dean: Research and Innovation, University of Salford, Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Co-host of Democracy Works Podcast, Penn State, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Texas at Austin, Programme Leader and Senior Lecturer in Childhood & Youth Studies, The Open University, Professor and Chair of History, Vassar College, Affiliated Researcher in Legal and Political Philosophy, University of California, Davis. Restaurants, hospitals, schools, prisons, and the like were required to have separate facilities for whites and blacks. Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. King organized massive demonstrations, that seized massive media attention in an era when network television news was an innovative and universally watched phenomenon. Racial integration of all-white collegiate sports teams was high on the Southern agenda in the 1950s and 1960s. Jim Crow was not enacted as a universal, written law of the land. Name [61][68][69] Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the court opinion that "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State. A funeral held in July 1945 for two victims of the Ku Klux Klan, George Dorsey and his sister, Dorothy Dorsey Malcolm, of Walton County, Georgia, held at the Mt. Since the decision, new state laws have been passed requiring voter identification and allowing gerrymandering. This led to the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Thornburg v. Gingles, where the court found that the North Carolina redistricting plan discriminated against blacks in six voting districts. [12], In January 1865, an amendment to the Constitution to abolish slavery in the United States was proposed by Congress, and on December 18, 1865, it was ratified as the Thirteenth Amendment formally abolishing slavery.[14]. When the popularity of the performer faded, the term had lasting effects. Known as "walking the tightrope," such efforts at bringing about change were only slightly effective before the 1920s. Wood, Amy Louise and Natalie J. Cole, Stephanie and Natalie J. [31] He appointed segregationist Southern politicians because of his own firm belief that racial segregation was in the best interest of black and European Americans alike. [citation needed]. Enforcement was rapid in the North and border states, but was deliberately stopped in the South by the movement called Massive Resistance, sponsored by rural segregationists who largely controlled the state legislatures. "[69], The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution required individuals on criminal convictions to be tried by a jury of their peers. In 2020, the Supreme Court found in Ramos v. Louisiana that unanimous jury votes are required for criminal convictions at state levels, nullifying Oregon's remaining law and overturning previous cases in Louisiana.[70].