Jim Crow Laws

JIM CROW WAS the name of the racial class system that operated primarily in southern and border states between 1877 and the mid-1960s. The words “Jim Crow” became a racial slur, synonymous with “black,” “colored,” or “Negro” in the vocabulary of many whites. By the end of the century, acts of racial discrimination towards African Americans were often referred to as Jim Crow Laws and practices. The term “Jim Crow” is said to originate in the 1830s when a white minstrel show performer, Thomas “Daddy-Rice” blackened his face while he sang “Jump Jim Crow,” in his act. Rice supposedly created the character after seeing a crippled, bleeding African-American man dancing, singing, and mimicking his owner. It became a standard part of his act, and by the 1850s, it became a stereotypical image of African-American inferiority by the beginning of the Civil War. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid laws against African Americans; it was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second-class citizens. Jim Crow represented the legitimi-zation of African-American racism. Many Christians, ministers, and theologians taught that whites were the “chosen” people. African Americans were supposedly cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation. At every educational level, craniologists, eugeni-cists, phrenologists, and social Darwinists supported the belief that African Americans were innately, intellectually, and culturally inferior to whites. Pro-segregation politicians gave long and eloquent speeches on the dangers of integration because of their abhorrence of mixed marriages. Newspapers and magazine writers routinely referred to African Americans as “niggers,” “coons,” and “darkies,” or worse, which reinforced negative African-American stereotypes. All major societal institutions reflected and supported the oppression of African Americans. The Jim Crow System was supported by the following beliefs: whites were superior to African Americans in all ways, including intelligence, morality, and civilized behavior; sexual relations between African Americans and whites would produce a mongrel race that would destroy America; treating blacks as equal would encourage interracial sexual unions; any activity which suggested social equality would encouraged interracial sexual relations; and if necessary, violence must be used to keep African Americans as the bottom of the racial hierarchy.

The Jim Crow etiquette norms show how inclusive and pervasive the standards were. An African-American male could not offer his hand to a white man, to shake hands, because it would imply that they were socially equal. An African-American man could not do the same to a white woman, because touching a white woman was classified as rape. African Americans and whites were not supposed to eat together, and if they did, whites would be served first and some sort of partition was to be placed between them. Under no circumstance was an African-American man to offer to light the cigarette of a white female, the gesture implied intimacy. African Americans were not allowed to show public affection toward one another in public, especially kissing, because it offended whites. Jim Crow etiquette prescribed that African Americans were introduced to whites, never whites to African Americans. Whites did not use courtesy titles of respect when referring to blacks, for example Mr., Mrs., Miss., Sir, or Ma'am, instead, African Americans were called by their first names and were never allowed to call whites by their first names. If an African American rode in a car driven by a white person, the African American sat in the back seat or the back of the truck. White motorists had the right-of-way at all intersections.

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