Jim Crow

Jim Crow refers to the laws and customs present in the United States, typically in the former states of the Confederacy, that prescribed a segregated society and kept Black people in a subservient position in everyday life. The term is taken from a song, “Jump Jim Crow,” which was performed in minstrel shows by White singers in Blackface. The character Jim Crow was a rural Black man who was poorly dressed. This entry describes the history of Jim Crow laws in the United States.

Following the Civil War and the end of Reconstruction in 1876 and lasting until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, different states, particularly in the South, enacted various laws to enforce racial segregation between Whites and Blacks. Jim Crow laws reflected the racial ideology that Whites were superior to Blacks and any forms of integration would destroy the purity of the White race.

During the Progressive era, Jim Crow laws were broadened to the federal level. Although Jim Crow laws were tightly enforced, there were challenges. In 1896, a Black man named Homer Plessy was convicted in Louisiana for riding in a Whites-only railway car. Plessy appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the Louisiana decision. The “separate but equal” doctrine was thus established.

The actual nature of Jim Crow practices was limited only by the imagination of Whites who wanted to keep Blacks separate from—and not necessarily equal to—themselves. In many places, Blacks and Whites attended separate schools, and there were often separate facilities, including restrooms and water fountains, for Blacks and Whites in public places. In Louisiana, the law prohibited renting housing to someone of African ancestry if the housing was partially occupied by Whites. In Georgia, there were separate restaurants for Blacks and Whites. Throughout the South, Blacks and Whites could not legally marry. Some signs said, “No dogs, Negroes, and mulattos.” In many places, a Black man could not extend his hand to a White man, have any contact with White women, or curse White people.

Jim Crow laws were gradually dismantled after World War II. In the 1950s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attempted to end the segregation on buses and trains. In 1950, the Supreme Court declared that the University of Texas must admit Herman Sweatt, an African American, to the law school on the ground that the state should provide equal education for him. The Supreme Court finally declared the segregation of the railway unconstitutional in 1952. In 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the segregation of educational system unconstitutional. Despite the Court's decision, segregation continued in some states. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 when Lyndon Baines Johnson was the president. This act made racial segregation illegal. Although Jim Crow law is a de jure system of segregation; the de facto segregation of races continues in some places today.