Jim Crow Essay - Laws Towards Blacks

Laws towards Blacks

What do you think of when you hear ‘Jim Crow’? Do you think of something no one cares about? Well, back in the years of 1876 to 1965, everyone knew what the Jim Crow laws were. Following the Jim Crow laws, African Americans were downgraded to the position of second class citizens. Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-black racism. (Pilgrim, 1)

The Jim Crow law made the blacks become inferior beings to the whites. The law only supported the belief of whites being superior to blacks in all important ways. Treating blacks as equals would encourage interracial sexual unions; if necessary, violence was used to keep blacks at the bottom of the racial hierarchy. Even children’s games portrayed blacks as inferior. Newspaper and magazine writers consistently referred to blacks as niggers, in return, their articles reinforced anti-black stereotypes. The Jim Crow protocol norm tell that a black male is not to offer their hand to a white man since it insinuated they were socially equal. Whites did not use respective titles towards blacks, like Sir or Ma’am, instead blacks were called by their first name; while blacks were forced to use courtesy titles towards whites. (Pilgrim, 2)

Jim Crow, the system of segregation and discrimination was practiced in the South and some border states, was used after the U.S. Civil War. The legislative branch was most effective in enacting and preserving discriminatory laws that kept Jim Crow alive well into the

1960s. (Tafari, 1) Many Southern blacks had become politically active after the Civil War, but after 1877, most lost the right to vote or to hold government positions. The congress forbade the use of the army to protect the black voters from the intimidation and physical violence. (Tafari, 1) The laws that discriminated African American applied to school attendance, use of facilities such as restaurants, theaters, hotels, cinemas and public baths, as well as seating on trains and buses. Transportation segregation consisted of the whites sitting in the front while the blacks that were sitting nearest to the front had to give up their seats to any whites that were standing, those who disobeyed the state's transport segregation policies were arrested and fined. (Simkin, 1, 3, 4.)

As blacks emerged from slavery after the Civil War, Southern states adopted