Jim Crow

In the years following the Civil War, many changes were made to the structure of society in all the states of the former Confederacy. Most of these changes dealt with race relations. When Abraham Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation, it set the slaves free. This made many Southerners nervous and they wanted the black population to understand that even though they were now free, they still held a certain place in society. This is where the system of Jim Crow came into effect.

The term "Jim Crow" was first heard around 1830 from a man named Thomas "Daddy" Rice. He traveled around performing minstrel shows, painted his face black with charcoal and recited, "Weel about and turn about and do jis'so. Eb'ry time I weel about I jump Jim Crow." Some historians think this rhyme was based on a slave that Rice owned. On the eve of the Civil War, the term became a stereotypical image of black inferiority. It also became a racial slur that was equal to black, colored, or Negro. Segregation due to Jim Crow began as early as the 1890s when Southern states began to systematically codify their laws. It was meant to separate blacks and whites in public areas and to prevent black males from voting. The Jim Crow Laws were fully in place by 1910 in all of the former Confederate states. Some of the rules were very inclusive to keep the blacks at the bottom of the social and racial hierarchy. For example:

1. A black male could not offer his hand (to shake hands) with a while male because it implied that they were socially equal. Obviously, he could not offer his hand to a white woman because he would risk being accused of rape.

2. Blacks and whites were not supposed to eat together. If so, whites would be served first and a partition was to be placed between them.

3. Under no circumstances should a black male offer to light the cigarette of a while female-this gesture implies intimacy.

4. Blacks were not allowed to show affection towards each other in public, especially kissing, because it offended whites.

5. Jim Crow etiquette prescribed that blacks were introduced to whites, not whites to blacks.

6. Whites did not use courtesy titles (Mr., Mrs., Miss, Sir, Ma'am) when referring to blacks. Blacks were called by their first names, but blacks had to use courtesy titles when referring to whites and they were not allowed to use their first names.

7. If a black person rode in a car with a white person, the black person sat in the back seat or the back of the truck.

8. White motorists had the right of way at all intersections (Nieman).

There were many race riots in support of the Jim Crow laws and white supremacy. Most of them took place in cities like Wilmington, North Carolina, Houston, Texas, East St. Louis, Chicago, Illinois and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Most of the riots took place between the years 1865-1955. These were cities where Southern, rural blacks migrated after they were emancipated, and the locals did not like it. In 1919, there were at least twenty-five recorded incidents with numerous deaths and hundreds injured. This time period was named the Red Summer of 1919, named by the writer James Weldon Johnson.

The Jim Crow laws were heavily supported by lynchings against Southern blacks. Lynchings were public, sadistic murders carried out by mobs. Most of the victims were either hanged or shot, but in some cases, the black person was burned at the stake, castrated, dragged through the street behind cars, beaten with clubs, or dismembered. These murders were used as an intimidation tool to keep blacks "in their places." These brutal killings took place mainly in the Southern and border-states where racial resentment ran deepest. Many of the whites that were asked about their outlooks on lynchings said they thought the idea of lynching was distasteful, but also necessary since blacks were prone to violent crimes, especially the raping of white women (Wells-Barnett, Packard).

There was an account of a particularly brutal lynching of a man named Claude Neal. On October 19th, 1934, Neal, 23, of Greenwood, FL, was arrested by Deputy Sheriff J.P. Couliette for the murder of Lola Cannidy, 20, also of Greenwood. Neal was working at a peanut farm owned by a man named John Green. Neal was taken in, along with another man who was thought to be involved with the murder in the woods, and questioned. It is alleged that a confession was wrung from Neal and that he assumed full responsibility. Sheriff W. F. Chambliss of Jackson County, who was at the Cannidy house at the time of the arrest, was aware of the lynching spirit that was taking over the county. For protection, he took Neal to Chipley, FL, along with his mother, Annie Smith, and his aunt, Sallie Smith. He was lynched in a lonely spot about four miles from Greenwood by the scene of the crime. It was between 1:00 and 2:00 A.M. that he was released to the lynch mob on Friday, October 26th, 1934. He was in the hands of a smaller group of only about 100 men. They tortured him for ten to twelve hours and word began to spread from northeastern Florida to southeastern Alabama that there was to be a "lynching party to which all white people are invited." A member of the lynch mob wrote down every gruesome detail of the murder: (McGovern)

"After taking the nigger to the woods about four miles from Greenwood, they cut off his penis. He was made to eat it. Then they cut off his testicles and made him eat them and say he liked it. . . .Then they sliced his sides and stomach with knives and every now and then somebody would cut off a finger or toe. Red hot irons were used on the nigger to burn him from top to bottom. From time to time during the torture a rope was tied around his neck and he was pulled up over a limb and held there until he almost choked to death. Then he was let down and the torture began all over again. After several hours of this unspeakable torture, they decided just to kill him. Neal's body was tied to a rope on the rear of an automobile and dragged over the highway to the Cannidy home. Here a mob estimated to number somewhere between 3000 and 7000 people from eleven southern states was excitedly waiting his arrival. When the car which was dragging his body came in front of the Cannidy home, a man who was riding the rear bumper cut the rope. A woman came out of the Cannidy house and drove a butcher knife into his heart. Then the crowd came by and some kicked him and some drove their cars over him" (McGovern).

Men, women and children were there in cast numbers to witness the lynching. A reliable source also tells that some of the children had sharpened sticks to drive