Jim Crow
Laws
By: Skylar Dredge,
Georgia Matz, and
Carson Gossett
What were the Jim Crow Laws
Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not
exclusively, in southern and border states between 1877 and the mid-1960s. Jim
Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws. It was a way of life.
The whites and the colored people of the country used these rules
in their lives and thus creating a rift between both of them.
What started the Jim Crow Laws
Famous entertainer Thomas Dartmouth Rice who performed in the mid 1830’s and late 40’s
played a popular song and dance which was supposedly modeled after a black slave.
He became the most popular comedian of his time
Rice gave a name to the character that he played as in all of his shows
-The name then became Jim Crow and that is where the name comes
from and since it was the most popular of its time then it was obvious
to choose it. Thomas did not know however he created the most hated
name in the late 1800’s-1940’s
The Actual Laws
Example: Homer Adolf Plessy was arrested for violating a “Jim Crow” law which was
blacks may not board a train for whites. (Jim Crow Car Act of 1890)
● Colored were not allowed to share a train, cab, bathrooms, drinking fountains,
nor enter the same building as a white person
● They weren’t even allowed to swear on the same bible as whites or be buried in
the same cemeteries as them
● Colored were not supposed to look a white person in the eyes when speaking or
being spoken too and weren’t even allowed in some parks
Original Documents
Punishments for breaking the Jim Crow Laws
Some counties in the Deep South resorted to harsher means of preventing local
blacks from voting.
Jailed them.
Firebombed places where voter education classes were held.
Threatened them.
Beat them.
In some cases they murdered black applicants.
Ku Klux Klan
Some southern blacks resisted segregation, lived in constant fear of their employers
who vowed to fire them, fear of white citizen councils, and feared white vigilante
groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The KKK exerted an often-unchecked reign of
terror across the south, where lynching* of African Americans was a common
occurrence and rarely prosecuted. Nearly 4,500 African Americans were lynched in
the U.S. between 1882 and the and 1950’s.
Lynch- to kill, especially by hanging, for an alleged offense with or without a legal
trial.
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChWXyeUTKg8
Works Cited
United States. National Park Service. "We Shall Overcome -- The Need for Change." National Parks Service. U.S.
Department of the Interior. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
Lee, Russel. "Remembering Jim Crow Slideshow." Remembering Jim Crow Slideshow. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
" What Was Jim Crow." Jim Crow Museum: Origins of Jim Crow. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.