JIM CROW
in Oklahoma
The term Jim Crow
originated in a song
performed by Daddy Rice,
a white minstrel show
entertainer
in the 1830s.
Rice covered his face with
charcoal to resemble a
black man, and then sang
and danced a routine in a
silly caricature of a
black person.
The "Jim Crow"
figure was a
fixture of the
minstrel shows
that toured the
South; a white
man made up as a
black man sang
and mimicked
stereotypical
behavior in the
name of comedy.
Sheet music cover
illustration with
caricatures of ragged
African-American
musicians and dancers.
pub. C1847
How it became a term synonymous with the
brutal segregation and disfranchisement of
African Americans in the late nineteenthcentury is unclear.
What is clear, however, is that by 1900,
the term was generally identified with those
racist laws and actions that deprived
African Americans of their civil rights by
defining blacks as inferior to whites, as
members of a caste of subordinate people.
Emergence of segregation in the South
actually began immediately after the Civil
War when the formerly enslaved people
acted quickly to establish their own
churches and schools separate from
whites.
At the same time, most southern states
tried to limit the economic and physical
freedom of the formerly enslaved by
adopting laws known as Black Codes.
These early legal attempts at white-imposed
segregation and discrimination were shortlived. During the period of Congressional
Reconstruction, which lasted from 1866 to
1876, the federal government declared illegal
all such acts of legal discrimination against
African Americans.
African-Americans came to newly-opened lands of Oklahoma for
opportunities to establish their own communities…
near Stillwater, 1891
Moreover, the passage of the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendments, along with the
two Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 and
the various Enforcement Acts of the early
1870s, curtailed the ability of southern
whites to formally deprive blacks of their
civil rights.
Some southern states, for example, moved
to legally impose segregation on public
transportation, especially on trains.
Blacks were required to sit in a special car
reserved for blacks known as "The Jim
Crow Car," even if they had bought firstclass tickets.
Philadelphia, 1889:
Removing an African
American from a
Philadelphia Railway car-after the implementation of
Jim Crow…
Some states also passed so-called
miscegenation laws banning
interracial marriages.
These bans were, in the opinion of some
historians, the "ultimate segregation
laws." They clearly announced that blacks
were so inferior to whites that any mixing
of the two threatened the very survival of
the superior white race.
The effects of Jim Crow laws were
devastating:
over half the blacks voting in Georgia and
South Carolina in 1880, for example, had
vanished from the polls in 1888.
Of those who did vote, many of their ballots
were stolen, misdirected to opposing
candidates, or simply not counted.
In the 1890s, starting with Mississippi, most
southern states began more systematically
to disfranchise black males by imposing
voter registration restrictions, such as
literacy tests, poll taxes, and the
“white primary.”
Poll Tax receipt, Fort Worth, Texas, 1903.
The Supreme Court's sanctioning of
segregation (by upholding the "separate
but equal" language in state laws)
in the Plessy v. Ferguson case
in 1896 and the refusal of the federal
government to enact anti-lynching laws
meant that black Americans were left to
their own devices for surviving Jim Crow.
In most cases, southern blacks tried to avoid
engaging whites as much as possible as the
best means of avoiding their wrath.
These efforts at avoiding whites meant
supporting their own schools and
community-based support groups as much
as possible.
Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1921: Smoke billowing over Tulsa, Oklahoma during
1921 race riots.
Many southern blacks actually preferred
segregated schools,
especially their all-black colleges,
as a means of local autonomy and
independence--even though they had little
choice in the matter after 1890.
Many of these colleges became the
primary centers of black resistance
to Jim Crow …
Atlanta, Georgia, 1900: African-American baseball players from Morris
Brown College, with boy and another man standing at door.
What did “JIM CROW”
look like in Oklahoma’s
laws and statutes?
Following the pattern of states
bordering the Confederacy, Oklahoma
strongly supported separation of the
races with 18 Jim Crow laws passed
between 1890 and 1957.
For example, an Oklahoma City
ordinance passed in 1925 made it
illegal for black bands to march with
white bands …
City Hall, OKC, 1958
1908: Railroads [Statute]
All railroad and streetcar companies
had to provide separate coaches for
white and black passengers.
Penalty: Railway companies that
violate the law fined $100 to $1,000.
Black waiting room area at Oklahoma City bus station…
1897: State Education [Statute]
required a separate district to be
established for colored children
wherever there are at least eight
black children.
It was unlawful for any white
child to attend a school for black
children
(or vice versa).
Segregated School House, Oklahoma, 1955
In 1950,
G.W.McLaurin won
a court order to end
segregation at the
University of
Oklahoma, the first
time in the nation’s
history that
universities were
forced to desegregate
their classes…
1907: The Voting Rights [Statute]
required electors to read and write
any section of the state
Constitution.
Declared unconstitutional in 1915;
this provision for literacy was
upheld.
Almost every city in Oklahoma
designated housing areas in which
blacks could not own or rent property.
Drumright City Codes, 1950.
Black housing district of east Oklahoma City…
1908: Miscegenation [Statute]
Unlawful for a person of African
descent to marry any person not
of African descent.
Penalty: Felony- punishable by
a fine of up to $500 and
imprisonment from one to five
years in the penitentiary.
For most southern blacks, Jim Crow was
not an easy or acceptable condition for them
to tolerate…
For tens of thousands of African Americans,
Jim Crow was met with resistance and
determination to win back the civil rights
that had been stolen from them.
Often this resistance took the form of
individual acts of defiance, and often it took
the form of organized challenges.
Whites launched a vicious,
illegal war against blacks …
In most places, whites carried out this war
under the cover of secret organizations
such as the Ku Klux Klan.
The costumes and rituals of the new Ku Klux Klan became symbols of
terror in America during the first three decades of the twentieth century.
Thousands of African Americans were
killed, brutalized, and terrorized in these
bloody years.
The federal government attempted to stop
the bloodshed by sending in troops and
holding investigations, but its efforts were
far too limited.
Oklahoma was not exempt from these
brutalities…
The lynching of Laura Nelson and her son, several dozen onlookers.
May 25, 1911, Okemah, Oklahoma.
It is impossible to know, for example, how many of
the nearly 4,000 (recorded) African Americans
lynched (mutilated and burned alive) from 1882 to
1968, were men and women who had challenged
Jim Crow by some overt act of defiance.
Perhaps the single most shocking
event reflecting the racist attitudes of
white Oklahomans occurred in 1921
when the city of Tulsa broke out in a
race riot, resulting in an estimated 300
deaths, 800 injuries, and untold
property damage…
On May 31, 1921, Tulsa's pace as a
progressive, booming, civilized city was
halted. The riot had its roots in a rumor
involving a young black man and a white
female elevator operator in the Drexel
Building at Third and Main Streets.
It was alleged by the woman that the man
grabbed her by the arm in the elevator and
she struck him about the head with her
purse. He was arrested that afternoon by
city police.
That night rumors began flying in the
downtown area that the young man was to
be lynched and many whites began gathering
at the courthouse.
Newspaper reports of that period state that
an open touring car occupied by several
black men drove up to the courthouse and a
shot or two was fired. That was the spark
that ignited the city into a mass of ugly
people turning against each other.
Newspapers reported that blacks made an
armed attack against the downtown district.
Whites responded by breaking into every
store in the downtown area, such as
sporting goods and hardware stores,
grabbing rifles, pistols, shotguns and
ammunition.
Tulsa's police force was small and not able
to halt the rioters, so Mayor T.D. Evans
asked the governor to send in the National
Guard. Shortly after midnight, Guard
units from Oklahoma City were sent to
Tulsa by special train. While the Guard
was on it's way, the white mob running
amok in the Tulsa streets turned to arson.
At dawn on June 1, 1921, smoke hung over
the north end of Tulsa. Since the previous
midnight, the white rioters had burned 35
blocks of north Tulsa to the ground. Piles
of bricks and rubble, a few chimneys and
columns standing here and there in the
ruins, was all that remained of the
black area.
The black group then surrendered. They were disarmed and
marched in columns to Convention Hall .
Nationwide, joining with the NAACP in
contesting Jim Crow in the 1920s and
1930s were an array of other political
organizations like the National Urban
League, the National Negro Congress,
and more radical groups such as the
Communist Party.
Detroit 1944: NAACP Detroit branch "Parade for Victory."
Progressive Party
pamphlet, 1948.
The Jim Crow
conditions in
Oklahoma would
face the same
demise as Jim Crow
across the nation
during the Civil
Rights movements
of the 1960s…
JIM CROW
in Oklahoma
Created by Pam
Merrill,
Edmond Public
Schools