Jim Crow Era

The Jim Crow Law started in U.S. history, any of the laws that enforced racial segregation in the South between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. From the late 1870s, Southern state legislatures, no longer controlled by carpetbaggers and freedmen, passed laws requiring the separation of whites from “persons of colour” in public transportation and schools. After the end of the Civil War and slavery, some white people felt threatened. This resulted in it becoming their mission to keep black people separated from them and to continue to treat them like second class citizens. Jim Crow laws were created and put into effect to separate black and white people from even the slightest bit of contact. This is because in this time period (1810), white people thought that black people were put on this earth to work and didn’t think that they deserved any respect. So what were Jim Crow Laws? Black Codes were used to restrict African Americans’ freedom. A white person shall never marry a black person even if that person is only a percentage of black. Different states require different percentages. Schools, restaurants, and bathrooms were separated by blacks and whites. Blacks were to remain in the back of buses. Some states were so extreme that blacks could not and should not interact with whitesBlacks wouldn’t be sold housing in white neighborhoods. Laws were passed to make it harder for blacks to voteBlacks had curfews when in white towns (Sundown Town). Why were they important? Even though the theory of “separate but equal” was guaranteed, blacks were still inferior to whites, it proved that states could have more power than Congress; as the 14th amendment was passed giving equal rights for all citizens, and as a reaction, Southern states refused to go by the amendment and passed these laws. Blacks and whites were completely separated, from as much as avoiding being in the same room together at once.