Fun Facts

1. The term "Jim Crow" comes from a minstrel show character that was performed by white actors in blackface.
2. The first Jim Crow law was enacted in 1890 in Mississippi, and by the early 1900s, nearly every Southern state had passed similar laws.
3. The Jim Crow laws not only mandated segregation in public spaces such as schools, restaurants, and restrooms but also disenfranchised African Americans by imposing literacy tests, poll taxes, and other restrictions on their right to vote.
4. Some Jim Crow laws were directed at specific groups of people, such as the "one-drop rule" that defined anyone with even a small amount of African ancestry as black, and the "anti-miscegenation laws" that prohibited interracial marriage.
5. The Supreme Court upheld many Jim Crow laws as constitutional, including the "separate but equal" doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which allowed for segregated public facilities.
6. The Jim Crow era came to an end in the mid-1960s with the Civil Rights Movement and the passage of federal legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965

What were the Jim Crow laws

The Jim Crow laws were a series of state and local laws enacted in the United States from the late 1800s to the mid-1960s. These laws enforced racial segregation and discrimination against Black Americans and other people of color in various aspects of life, including education, employment, housing, voting, and public accommodations such as restaurants, hotels, and transportation. Some examples of Jim Crow laws included literacy tests and poll taxes that were designed to prevent Black people from voting, separate schools and facilities for Black people and White people, and restrictions on interracial marriage. The Jim Crow laws were eventually overturned by the Civil Rights Movement and federal legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Significant Individual

Plessy v. Ferguson, a legal case that went before the United States Supreme Court in 1896. Homer Plessy, a Black man, was arrested for refusing to leave a train car designated for White passengers, as required by a Louisiana state law. Plessy argued that the law violated his constitutional rights, but the Supreme Court ruled against him, establishing the "separate but equal" doctrine that would serve as the legal basis for segregation and discrimination for decades to come. The Plessy v. Ferguson decision was not overturned until the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954, which declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional.