The Jim Crow Laws

Period 3 Mrs. Reska

Where did the term Jim Crow come from? Why is the origin of this term offensive?
Jim Crow laws were created after Reconstruction, to ensure that the South still kept its close-minded policies that allowed for blacks to be segregated. The name itself originally comes from the southern slaveowner who was so strict in his beliefs of segregating blacks. As for the term, it reminds blacks of a past in which they were inferiors to whites, where they were not accepted, and where they had almost no social rights. During the early 1900s, whenever segregation was to be seen, it was typically because of Jim Crow laws. Hence, they are the epitome of what blacks were burdened with.

How did the term Jim Crow become synonymous with segregation laws in the South?
Reconstruction ended when a law was passed that made it so the North would remove their troops from the South, and the South would get a sum of money if they returned to the Union. Another condition of this was to limit the laws on segregation and discrimination. After this law was accepted, the South returned to its poor treatment of blacks by the creation of Jim Crow laws, and the North was left incapable of doing anything.

What ended Reconstruction in the South, and what effect did that have on southern blacks?
Though it was made possible for blacks to vote, the South prevented this from occurring. Any opportunity they had to make sure African-Americans had their rights to suffrage they restricted. There were poll taxes that blacks never could pay as they never had jobs, and literacy tests that they could not pass because they were hardly ever educated. There were also white primaries that kept them from voting, as well.

How did the Plessy vs Ferguson case uphold Jim Crow laws?What effect did this this have on the lives of southern blacks?
The Plessy v Ferguson case is a clear example as to how far the South went to justify their actions of wrongful racial superiority. Ferguson was of colored decent but did not look it at all; rather, he looked white. He purposely noted himself as black and sat in a chair designated for whites in a bus. At the court case, Judge Henry Brown said that the separation of blacks and whites in public facilities is legal, so long as these facilities are equal in quality. And so, the AfricanAmericans continued to live, well-aware that this separation was wrong, but unable to make a stand as it technically was legal in a wrong sort of way.

Who was W.E.B. DuBois? Where did he live? What did he believe was the best way for southern African-Americans to survive in the South?
There was an civil rights activist against this, however. W.E.B. DuBois was a black social scientist originally living in Georgia. His beliefs regarded that of blacks having to insist continually over a gradual period of time for their own rights. It was that, he believed, would gain eventual reasonable rights between both races.

How many southern blacks escape the South? Where did they go? What was the movement called?
African Americans seemed to only have one remaining option in order to have at least an improvement to their lifestyle: migrate northward to escape the South and the Jim Crow laws there. The North welcomed blacks with open arms and promised them shelter and protection. It was enough to drive them to the North in what was known as the Great Migration.