Essay On Jim Crow Laws

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The Jim Crow Laws and Other Injustices towards Black People ‘Jim Crow’ was a name used for African Americans that derived from a stage performance by a white man named Thomas D. Rice called ‘Jump Jim Crow’, in which he put makeup on his face to appear like an African-American and danced around and sang songs. When Southern legislatures passed laws about so-called inferior races at the end of the 19th century, they were dubbed ‘Jim Crow’ laws. The ‘Jim Crow’ laws were introduced firstly in the southern states of the U.S. but later spread to border states. They essentially denied coloured people of basic human rights and placed them firmly in the category of second class citizen. A few examples of ‘Jim Crow’ laws: ‘ 1. Separate water fountains (the same water fountains for everyone would instil a…show more content…
All persons licensed to conduct the business of selling beer or wine...shall serve either white people exclusively or coloured people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room at any time. 5. Separate schools shall be maintained for the children of the white and colored races.’ In this picture, we see an image of a man with a sign on his chest, hanging from his neck from electrical lines. The sign says ‘This Nigger Voted’. This is a shocking example of racist violence in these times towards coloured voters. The Jim Crow era was an era of struggle, not just for those who suffered violence, cruelty and poverty, but for those who challenged it. Some people simply gave up and moved to the freer Northern states. This led to making conditions for the remaining African- Americans even worse due to fewer voters for pro-black parties. Sometimes they weren’t able to vote for fear of being lynched by racists. People who tried to speak out were threatened with violence. Ida Wells, a newspaper writer, had her offices destroyed for writing an article on anti-lynching and was told to never return back to her home town on pain of
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