Jim Crow Laws: Racial Segregation Laws

Jim Crow Laws were government-enforced racial segregation laws that existed with the purpose of dehumanizing, alienating and discriminating black people and other people of color. Jim Crow Laws were formed from 1876 to 1965, and existed on the premise of a “separate but equal” status for black people and white people, although they did not carry this idea out, and were violently racist. The name “Jim Crow” comes from a blackface minstrel show made in 1830, and became a derogatory term for African American people (http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/who.htm). The concepts of inequality held by Jim Crow Laws are in many ways still present through institutionalized racism. Jim Crow Laws and the time period they existed in are important for historical understanding because they are key examples of anti-black and general, all-around racism and segregation. Jim Crow Laws came into existence after the Civil War ended. In 1865, the 13th amendment outlawed slavery. Soon after, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and Andrew Johnson entered presidency. Johnson’s policies for the “Reconstruction period” that immediately followed the end of the Civil War were in favor of the white southerners, and they regained power in …show more content…
Laws existed preventing black people and white people eating in the same room in a restaraunt, using the same entrances to hospitals, the same bathroom facilities, the same water fountains, having school within a mile of each other, living in the same homes. If schools were not segregated, they would not be provided with government funding. All parks and recreational areas were required to be segregated, varying by state. Laws also existed to prevent people of color from marrying white people and voting, along with other basic human rights