Tenzin Namdul
HIU 310
Professor Andrew Robertson
Jim Crow, what is it? Or who is it? Jim Crow may sound like a person’s name but it is the racial law that segregated among the blacks and whites and it arose after Reconstruction that ended in 1877 and continued until the mid 1960s. Jim Crow laws were primarily seen in southern and border states. The African Americans were always looked down upon as second class citizens. The whites thought that they were superior to blacks in all ways and even after Slavery ended in 1865 with the South’s defeat in Civil War, slavery had not completely ended. How did the name “Jim Crow” come into existence in the first place? The term “Jim Crow” originated from a minstrel show that was staged by Thomas …show more content…
This law made it illegal for blacks to sit in seats reserved for the whites and the whites not allowed in the black’s reserves seat. However, in 1892, a man named Homer Plessy decided to board the “whites only” car on the Louisana train. Plessy was a 30 year old man, who was a shoemaker, and was 1/8th black and 7/8th white; he was still considered black under Louisiana’s law and under the state’s 2 year separate car act, train conductors were trained to ask the passengers, “Are you a colored man?”. Plessy answers, yes, and he is ordered to transfer to the “colored car” but when he refuses, he is arrested and put to jail. Plessy went to the court and argued his case and that it violated the thirteenth; abolishment of slavery and fourteenth amendments to the constitution; absolute equality of two races before the law. Eventually in 1896, four years after the incident, the case went to the U.S.Supreme Court after Plessy was found guilty of violating the separate car law in both city and state courts. However, the US Supreme Court also found Plessy guilty; the judge’s name was John Howard Ferguson, hence the name, “Plessy vs. Ferguson”. This decision by the judge came to be known as “separate but equal” principle and it deeply affected the everyday lives of the people of the
HIU 310
Professor Andrew Robertson
Jim Crow, what is it? Or who is it? Jim Crow may sound like a person’s name but it is the racial law that segregated among the blacks and whites and it arose after Reconstruction that ended in 1877 and continued until the mid 1960s. Jim Crow laws were primarily seen in southern and border states. The African Americans were always looked down upon as second class citizens. The whites thought that they were superior to blacks in all ways and even after Slavery ended in 1865 with the South’s defeat in Civil War, slavery had not completely ended. How did the name “Jim Crow” come into existence in the first place? The term “Jim Crow” originated from a minstrel show that was staged by Thomas …show more content…
This law made it illegal for blacks to sit in seats reserved for the whites and the whites not allowed in the black’s reserves seat. However, in 1892, a man named Homer Plessy decided to board the “whites only” car on the Louisana train. Plessy was a 30 year old man, who was a shoemaker, and was 1/8th black and 7/8th white; he was still considered black under Louisiana’s law and under the state’s 2 year separate car act, train conductors were trained to ask the passengers, “Are you a colored man?”. Plessy answers, yes, and he is ordered to transfer to the “colored car” but when he refuses, he is arrested and put to jail. Plessy went to the court and argued his case and that it violated the thirteenth; abolishment of slavery and fourteenth amendments to the constitution; absolute equality of two races before the law. Eventually in 1896, four years after the incident, the case went to the U.S.Supreme Court after Plessy was found guilty of violating the separate car law in both city and state courts. However, the US Supreme Court also found Plessy guilty; the judge’s name was John Howard Ferguson, hence the name, “Plessy vs. Ferguson”. This decision by the judge came to be known as “separate but equal” principle and it deeply affected the everyday lives of the people of the