Jim Crow Laws Facts & Worksheets

Several American states used Jim Crow Laws, named after an African-American character in minstrel shows, to impose segregation from the 1880s until the 1960s. The most prevalent regulations prohibited marrying and required private and governmental entities to keep their African-American and White consumers apart.

See the fact file below for more information on Jim Crow Laws, or you can download our 28-page Jim Crow Laws worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

ETYMOLOGY

• The term Jim Crow Laws first occurred in print in 1884 in a newspaper article describing a legislative hearing. It next appears in the title of a New York Times article regarding Louisiana’s requirement for segregated railroad cars in 1892.
• The 1828 performance of ‘Jump Jim Crow’ by White performer Thomas D. Rice, a song and dance caricature of African-American people, is frequently cited as the inspiration for the term ‘Jim Crow.’
• Due to Rice’s notoriety, the term ‘Jim Crow’ evolved into a derogatory term for African-Americans by 1838. Jim Crow Laws were created when Southern governments enacted racial segregation laws against African-Americans at the end of the 19th century.

DISENFRANCHISEMENT AFTER THE RECONSTRUCTION ERA

• The Thirteenth Amendment was proposed and ratified in the United States (U.S.) on December 1865. This amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery in the U.S. 
• Between 1865 through 1877, commonly referred to as the Reconstruction Era, federal laws in the U.S. guaranteed civil rights protection for freedmen, formerly enslaved people, and the minority of African-Americans in the South who had enjoyed freedom before the war.
• As violent insurgent paramilitary organizations like White League, Ku Klux Klan, and Red Shirts disrupted Republican organizing, drove Republican officeholders out of town, and lynched African-American voters as a form of intimidation to suppress the African-American vote in the 1870s, Democrats gradually regained control of the Southern legislatures.
• There was also a lot of voter fraud. The Republican administrative and representational authority in coastal North Carolina was once violently ousted by a direct revolution or uprising. Those responsible were either pursued or tormented.
• Gubernatorial elections had been contentious in Louisiana for years, with increased violence against African-Americans during campaigns beginning in 1868.
• Throughout the 1880s, African-American people continued to be elected to municipal posts in communities with sizable African-American populations, but their right to vote in state and federal elections was repressed.
• States established legislation restricting voter registration and election procedures, which led to a decline in political involvement among many low-income White people and most African-Americans.
• Ten of the eleven former Confederate states, starting with Mississippi, passed new constitutions or amendments between 1890 and 1910 that, through a combination of poll taxes, literacy, and comprehension tests, residency and record-keeping requirements, and other measures, effectively disenfranchised the majority of African-Americans and tens of thousands of poor White people.
• Between 1896 and 1904, African-American voters in North Carolina were removed entirely from the voter registers due to the cumulative effect. 
• Tens of thousands of low-income White people in Alabama also lost their voting rights, despite early legislative assurances that they wouldn’t suffer from the new limitations.
• Between 1910 through the 1920s, some towns in Texas passed ordinances requiring residential segregation. 
• Water fountains and restrooms had to be separated according to legal requirements. The Republican Lily-white movement also supported the exclusion of African-Americans.

RACISM IN THE U.S.

• After slavery was abolished, white Southerners struggled to learn how to manage free labor, and they hated African-Americans because they symbolized the Confederacy’s defeat in the Civil War: “With white supremacy being challenged throughout the South, many whites sought to protect their former status by threatening African-Americans who exercised their new rights.”
• White Southerners used their influence to enact legal segregation of public venues and amenities to reestablish their social supremacy over African-American people in the South.
• African-Americans were often excluded from southern public life for several reasons, one for the safety of the White people.
• According to a scholar from the early 20th century, allowing African-American students to attend White schools would mean constantly subjecting them to adverse feelings and opinions, resulting in a morbid race consciousness.
• This viewpoint assumed anti-African-American feelings to be commonplace since racism was pervasive in the South when slavery evolved into a racial caste system.
• Scientific racism and inaccurate conceptions about African-Americans were used as justifications for White supremacy.

DECLINE AND REMOVAL

• William Chafe, a historian, has studied how African-Americans evolved defense mechanisms to combat the worst aspects of Jim Crow, including the judicial system, unequal economic power, intimidation, and psychological pressure.
• According to Chafe, ‘protective socialization by African-American people themselves’ was developed within the community to meet restrictions by Whites while covertly inciting resistance to such conditions.
• Some all-African-American communities, like Ruthville, Virginia, and Mound Bayou, Mississippi, served as sources of inspiration and pride for African-American society. 
• Pushback and open rejection of the restrictive laws in place intensified, reaching a boiling point in the forceful, widespread activism of the civil rights movement in the 1950s.

Brown v. Board of Education

• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality.
• The ruling overturned the Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson judgment from 1896, which determined that racial segregation laws did not violate American law. The doctrine of the Constitution was known as ‘separate but equal’ as long as the facilities for each race were of comparable quality.

• The Court’s ruling in Brown opened the door for integration and was a significant victory for the civil rights movement, and served as a template for numerous more impact litigation cases in the subsequent years.

Collegiate Sports

• In the 1950s and 1960s, integrating all-white collegiate sports teams was a top priority in the South. Racism, equality, and the alumni demand for the best players necessary to win high-profile games were all factors. 
• The Southeast’s leading group of state institutions is the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). They began by setting up integrated North teams first.

Public Arena

• In Montgomery, Alabama 1955, Rosa Parks resisted giving up her seat on a city bus to a White man. Activists centered the Montgomery bus boycott on Parks’ act of civil disobedience, which lasted for more than a year and resulted in the desegregation of the privately run city buses. This act of civil disobedience was chosen symbolically as a crucial catalyst in the growth of the post-1954 civil rights movement.
• This had happened before. Nine months before the Rosa Parks incident, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin had done the same thing.

JIM CROW LAWS

END OF LEGAL SEGREGATION

• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed by Congress after overcoming Southern filibusters in a bipartisan manner, ending segregation. 
• The significant developments were made possible in 1954–1965 by an unanticipated complex combination of causes.

• The civil rights movement, notably the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) led by Martin Luther King Jr., was much more significant in rallying the rights of African-Americans. 
• In taking on leadership responsibilities, it virtually replaced the previous, far more moderate version of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). A group of anti-apartheid founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909 as an interracial initiative to pursue justice for African-Americans. Ida B. Wells, Moorfield Storey, Mary White Ovington, and W.E. B. Du Bois.
• In an era when network television news was a groundbreaking and widely observed phenomenon, Luther King led sizable demonstrations that attracted sizable media attention.
• Voting restrictions for all federal, state, and local elections were abolished by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Federal oversight and surveillance of counties with historically low minority voter turnout were also available. 
• To ensure that voters could elect the candidates of their choice, years of enforcement were required to overcome resistance, and new legal challenges brought to the courts. 
• For instance, several cities and counties adopted at-large council member elections, which frequently diluted minority votes and prevented the election of politicians supported by minorities.

IMPACT OF THE JIM CROW LAWS

• During the first half of the 20th century, the Jim Crow laws and the high number of lynchings in the South were significant causes of the Great Migration. 
• African-Americans migrated to cities in the Northeastern, Midwestern, and Western states for better living because opportunities were extremely scarce in the South.
• During the Jim Crow era, African-American athletes experienced much prejudice, and White opposition led to their exclusion from most organized sporting events.

Jim Crow Laws Worksheets

This fantastic bundle includes everything you need to know about Jim Crow Laws across 28 in-depth pages. These ready-to-use worksheets are perfect for teaching kids about Jim Crow Laws. Several American states used Jim Crow Laws, named after an African-American character in minstrel shows, to impose segregation from the 1880s until the 1960s.

1. Jim Crow Laws Facts
2. What’s in a Law?
3. Educational Segregation
4. Doctrine
5. Source Analysis
6. Positive or Negative?
7. Racism? Or Not?
8. Effects of Racism
9. Your Choice
10. Cyber Racism
11. Propaganda Poster

Frequently Asked Questions

What were Jim Crow laws?

Jim Crow laws were a set of state and local laws enacted in the United States between the late 19th century and the mid-20th century. These laws enforced racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans, primarily in the Southern states. The laws mandated racial separation in public facilities, such as schools, parks, transportation, and accommodations.

When were Jim Crow laws in effect?

Jim Crow laws were in effect primarily from the late 1800s to the mid-1960s. The term “Jim Crow” originated from a racial caricature character portrayed by a white actor in the 19th century, and it became synonymous with racial segregation and oppression during this era.

What were some examples of Jim Crow laws?

Examples of Jim Crow laws include separate schools for African American and white students, segregated seating on buses and trains, separate restrooms, water fountains, and waiting areas for African Americans, and bans on interracial marriage. These laws enforced racial separation and created a system of inequality and disenfranchisement.

How did Jim Crow laws affect African Americans?

Jim Crow laws had a profound and detrimental impact on African Americans. These laws institutionalized racial discrimination and segregation, denying African Americans access to equal opportunities, education, voting rights, and public resources. They enforced a social hierarchy that perpetuated racial inequality, restricted economic mobility, and fostered a climate of fear and intimidation.

When did Jim Crow laws start to decline?

The decline of Jim Crow laws began in the mid-20th century, largely due to the Civil Rights Movement and legal challenges. In 1954, the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 further dismantled legal segregation and discriminatory practices, marking significant steps toward racial equality and the end of Jim Crow laws.

Link/cite this page

If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source.

<a href="https://kidskonnect.com/history/jim-crow-laws/">Jim Crow Laws Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com</a> - KidsKonnect, May 12, 2017

Link will appear as Jim Crow Laws Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, May 12, 2017