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On-the-Origins-of-jim-crow

Smithsonian National Museum of American History

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1

A white mob mobilizes in Tuscaloosa to block the admission ofAutherine

Lucy to the University of Alabama.

Left Counter-protesting against civil

rights demonstrations, Edward Fields

and Jim Murray, who are members of

the National States Rights Party, hang an

effigy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

outside the party’s headquarters in

Birmingham, AL, May 6, 1963.

Right James Zwerg is beaten

by a white supremacist mob

in Montgomery, AL in 1960

for joining with black

Freedom Riders.

2

Beginning of Jim Crow

By the late 1870s the rule of Southern Reconstruction1 was

coming to an end in the former confederacy. A congressional deal

to elect Ohio Republican Rutherford B. Hayes as President in

1876 included a pledge that Hayes would end Reconstruction in

the South. In fulfilling the pledge, Republicans quietly surrendered

the fight for racial equality and blacks rights in the south. In 1877,

Hayes withdrew the last federal troops from the south, and the

“bayonet-backed” Republican governments collapsed, ending

Southern Reconstruction after twelve years.

With the collapse of the Reconstruction governments in the 1870s,

most white politicians abandoned the cause of protecting African

Americans living in the South. As a consequence, local

governments in the former Confederate states (as well as

neighboring states) constructed a new social and legal system

based on white supremacy. The purpose of the new system was to

replace chattel slavery with a new form of social organization that

could be equally capable of controlling black existence. The new

social system deprived African Americans of their voting and

political rights. It used civil legislation, criminal codes and threats

of mob violence to render black Americans second class citizens,

locking them into an inferior position in a “racial hierarchy” and

separating them from white people in nearly every aspect of life:

social, political, and economic. This white supremacist system of

social control that emerged in the former confederate states after

Reconstruction is known as “Jim Crow.”

1 “Southern Reconstruction” refers to that twelve year period after the

Civil War, from 1865–1877, when the Union army occupied the former confederacy, instituted new governments, and attempted to transform the south—socially, politically, and economically—in line with the abolition of slavery.

3

Legal Authority of Jim Crow

Plessy v. Ferguson

The legal and constitutional authority of Jim Crow segregation

was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1896; this was the case of

Plessy v. Ferguson. In 1890 a new Jim Crow law in Louisiana was

passed that required railroads to provide separate accommodations

for the white and colored races. Outraged, the black community in

New Orleans decided to test the rule. On June 7, 1892, Homer

Plessy agreed to be arrested for refusing to move from a seat

reserved for whites. Judge John H. Ferguson upheld the law, and

the case of Plessy v. Ferguson slowly moved up to the Supreme

Court. On May 18, 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court, with only one

dissenting vote, ruled that segregation in America was

constitutional. In other words, disobeying Jim Crow segregation

constituted criminal activity.

Segregation included, but was not limited to:

Schools and universities

Libraries

Houses and neighborhoods

Employment

Restaurants and grocery stores

Public transportation

Restrooms and water fountains

Bus stops and bus stations

Interstate rest stops and hotels

Jails

Hospitals

Waiting rooms

Swimming pools and water parks

Baseball fields and basketball courts

Public parks and fishing spots

Telephone booths

Theaters and places of entertainment

Cemeteries

4

The fight over civil rights was never just a

southern issue. This ballot is from the race for

governor of Ohio in 1867. Allen Granbery

Thurman’s campaign included the promise of

barring black citizens from voting. He narrowly

lost to future president Rutherford B. Hayes.

Thurman was then appointed United States

Senator for Ohio, where he worked to reverse

many Reconstruction-era civil rights reforms.

The Origin of the Name Jim Crow

“Jim Crow” was the name of a minstrel-show (theater) character,

commonly performed by white men in “black face.” The persona

was first created by Thomas D. Rice as a racist depiction of black

men. By the 1890s the expression “Jim

Crow” was being used to describe those

laws and customs that controlled black

existence, separated black forms of life

from white ones, and restricted the social

contact between whites and others.

The society was anything but “equal.”

Not only did segregation unequally

distribute resources and opportunities to

the advantage of white workers, but the it

reinforced the white supremacist social

hierarchy that had been introduced with

the beginnings of black chattel slavery.

That is, Jim Crow segregation maintained

a hierarchy of human dignity and value,

resulting in the dehumanization of blacks,

in the white consciousness.

Published in New York

in 1839, this Jim Crow

song book shows an

early depiction of “Jim

Crow”: A racist

character intended to

represent blacks as

lazy, stupid, and

inherently less human

than whites,” while

also making black

performance into a

source of “white

entertainment.

5

Taking Away the Vote

Denying black men the right to vote in the late 1800s, through

legal maneuvering and violence, was the first step in eliminating

their civil rights—black women, like most women in the country,

were not allowed to vote until the

passage of the 19th amendment in 1920.

Beginning in the 1890s, southern states

enacted literacy tests, poll taxes, elaborate

registration systems, and eventually whites-

only Democratic Party primaries to exclude

black voters from the political process. In

Mississippi, fewer than 9,000 of the

147,000 voting-age African Americans

were registered after 1890. In Louisiana,

where more than 130,000 black voters had

been registered in 1896, the number had

plummeted to 1,342 by 1904.

Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, strikes a Jim Crow-

esque pose in his music video “This is America.” A “Jim

Crowed” version of Gambino then shoots to death a black

guitarist who has a bag over his head: violence against

blacks and a white obsession with forms of black

entertainment have always have been intertwined.

An effigy hangs

from a street lamp

as a warning to

blacks who may try

vote.

6

While Jim Crow laws were effective at eliminating the black vote,

it was the threat of sadistic violence—against any black assertion

of autonomy or dignity—that ultimately ensured social obedience

to Jim Crow from the south’s black population. This anti-black

violence and intimidation took both organized and non-organized

forms. The “unorganized” forms of white terror refer to the often

spontaneous formations of white lynch mobs that would put entire

black neighborhoods to the flame or lynch a single individual as a

warning to the rest of the black community. The “organized”

forms of white terror activities of the Ku Klux Klan organization

(and other such white nationalist activities) as well as the

completely lawful terror that was enacted by all white police

departments against black bodies: state organizations that used

guns, batons, and, police dogs, and jail cells to punish anyone

(white or black) who refused to obey Jim Crow laws throughout

the south.

Poll Tax Receipt

Poll taxes required citizens to pay a fee to register to vote. These fees kept

many poor African Americans, as well as poor whites, from voting. The poll

tax receipts displayed here is from Alabama.

Birmingham police

enforce Jim Crow laws. 1963

7

The Klan

The Ku Klux Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866.

The purpose of the Klan was to combat Reconstruction reforms

and to intimidate and terrorize African Americans into a

submissive, obedient existence. By 1870 similar organizations

such as the Knights of the White Camelia and the White

Brotherhood had sprung up across the South. Through fear,

brutality, murder, and torture these white

supremacists terror groups helped to

overthrow local, reform-minded

(Reconstruction) governments and restore

white supremacy in the South. The

institution of Jim Crow segregation and

de-humanization was always backed up

by the threat of Klan violence and white

mob terror, which used was routinely

against blacks who transgressed the racial

hierarchy.

By the mid-1920s the Klan was again a

powerful political force in both the South

and the North, spreading hatred against

African Americans, immigrants, Catholics, and

Jews. Klan membership plummeted later in the

decade after a series of scandals involving its

leadership. But by then, the Klan had inflamed

racial hatred and strengthened the political

power of white supremacists in many parts of

the country.

This Ku Klux

Klan robe and

hood date from the

1920s.

8

“20th Century Rhetoric about “State’s Rights”

It Was Always about Segregation

Race, white supremacy, and white privilege have long been central

issues in American politics. At the Democratic presidential

convention in 1948, southern delegates broke with the democratic

party over civil rights and formed the State’s Rights Party. This

was the beginning of Dixiecrats. The democratic nominee for

president was a prominent segregationist: South Carolina governor

Strom Thurmond. Thurmond received more than a million votes

and carried four southern states, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi,

and South Carolina. His campaign sent a clear message to the

nation that the South would not give up segregation without a

fight. And he was right.

Add more about Dixiecrats

Electoral map of south image (before and after)

Eventually the Dixiecrats would join Nixon’s Great Republican

Majority.

9

Some Examples of Jim Crow Segregation Laws

Playing Cards

“It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in

company with each other in any game of cards or dice, dominoes or

checkers.”

—Alabama

Detained by Police

“It shall be unlawful for any white prisoner to be handcuffed or otherwise

chained or tied to a negro prisoner.”

—Arkansas

Cutting hair “No colored barber shall serve as a barber to white women or girls.”

—Georgia

Interracial marriage

“Marriages are void when one party is a white person and the other is

possessed of one-eighth or more negro, Japanese, or Chinese blood.”

—Nebraska

Promotion of Equality

“Any person who shall be guilty of printing, publishing or circulating

printed or written matter urging for or presenting for public acceptance or

general information, arguments or suggestions in favor of social equality

or of intermarriage between whites and negroes, shall be guilty of a

misdemeanor and subject to fine or not exceeding five hundred (500.00)

dollars or imprisonment not exceeding six (6) months or both”

—Mississippi

Schools

“Separate free schools shall be established for the education of children

of African descent; and it shall be unlawful for any colored child to

attend any white school, or any white child to attend a colored school.”

—Missouri

Textbooks

“Books shall not be interchangeable between the white and colored

schools, but shall continue to be used by the race first using them.”

—North Carolina

10

Sidewalks Even sidewalks, by custom or law, were often segregated.

Charles Gratton remembers his experience growing up in segregated

Norwood, Louisiana, where he attended a “colored” school miles from

his home, despite living only a block and a half away from the white

elementary school:

When I got old enough to know myself, uh, to really know I

existed…I mean I was born into this thing, and raised in it…I

can remember very close in my mind when my mother would

have the occasion to send me to this grocery store that was

approximately a mile away, which was the only grocery store

in Norwood. She would give me instructions before I'd leave

home and tell me: "Son, now you going up to the store and get

this or that for me, now if you pass any white people on your

way, you get off the sidewalk. Give them the sidewalk. You

know, you move over. Don't challenge white people.”

Hospital Entrances “There shall be maintained by the governing authorities of every hospital

maintained by the state for treatment of white and colored patients

separate entrances for white and colored patients and visitors, and such

entrances shall be used by the race only for which they are prepared.”

—Mississippi

Teaching

“Any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution

where members of the white and colored race are received and enrolled

as pupils for instruction shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and

upon conviction thereof, shall be fined in any sum not less than ten

dollars ($10.00) nor more than fifty dollars ($50.00) for each offense.”

—Oklahoma

Johnny Gray, 15, punches a white student

during a scuffle in Little Rock, Arkansas, on

June 16, 1958. Johnny and his sister, Mary

(standing behind him), were en route to their

segregated school when the two white boys in

the photo ordered them to get off the sidewalk.

Johnny asserts his rights and his dignity.

11

Pregnancy

“Any white woman who shall suffer or permit herself to be got with child

by a negro or mulatto...shall be sentenced to the penitentiary for not less

than eighteen months.”

—Maryland

Burial

“The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored

persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons.”

—Georgia

Railroads

“All railroads carrying passengers in the state (other than street railroads)

shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and

colored races, by providing two or more passenger cars for each

passenger train, or by dividing the cars by a partition, so as to secure

separate accommodations.”

—Tennessee

A group of young white

boys harass the Baker

family, the first black

family to move into an

all-white neighborhood

in Folcroft, Penn. 1963

A 7-year-old child in

full Ku Klux Klan

robes participates in a

KKK rally on April 14,

1956.

12

Fishing “Boating, and Bathing: The [Conservation] Commission shall have the

right to make segregation of the white and colored races as to the

exercise of rights of fishing, boating and bathing.”

—Oklahoma

Telephone booths “The Corporate Commission is hereby vested with power to require

telephone companies in the State of Oklahoma to maintain separate

booths for white and colored patrons when there is a demand for such

separate booths.”

—Oklahoma

Housing “Any person…who shall rent any part of any such building to a negro

person or a negro family when such building is already in whole or in

part in occupancy by a white person or white family, or vice versa when

the building is in occupancy by a negro person or negro family, shall be

guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a

fine of not less than twenty-five ($25.00) nor more than one hundred

($100.00) dollars or be imprisoned not less than 10, or more than 60

days, or both such fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court.”

—Louisiana

Roy Lee Howlett, 14, stands beside a car painted with

signs protesting the desegregation of Mansfield High

School in Dallas. 1956

13

Child Custody “It shall be unlawful for any parent, relative, or other white person in this

State, having the control or custody of any white child, by right of

guardianship, natural or acquired, or otherwise, to dispose of, give or

surrender such white child permanently into the custody, control,

maintenance, or support of a negro.”

—South Carolina

Theaters “Every person…operating…any public hall, theatre, opera house, motion

picture show or any place of public entertainment or public assemblage

which is attended by both white and colored persons, shall separate the

white race and the colored race and shall set apart and designate…certain

seats therein to be occupied by white persons and a portion thereof, or

certain seats therein, to be occupied by colored persons.”

—Virginia

Nurses “No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse

in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro

men are placed.”

—Alabama

Billiards “It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in

company with each other at any game of pool or billiards.”

—Alabama

Restaurants

“All persons licensed to conduct a restaurant, shall serve either white

people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the

two races within the same room or serve the two races anywhere under

the same license.”

—Georgia

Amateur Baseball “It shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball

on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground

devoted to the Negro race. It shall be unlawful for any amateur colored

baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond.”

—Georgia

14

Parks “It shall be unlawful for colored people to frequent any park owned or

maintained by the city for the benefit, use and enjoyment of white

persons…and unlawful for any white person to frequent any park owned

or maintained by the city for the use and benefit of colored persons.”

—Georgia

Wine and Beer

“All persons licensed to conduct the business of selling beer or

wine…shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people

exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room at

any time.”

—Georgia

Circus Tickets

“All circuses, shows, and tent exhibitions, to which the attendance

of…more than one race is invited or expected to attend shall provide for

the convenience of its patrons not less than two ticket offices with

individual ticket sellers, and not less than two entrances to the said

performance, with individual ticket takers and receivers, and in the case

of outside or tent performances, the said ticket offices shall not be less

than twenty-five (25) feet apart.”

—Louisiana

15

“Any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution where members of the white and colored race are received and enrolled as pupils for instruction

shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined in any sum not less than ten dollars ($10.00) nor more than fifty dollars ($50.00) for

each offense.”

—Oklahoma

“No colored barber shall serve as a barber to white women or girls.”

—Atlanta, Georgia