Jim Crow laws made racism legal

The term originated with a traveling show in which a white man imitated stereotypes of African Americans. Later, that name was used in society. For instance, special railroad car on trains were for blacks only and were called “Jim Crow Cars.” This became the standard term for laws and acts designed to promote segregation and disfranchisement of African Americans.

Like slavery before it, people started to reject these ideas. Twain wrote Huck Finn in the 1880s, in part, as a response to the south’s effort to limit economic and physical freedom of freed slaves.

State sanctioned laws, beatings, mob violence, and lynching persisted through the Civil Rights movement in the 50s and 60s. Supreme court said the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional, a law that stated: “That all persons…shall be entitled to full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other public amusement.” Again the Supreme Court, in 1896, said in Plessy v. Ferguson that equal accommodations, even if separate, are just fine. Adding that “separate but equal” accommodations did not stamp the “colored race with a badge of inferiority.”

With government approval, all were free to limit where blacks could vote, eat, drink, socialize and educate.

For more information and images, watch the video below about the Jim Crow Museum