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Reconstruction era after the civil war
Jim crow laws and their effects
Racial Relations during Reconstruction pdf
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In 1863 to 1877 Reconstruction brought an end to slavery, it paved the way for the former slaves to become citizens. The African Americans wanted complete freedom. However, that right became a setback and were seen as second class citizens. Before the end of the Reconstruction, a legislation was passed called the Jim Crow law. The law enforced the segregation of people of African descent. The legislation was a system to ensure the exclusion of racial groups in the Southern States. For example, separate transportation law, school division, different waiting rooms both at the bus terminals and hospitals, separate accommodations, marriage law and voting rights. The Jim Crow law was supposed to help in racial segregation in the South. Instead, …show more content…
it created racial discrimination in the society. The segregation was that, as long as the facilities and services are the same it is equal but should be separate.
The law made the African Americans gave up their seats on buses, streetcars and trains to name a few. A case in point, in 1854 Elizabeth Jennings, a school teacher was the first African American, who fought against racial segregation. Elizabeth and her friend boarded a streetcar, she thought it was her right but thrown off by the conductor (American Hero Channel, 2015). Housing developments had exclusive restriction signs to prevent both parties from trespassing on their premises. The restriction contributed to a social setback. It prevented both blacks, ethnic groups and the white from getting to learn about each other's ways of life. On the other hand, the restriction and segregation was a way to prevent interracial marriages a crime, causing racial discrimination. Religion also played a role in racial discrimination in the South. According to a writer James Bennet in 1877, to 1920 New Orleans, white Methodist church became concerned about segregation in the South in regards to their church activities and establishment (Barker, 345). Although for the Catholics, they were integrated churches. They became worried about segregation in church activities. On the other hand, Bennet stated, the blacks remained equally with the whites in the church and shared the same mass. The whites disliked the idea and introduced segregation (345). However, for these churches segregation was not a religious issue but a social problem. The answer served to the explanation of the establishment of the Jim Crow law, which is segregation in the Southern
States.
Making Whiteness: the culture of segregation in the south, 1890-1940 is the work of Grace Elizabeth Hale. In her work, she explains the culture of the time between 1890 and 1940. In her book she unravels how the creation of the ‘whiteness’ of white Southerners created the ‘blackness’ identity of southern African Americans. At first read it is difficult to comprehend her use of the term ‘whiteness’, but upon completion of reading her work, notes included, makes sense. She states that racial identities today have been shaped by segregation, “...the Civil War not only freed the slaves, it freed American racism
The earliest system of segregation can be found, interestingly enough, not in the South but in the North. This system, “with the backing of legal and extra-legal codes…permeated all aspects of Negro life in the free states by 1860” (Woodward 18). In the North, blacks were separated from whites in nearly every social aspect of their lives: they sat apart from whites in theatres and concert halls, they were often completely excluded from hotels, restaurants, and resorts (unless they entered as workers), worshipped in all black pews or even sometimes in completely black churches. If they intended to receive Communion with the whites, they were forced to wait until the whites had completed the sacrament. They were even buried in separate cemeteries (18-19). It is also interesting, as Woodward notes, that those who opposed the northern system were usually unable to make any headw...
McMillen begins by tracing the roots of segregation in Mississippi beginning with common law and later evolving into state sponsored apartheid with the Plessey v. Ferguson decision and the new state constitution of 1890. The need for separation between the races arose out of feelings of “negrophobia” that overcame the white citizens of the South during the period of Jim Crow. Negrophobia was an overwhelming fear by white males in the South that if the races were in close proximity of each other the savage black men would insult the heavenly virtues of Southern white women. As a result black boys in Mississippi learned at an early age that even smiling at a white woman could prove dangerous. Although segregation was vehemently opposed by Black leaders when it was first instituted, by the 1890’s leaders such as Booker T. Washington began to emphasize self-help over social equality. The fact that Mississippi’s institutions were segregated lead to them being inherently unequal, and without a...
The original edition of The Strange Career of Jim Crow had as its thesis that segregation and Jim Crow Laws were a relative late comer in race relations in the South only dating to the late 1880s and early 1890s. Also part of that thesis is that race relations in the South were not static, that a great deal of change has occurred in the dynamics of race relations. Woodward presents a clear argument that segregation in the South did not really start forming until the 1890s. One of the key components of his argument is the close contact of the races during slavery and the Reconstruction period. During slavery the two races while not living harmoniously with each other did have constant contact with each other in the South. This c...
Although some of Woodward’s peripheral ideas may have been amended in varying capacities his central and driving theme, often referred to as the “Woodward Thesis,” still remains intact. This thesis states that racial segregation (also known as Jim Crow) in the South in the rigid and universal form that it had taken by 1954 did not begin right after the end of the Civil War, but instead towards the end of the century, and that before Jim Crow appeared there was a distinct period of experimentation in race relations in the South. Woodward’s seminal his...
Although many laws were passed that recognized African Americans as equals, the liberties they had been promised were not being upheld. Hoffman, Blum, and Gjerde state that “Union League members in a North Carolina county, upon learning of three or four black men who ‘didn’t mean to vote,’ threatened to ‘whip them’ and ‘made them go.’ In another country, ‘some few colored men who declined voting’ were, in the words of a white conservative, ‘bitterly persecute[ed]” (22). Black codes were also made to control African Americans. Norton et al. states that “the new black codes compelled former slaves to carry passes, observe a curfew, live in housing provided by a landowner, and give up hope of entering many desirable occupations” (476). The discrimination and violence towards African Americans during this era and the laws passed that were not being enforced were very disgraceful. However, Reconstruction was a huge stepping stone for the way our nation is shaped today. It wasn’t pretty but it was the step our nation needed to take. We now live in a country where no matter the race, everyone is considered equal. Reconstruction was a success. Without it, who knows where our nation would be today. African American may have never gained the freedoms they have today without the
The ending of the Civil War sought as a new beginning for many African-Americans who were finally given the freedoms that many had hoped for and the equality between blacks and whites. That hope soon became false when Jim Crow laws were put into place. Through the time period of 1877 to the mid-1960s, Jim Crow laws were operated as the racial caste system primarily in southern and border states in the U.S. (Pilgrim). This system discriminated African-Americans as the status of second-class citizens that was directed under
During the time of reconstruction, the 13th amendment abolished slavery. As the Nation was attempting to pick up their broken pieces and mend the brokenness of the states, former slaves were getting the opportunity to start their new, free lives. This however, created tension between the Northerners and the Southerners once again. The Southerners hated the fact that their slaves were being freed and did not belong to them anymore. The plantations were suffering without the slaves laboring and the owners were running out of solutions. This created tension between the Southern planation owners and the now freed African Americans. There were many laws throughout the North and the South that were made purposely to discriminate the African Americans.
Blacks were discriminated almost every aspect of life. The Jim Crow laws helped in this discrimination. The Jim Crow laws were laws using racial segregation from 1876 – 1965 at both a social and at a state level.
During the reconstruction period, African Americans benefited from the civil rights act of March 1866 and the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment. However, for African Americans in the former confederacy, opportunities were limited as in1865 and 1866 the former confederacy states passed black codes’ a replacement of the former slave codes, which once again forcibly cemented the second-class status of African Americans. The most oppressive of the codes was against vagrancy, ...
Reconstruction was intended to give African-Americans the chance for a new and better life. Many of them stayed with their old masters after being freed, while others left in search of opportunity through education as well as land ownership. However this was not exactly an easy task. There were many things standing in their way, chiefly white supremacists and the laws and restrictions they placed upon African-Americans. Beginning with the 'black codes' established by President Johnson's reconstruction plan, blacks were required to have a curfew as well as carry identification. Labor contracts established under Johnson's Reconstruction even bound the 'freedmen' to their respective plantations. A few years later, another set of laws known as the 'Jim Crow' laws directly undermined the status of blacks by placing unfair restrictions on everything from voting rights all the way to the segregation of water fountains. Besides these restrictions, the blacks had to deal with the Democratic Party whose northern wing even denounced racial equality. As a result of democratic hostility and the Republican Party's support of Black suffrage, freedmen greatly supported the Republican Party.
Although the 13th Amendment ended slavery, it did not solve the problem of unjust treatment towards African Americans. “Jim Crow Laws were laws in the South based on race. They enforced segregation between white people and black people in public places such as schools, transportation, restrooms, and restaurants. They also made it difficult for black people to vote” (“Civil Rights for Kids”). These laws promoted the idea of “separate but equal”. “The name "Jim Crow" comes from an African-American character in a song from 1832. After the song came out, the term "Jim Crow" was often used to refer to African-Americans and soon the segregation laws became known as "Jim Crow" Laws” (“Civil Rights for Kids”). These laws created segregation and made white Americans superior to all other races. The laws were in place for 77 years, but the harsh effects lasted for many years to come.
The Jim Crow system was a post-Reconstruction series of legislation that established legally authorized racial segregation of the African American population of the South soon after the Civil War. The Jim Crow system ended in the 1950s with the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. As Hewitt and Lawson note, “these new statutes denied African Americans equal access to public facilities and ensured that blacks lived apart from whites.”
Jim Crow Laws, enforced in 1877 in the south, were still being imposed during the 1930s and throughout. These laws created segregation between the two races and created a barrier for the Blacks. For example, even though African Americans were allowed to vote, southern states created a literary test exclusively for them that was quite difficult to pass, since most Blacks were uneducated. However, if they passed the reading test, they were threatened with death. Also, they had to pay a special tax to vote, which many African Americans could not afford.
The laws known as “Jim Crow” were laws presented to basically establish racial apartheid in the United States. These laws were more than in effect for “for three centuries of a century beginning in the 1800s” according to a Jim Crow Law article on PBS. Many try to say these laws didn’t have that big of an effect on African American lives but in affected almost everything in their daily life from segregation of things: such as schools, parks, restrooms, libraries, bus seatings, and also restaurants. The government got away with this because of the legal theory “separate but equal” but none of the blacks establishments were to the same standards of the whites. Signs that read “Whites Only” and “Colored” were seen at places all arounds cities.