Jim Crow Laws Thesis

Thesis Statement: With Jim Crow laws in effect, they have guaranteed African-Americans discrimination based on the color of their skin, ignorance of their given rights, and lack of acknowledgement for their successes.

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

the authority of high governing Whites and represented anti-black racism. Many Whites came up with the belief that African-Americans “were innately intellectually and culturally inferior” towards them (Pilgrim). In many newspapers, African-Americans were often coined by derogatory names and anti-black stereotypes and portrayed as inferior beings in children’s games (Pilgrim). Jim Crow laws coincided with segregation between Whites and African-Americans, along with many other colored ethnicities. Segregation occurred roughly thirty years before Jim Crow laws came about and was directly after Reconstruction ended. The White majority imposed many restrictions-such as segregating schools, train cars, restaurants-that ultimately segregated southern society (Chemheritage). This practice was primarily used to stop would-be integration between races as many Whites believed that if interracial relationships were to develop between the two races, it would create a “mongrel race” that would “destroy America” (Pilgrim). That statement would ultimately be false since, but the beliefs of Whites to keep African-Americans at the bottom of the racial hierarchy were held high. The discrimination of African-Americans based on the color of their skin was just one of the obstacles that many of them had to go through from Jim Crow laws.