The Benefits Of Jim Crow Laws

Holly Harris

Ms. Mihata

English 8/B Blue

January 21, 14

A Law: a regulation, an enactment, act, bill, or rule. Society requires we follow these for our benefit. However, say more than ten percent of the population is separated from the privileges of others purely based off appearances… How could this possibly benefit society if society includes these 20 million people being exploited by an unjust law? In the United States, beginning in 1896, our Supreme Court developed a set of laws mistreating equal men and women. These rules, known as Jim Crow Laws, represented the concept of “separate, but equal” in terms of black and white races. They were applied in every situation, even the activities that are meant to bring all kinds of different people together and share in a competition that unites us all as one: sports. However a few players stood out in this era, standing up for the rights they deserved as citizens of the United States, in spite of what the laws proclaimed. Bill Russell, Jackie Robinson, Wilma Rudolph, along with countless other resilient athletes showed the nation they would not settle for the restrictions limiting their freedom in both sports and the tough lives they have lived, paving a way for the integration for sports in the United States with the one thing they knew and loved best: the game.

First, Bill Russell, the first African American National Basketball Association player to attain superstar standing, encountered a serious amount of discrimination from people battling the fact that he was an extraordinary basketball player. Born into a racist community in West Monroe, Louisiana, Russell was lived his entire childhood strictly segregated, causing him to become sensitive to the all racial prejudice which ...

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All in all, Bill Russell, Jackie Robinson, and Wilma Rudolph rejected the name-calling, refused the death threats, and fought through the discrimination to pave the way for the integration of sports today with their phenomenal resilience. Jim Crow laws, harshly separating our country by race, beginning in 1896 didn’t only segregate restaurants and schools, but segregated the right for equal people to play, compete, and learn from each other’s skills. This further proves that the job of a law was not fulfilled if it was meant to benefit society. Laws will never be changed if people don’t stand up for themselves, fight through what stands in their way, and follow their dreams no matter what an unjust law, limiting their freedom and promoting other says is “right”. In Conclusion, it is with resilience why our world continues to move forward every day.