The Jim Crow Era

Today, African Americans are still unequal economically, exhibiting how the pursuit of democracy remains incomplete. The origin of this inequality can be traced back to the “Jim Crow” Era. From 1939 to 1959, the average African American made from 44% to 59% of what the average white worker made. Meaning that the average African American salary was about half of the average white salary. An imbalance that resulted in large economic inequality. With more money the white population was able to pay for more luxurious houses and items, as well as better schooling. This led to two main results. First, class based housing became based on race, where white citizens lived in rich suburbs and African Americans lived in poor ghettos. Not only did this

The cause of this inequality can be traced to the “Jim Crow” Era similar to how economic inequality can. In 1900, .8% of African Americans held positions of power, compared to 6.9% of white people. This inequality within the political system resulted in African American voices often going unheard and underrepresented due to lack of political diversity, limiting democracy. This imbalance of power can be attributed to three main factors, the unbalanced education system that produced a white population more adept to run for office, the white population having more money to run campaigns and sway legislature, and racial predispositions. This political imbalance continued into the election process when white lawmakers created poll tests designed to prevent African Americans from voting. These tests exploited the educational gap between the races, by testing a person’s literacy. White voters often received extremely easy questions and had no issue answering them. While African American voters received harder questions, which most people of any race could not answer, and even if they got the questions correct, the administrator still often said the answers were incorrect, preventing the person to vote. The racial inequality of the voting process further restricted American democracy because it removed part of the population's

Ferguson, these laws were ignored. This resulted in unfair arbitrary segregation, creating an imbalance of education, which developed into economic and political inequality, and added to the feeling of white supremacy, ultimately contracting American democracy. While eventually the ruling was overturned by Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, respectively ending segregation of schools, segregation entirely, and voting restrictions, the damage had already been done. Similarly to how the end of slavery was graciously welcomed by the slaves, they still had to face the stigmas and hardships it created. Mid-20th Century African Americans were thankful for these rulings, but permanent evil had already been created, in the form of racial prejudices and white supremacy that would continue to create inequality between the races, and therefore continue to restrict democracy. The lone dissenting judge, Justice John Marshall Harlan, stated that the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling would “prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case” and he could not have been more correct. This case had lasting implications that have caused America to regress at least 68 years. The result being that America has yet to achieve the democratic ideal it was founded on and falsely defines itself with, but instead