Jim Crow Era: Misunderstanding and Inequality

As Harper Lee wrote in To Kill a Mockingbird, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” Many whites were at fault for this, failing to comprehend what they were really doing to the African Americans. The Jim Crow era exemplified how whites disregarded African Americans equality and justice.
Jim Crow began as a black character in musical shows that evolved into cruel laws. “Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws. It was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens” (“The Origins of Jim Crow”). Jim Crow laws were harsh and degrading to the African Americans. Jim

Crow laws legalized segregation between blacks and whites. They were enforced between 1877 and 1968. “From the late 1870s, Southern state legislatures, no longer controlled by carpetbaggers and freedmen, passed laws requiring the separation of whites from “persons of colour” in public transportation and schools” (“Jim Crow law”). They were mainly prominent in the South, but also affected the North. The North had a bit more lenient laws, such as non-segregated schools, that weren’t as rigid as the South.
Jim Crow laws greatly affected black citizens of the United States.

They were put in place to fully separate blacks from whites. “All major societal institutions reflected and supported the oppression of blacks” (“The Origins of Jim Crow”). It became normal to believe that whites were superior and that blacks were to be kept at the bottom of the racial rankings. Blacks were prohibited from anything that implied social equality and were forced to follow or face violence. “Jim Crow states passed statutes severely regulating social interactions between the races” (“The Origins of Jim Crow”). Signs were placed above doors, bathrooms, and any public facility. They were refused the right to vote or make any political decision. Separate prisons, hospitals, schools, beaches, churches and even cemeteries were created. Black facilities also were usually run down and less taken care of. Everything was kept apart, but there were some fighting

it.
There were several significant people during the Jim Crow period. One of the many opponents of the law was Louis A. Martinet. Martinet was “a Creole attorney and doctor who had also founded the Daily Crusader, and he and his newspaper became the leading opponents of the law” (“Jim Crow law”). He wrote about the discrimination in the separate car bill and also got help from lawyers in the North. Martinet tested the law using a mixed light colored black person and arguing the passengers rights to stay in the white car. The case judge disappeared before anything was decided, but another surprising case appeared. “[The case was] Louisiana ex rel. Abbott v. Hicks…a train conductor on the Texas and Pacific Railway had been prosecuted for seating a black passenger in a white car, and the railway argued that since the passenger was traveling between two states, either the Louisiana law did not apply to interstate travel or, if it did, then it was unconstitutional under the commerce clause” (“Jim Crow law”). Miraculously, the Louisiana high court accepted that rules of the Separate Car Act couldn't pertain to interstate passengers. Martinet was just one of the numerous African Americans who believed in their rights and liberty.
Fortunately, Jim Crow laws came to an end in 1963.

President Kennedy first initiated the end of the Jim Crow era. “In 1963, President Kennedy compelled the segregationist governor of Alabama, George Wallace, to integrate the state's university system, a move that signaled the beginning of the end of the Jim Crow era” (Norton). The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, outlawing discrimination because of race, religion, sex, or national origin. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 occurred next, allowing all American citizens to vote. Finally, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 prevented discrimination in sales, rental, and financial aid of homes. Throughout these following five years, no state had the ability to discriminate against an individual due to their

race.
The Jim Crow age illustrated the way whites subjugated African Americans fair rights and laws. Jim Crow laws took over the lives of blacks, dramatically affecting them. Jim Crow was an awful period, a time that many look down upon or try to forget today.