Jim Crow Laws: The Segregation of the African-American in the United States of the 19th Century
Perhaps one of the most discussed events of the history of the United States is undoubtedly the situation of African-American individuals during the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. From the moment the first black slaves arrived to Virginia in the first part of the 17th century, racism and unjustified violence and hate towards African-American were observed; the southern states of the United States dominated over the slaves market and the African-American were left to be considered less than human and animals.
It wasn't until the late years of the 19th century that the United States were legislated by the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow Laws were a revolution in themselves all the while being a curse; it allowed the White Americans to exert their power over the black population in a…...
mlaBibliography
Berkhalter, Denise L. "Behind the Boycott.," The Crisis (March-April 2006).
Brown, Nikki L.M. And Stentiford Barry. The Jim Crow Encyclopedia: Greenwood Milestones in African-American History. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2008.
Dailey, Jane, Gilmore, Glenda Elizabeth and Simon Bryant. Jumpin' Jim Crow: southern politics from Civil War to civil rights. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Hasday, Judy L. The Civil Rights Act of 1964: An End to Racial Segregation. New York: Chelsea House, 2007.
The optical business and the element of glass here appear once again to depict the domain of whites as superior to what a black person is expected to know and learn.
In Part 3 of the essay, glass appears again in the form of a weapon in the hands of white people. The narrator is hit with an empty whisky bottle by drunk white men who at first appear helpful. Here the element of glass once again depicts injustice and cruelty, as well as the helplessness experienced by the victims. Wright once again submits to the humiliating cruelty of white people.
In Part 9 the narrator is once again employed by an optical company. This time however it is a much larger and more urbanized place of work. Having now learned all the "Jim Crow" lessons he needed to survive in an environment ruled by white people, Wright fits in well.…...
mlaBibliography
Lauter, Paul. The Heath Anthology of American Literature, fourth edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004.
Wolff, Karen. "From Plessy v. Ferguson to Brown v. Board of Education: The Supreme Court Rules on School Desegregation. http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/pubs/A5/wolff.html
Wright, Richard. "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch" in the Best American Essays of the Century edited by Joyce Carol Oates. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.
E.. Duois arose as a prominent voice calling for more direct civil confrontation. It is impossible to judge who was right given the context in which the two sides were working, but an analysis of how history played out reveals both the wisdom and the shortcomings of Washington's approach to equality.
Given that it took half a century following Washington's death for the passage of the Civil Rights Act, especially when it is considered that the type of improvements Washington advocated and brought into existence were immediate in their impact, it is tempting to see his view as the entirely correct one. y receiving a better education, and through this better employment and business opportunities, the African-American community -- or those individuals who participated -- were able to begin carving out a better life for themselves, rather than waiting for equality to do so. This allowed them to build a power…...
mlaBooker T. Washington's philosophy of slow improvement through education and economic opportunities met with a great deal of resistance in the antebellum period, especially around the turn of the century when W.E.B. DuBois arose as a prominent voice calling for more direct civil confrontation. It is impossible to judge who was right given the context in which the two sides were working, but an analysis of how history played out reveals both the wisdom and the shortcomings of Washington's approach to equality.
Given that it took half a century following Washington's death for the passage of the Civil Rights Act, especially when it is considered that the type of improvements Washington advocated and brought into existence were immediate in their impact, it is tempting to see his view as the entirely correct one. By receiving a better education, and through this better employment and business opportunities, the African-American community -- or those individuals who participated -- were able to begin carving out a better life for themselves, rather than waiting for equality to do so. This allowed them to build a power base of middle-class support that was eventually successful in achieving political equality.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, however, was passed as the result of the type of protest and confrontation advocated by DuBois and other of Washington' opponents. It is quite possible that equality would have been achieved sooner with a more consistently vocal demand for it. Still, in the context of the nineteenth century, Washington's approach had more immediate and measurable benefits.
One of the major components of these Jim Crow laws was disenfranchisement which was "largely the work of rural and urban white elites who sought to reassure" whites in the south that white supremacy was the law of the land. As a result, lynching and other forms of violence against blacks were endorsed, encouraged and rationalized in the minds of most southern whites (Rabinowitz, 168). A prominent spokesman against African-American rights and equality was enjamin Tillman, governor of South Carolina from 1890 to 1894. Tillman greatly aided in the disenfranchisement of blacks in the south by requiring Jim Crow laws and in 1990, he proudly announced "We have done out best to prevent blacks from voting and how we could eliminate every one of them... We stuffed ballot boxes and shot them. We are not ashamed of it" (Rabinowitz, 172).
y 1912, a number of black activists, writers and poets had…...
mlaBibliography
Blue, Jennifer. "An Analysis of Jim Crow Laws and Their Effect on Race Relations." Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. Internet. Retrieved at / units/1996/1/96.01.01.x.html.http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum
Rabinowitz, Howard N. The First New South, 1865-1920. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1992.
Civil ights
Jim Crow
Jim Crow laws were a set of "black codes" designed to perpetuate a system of racism and near-slavery for African-Americans, predominantly in the South. The Jim Crow laws existed from the end of the Civil War until the Civil ights movement -- nearly a century. Jim Crow laws represent a clear case of how racism becomes institutionalized. In the case of the Jim Crow laws, racism was embedded into legal and social codes. Jim Crow made it so that slavery never really ended; African-Americans were excluded from participating in economic, social, and political life in America. The Jim Crow laws included those related to segregation of schools and segregation of public spaces. Black people had to drink from different water fountains, eat in different restaurants, and sit in a different part of the bus. Moreover, Jim Crow laws led to the labeling and stigmatizing of African-Americans as criminals.…...
mlaReferences
Brown vs. The Board of Education. Retrieved online: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0347_0483_ZS.html
"Civil Rights Movement." Retrieved online: http://www.history.com/topics/civil-rights-movement
"What Was Jim Crow?" Retrieved online: http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm
Wen e became president troug te assassination of President Kennedy, e not only accepted te civil rigts agenda of President Kennedy but e was successful in passing pivotal legislation. Troug srewd deal making and lobbying of senators e was able to get a bill passed wic proibited segregation in places involved in interstate commerce.
Te following year wen attempts were made to restore voting rigts to blacks in te sout President Jonson again played a critical role. Te televising of te beating of black demonstrators in Selma Alabama created te correct climate for te president to advance te Voting Rigts Act of 1965. Te Voting Rigts Act of 1965 suspended literacy tests in most of te Sout and allowed "federal registrars and marsals to enroll African-American voters." 20 Te combined effect of tese two acts was to render muc of te Jim Crow state laws illegal. Wile some touted tis…...
mlahttp://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/lbjohnson/essays/biography/4
(accessed October 31, 2010)
21. Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973).
Jim Crow referred to a set of racist laws and policies, including grandfather clauses, poll taxes, and voting literacy tests. Jim Crow laws were passed at the state level. For example, the grandfather clauses allowed illiterate whites to avoid the voting literacy tests as well as the poll taxes (“Grandfather Clause”). In addition to Jim Crow, racist whites in the south used extra-legal tactics to terrorize African-Americans into social, economic, and political submission. The KKK and other racist organizations were the most prominent of all extra-legal methods of enforcing racism. Without legal protections, African Americans helped themselves through various self-help methods including migration. Although accommodation was often regarded as a sensible tactic to protect against injustice and racism, radical protest and nationalism were also meaningful and effective responses to empower the black community from within. Often, radical protest and nationalism proved to be the only means to ensure self-empowerment. Formal organizations,…...
Most Americans would be horrified to think that anyone would laugh and joke about another person's agony and suffering as Jed did in the story. A politician who would make the kind of remarks that Jed made could never get elected to office today: "Sorry, but ain't no Christians around tonight. Ain't no Jew-boys neither. We're just one hundred percent Americans" (p. 383). He would be roundly condemned by the entire television-watching nation. The brutality of the story -- the idea of burning a human being alive (and calling it a "party") would be totally obnoxious and impossible to pardon, let alone encourage. The white people in the story have no conscience and are socialized into a system that denies black people their basic humanity. It just couldn't happen today. In general, white people today recognize African-Americans as human beings, not all alike, but each different from the other…...
Jim Crow Laws
Social pathology has been described in many aspects according to the discipline that defines it and one of the definitions that fit a wide range application of this term is definition of social pathology as a social aspect like old age, poverty, crime that tends to heighten the social disorganization and prevents an individual from making personal adjustments to life or actions that they take (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2014). This further makes the next definition that the study of such social behaviors or social problems that views the individual as a diseased condition to be referred to as social pathology. This paper will hence concentrate on the look at Jim Crow and the laws that this system introduced to the prison system after the Civil War and how these laws portrayed social pathology in their implementation, the conditions that were enforced and the consequences of these prison laws.
The segregation…...
mlaReferences
Ferris State University, (2012). What was Jim Crow. Retrieved March 28, 2014 from http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, (2014). Social Pathology: Full Definition of Social Pathology. Retrieved March 28, 2014 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20pathology
Plessy challenged his arrest, maintaining that the railroads use of racially segregated cars violated the Fourteenth Amendment. he Supreme Court disagreed with Plessy's assertion. he Court determined that racial segregation did not imply that Blacks were inferior. Furthermore, the Court found that the facilities provided to Blacks and whites were of equal quality. Because of this, the Court determined that separate but equal facilities did not violate the letter or the spirit of the Fourteenth Amendment. he decision in Plessy helped legalize segregation in the United States. In fact, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Court repeatedly found that the facilities provided for whites and Blacks were equal.
he decision in Plessy was the definitive law on segregation until Brown v. Board of Education. In Brown, the plaintiff alleged that being forced to attend a Black-only school was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because…...
mlaThe decision in Plessy was the definitive law on segregation until Brown v. Board of Education. In Brown, the plaintiff alleged that being forced to attend a Black-only school was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because the Supreme Court had consistently approved racially segregated facilities, the legal team in Brown provided substantial evidence, not only that the facilities provided to Blacks were inferior, but also that these inferior facilities had detrimental effects on Black students. The resulting decision, now referred to as Brown I, was that separate educational facilities were inherently unequal. Unfortunately, the decision in Brown I lost much of its bite the following year, when the Court, in a decision now referred to as Brown II, directed states to comply with the decision in Brown I with all deliberate speed. The reality was that compliance with Brown took many years.
While actual compliance with Brown was not immediate, Brown was significant in that it marked the end of legal segregation. Although Brown was only aimed at overturning school segregation, Brown's effect was much broader. Having decided that school segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court could no longer rubber-stamp other segregationist laws. Brown was followed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which gave teeth to the decision and opened up the door to federal enforcement of state civil rights violations.
Looking at the history of race legislation in the United States, one sees a history of laws that restrict the rights of Blacks, legislation aimed at defeating discrimination, and then retaliatory laws. Currently, the United States is in a period of expanded rights for minorities. However, there have been several incidents of people using laws aimed at correcting the evils of slavery and racial discrimination to promote whites above minorities by claiming reverse discrimination. Even though there is more racial equality in the United States than there has been at any other time in its history, it would be naive to assume that racial equality will continue to grow without another wave of serious opposition.
Judy Helfand -- Constructing Whiteness
1.) What's your gut reaction?
I was quite surprised with the revelation that Whiteness was not always so clearly defined. I take it for granted that European meant White, if for no other reason than that Europeans look clearly different from Africans or Asians. Helfan's study of Irish experience, in the context of labor relations, is valuable because it reveals deeper socioeconomic dimensions of racial identity.
2.) How were the Irish were first viewed when they arrived to the U.S. In terms of race and what types of jobs did they have?
The Irish were considered, as were most new European immigrants, not quite white because they were of the same socioeconomic situation as black freedmen and Chinese laborers, often taking the same jobs. The Irish arriving in the early 1800s entered the workforce as laborers, working on the canals and railroad and taking on dangerous work "white workers"…...
Vann Woodward and Jim Crow
Evaluating the impact of econstruction social policy on blacks is more controversial due to the issue of segregation. Until the publication of C. Vann Woodward Strange Career of Jim Crow in 1955, the traditional view was that after the gains of econstruction, Conservative Democrats clamped down on the blacks by instituting an extensive system of segregation and disfranchisement (Woodward, 1974). Woodward, however, argued that there was a period of fluidity in race relations between the end of econstruction and the 1890s. Woodward concentrated on de jure segregation rather than de facto segregation, in part because he was influenced by the Brown v. Board of Education decision (1954) and the growing agitation over desegregation. In still another example of current affairs influencing a historian's viewpoint, Woodward wanted to show that segregation was not an irrevocable folkway of Southern life, but actually a rather recent innovation. Despite attacks…...
mlaReferences
Ayers, Edward L.. The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Bell, Derrick A., and Robert J. Haws. The Age of segregation: race relations in the South, 1890-1945: essays. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1978.
Boles, John B., Evelyn Thomas Nolen, and Sanford W. Higginbotham. Interpreting Southern History: Historiographical Essays in Honor of Sanford W. Higginbotham. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987.
Boles, John B., and Bethany L. Johnson. Origins of the new South Fifty Years Later: The Continuing Influence of a Historical Classic. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003.
Reconstruction: Successes and FailuresReconstruction after the Civil War was a mixed bag of successes and failures. If its primary aim was reintegration of the South into the US, it could be said to be a success. The problem with Reconstruction is that the architects of Reconstruction were themselves divided about how it should proceed. The Radicals wanted vengeance, whereas Lincoln (before he was murdered) called for forgiveness. The US government under Johnson was torn between trying to implement Lincolns vision and trying to appease the very vocal Radicals more or less calling for blood. On top of all this were very real social concerns, like voting rights, equality, and Jim Crow laws (the Black Codes).Although the Reconstruction succeeded in abolishing slavery through the 13th Amendment, it did not do much to establish actual civil rights for blacks. Indeed, racist Black Codes and sharecropper agreements (which basically kept all the negatives…...
New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow, is a professor at Union Theological Seminary, a New York Times columnist, and civil rights lawyer and advocate. I believe that the motive she had in writing her book was to explain how Jim Crow still exists in America even though people sometimes choose not to see it. It exists today in hidden and not-so-hidden ways, as it is part of the power structure that still dominates America. The prison industrial complex is just one example of how Jim Crow still exists, as Alexander shows. Her aim is to draw attention to the mass incarceration system that is based on racial prejudice and unite people to oppose it: “If we want to do more than just end mass incarceration—if we want to put an end to the history of racial caste in America—we must lay down our racial bribes,…...
Slavery by Another Name\\\"Slavery by another name\\\" refers to the exploitation and subjugation of African-Americans in the United States following the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. This period, from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 until the Civil Rights Movement, saw such practices as sharecropping, convict leasing, the Black Codes, and Jim Crow laws, which perpetuated a system of racial segregation and discrimination.or instance, as the documentary showed, in the economic realm, sharecropping trapped many African-Americans in a cycle of debt and dependency. They rented land to farm, but the high costs and low crop prices often meant they ended up owing more to the landowner at the end of the year than they made. Convict leasing was another form of exploitation, where black prisoners were leased out to work in private industries under brutal conditions.Politically, poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses restricted African-American voting rights. These…...
mlaFor instance, as the documentary showed, in the economic realm, sharecropping trapped many African-Americans in a cycle of debt and dependency. They rented land to farm, but the high costs and low crop prices often meant they ended up owing more to the landowner at the end of the year than they made. Convict leasing was another form of exploitation, where black prisoners were leased out to work in private industries under brutal conditions.Politically, poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses restricted African-American voting rights. These conditions disenfranchised them and put a cap on their political power. The Supreme Court\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) also upheld racial segregation under the \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"separate but equal\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" doctrine, further perpetuating the racism. Socially and culturally, the Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation in public spaces, while racial stereotypes were perpetuated in popular culture. The fear of lynching and the enforcement of racial etiquette norms reinforced the racial hierarchy and the oppression of African-Americans.All these practices indicate a profound continuity of racial subjugation and discrimination, suggesting that while the institution of slavery was abolished, its legacy has persisted in different forms. This implies that the constitutional design and historical development of the U.S. system allowed for these forms of racial injustice to persist, pointing to the importance of continual critical examination and reform. This is evident, too, in the documentary \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"13th,\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" which refers to the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"except as a punishment for crime.\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" The documentary shows how this clause has been exploited to perpetuate a system of mass incarceration that disproportionately affects African-Americans. Cleary some reforms still need to happen.
In turn-of-the-century America, there were some major civil rights advances for some groups, while other groups saw no advances in their civil rights and even saw advances that had been made begin to erode. The time period was well after the end of the Reconstruction era and the beginning of Jim Crow laws, the rise of the suffragette movement, and a continued assault on rights for Native Americans. There was also a significant increase in anti-Asian discrimination. Here are some suggested titles and thesis statements for an essay about civil rights in this era.
Essay Title....
1. The Impact of Plessy V. Ferguson on Civil Rights
2. Plessy V. Ferguson: A Landmark Supreme Court Case
3. Segregation and Equality: Plessy V. Ferguson
4. The Long-Term Effects of Plessy V. Ferguson
5. Plessy V. Ferguson and the Fight for Racial Equality
6. Examining the Justification of Separate But Equal in Plessy V. Ferguson
7. Plessy V. Ferguson: A Turning Point in American History
8. Plessy V. Ferguson and the Legalization of Segregation
9. The Legacy of Plessy V. Ferguson in Modern Society
10. Plessy V. Ferguson: A Lesson in Judicial Interpretation and Civil Rights.
11. The Role of Plessy V. Ferguson in Shaping Jim Crow Laws
12. Plessy....
I. Introduction
A. Hook: Begin with a captivating statement or question that introduces the novel, "The Nickel Boys."
B. Thesis Statement: Clearly state the main argument or insight you will explore, such as: "This essay will analyze the themes of racial injustice, intergenerational trauma, and the power of resilience in Colson Whitehead's 'The Nickel Boys' through the lens of critical race theory."
II. Body Paragraph 1: Racial Injustice
A. Cite specific examples from the text that demonstrate the systemic racism faced by the protagonist, Elwood Curtis, and the other boys at the Nickel Academy.
B. Analyze how Whitehead uses literary devices such as symbolism and....
Moral Disobedience: A Catalyst for Societal Transformation
Moral disobedience, the willful violation of established societal rules and expectations based on a belief in their immorality, has long been a powerful force for positive change. Throughout history, individuals and groups have defied unjust laws and norms to challenge the status quo and advance social progress.
Challenging Societal Norms
Moral disobedience inherently challenges societal norms by questioning their legitimacy and exposing their flaws. When individuals refuse to comply with practices they deem harmful or unjust, they break the cycle of passive acceptance and force society to confront the underlying values and assumptions.
For example, the Civil....
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