Historical Background

Jim Crow, or segregation, laws of the late 19th and early 20th centuries effectively divided the Ameri-can South into black and white in almost every as-pect of public life. The laws codified practices that had developed over many decades during and after slavery, and the laws made the custom of racial separation much more rigid. Jim Crow laws ex-tended to restaurants, hotels, theaters, bus stations, parks, public restrooms and drinking fountains, public schools, and the United States military.

The term Jim Crow grew out of nineteenth-century minstrelsy and was first applied to segre-gated facilities in the pre-Civil War North. While there is evidence of the passage of some scattered Jim Crow laws in the South during Reconstruction, segregation enforced by law did not immediately replace slavery in the aftermath of emancipation. During the 1870s and 1880s, however, states be-gan to pass Jim Crow laws, with one of the first passed by Tennessee in 1875. By 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” did not violate the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Jim Crow placed a stigma on African Americans and promoted the idea that they were second-class citizens. At the same time, however, Jim Crow encouraged black entrepreneurship and a strong sense of community within black schools and neighborhoods. In sum, though, the costs of Jim Crow far outweighed any benefits. Civil Rights leaders began their effort to dismantle segregation by focusing on the inequality between black and white schools in the South. The Civil Rights move-ment finally brought an end to segregation by law with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS

Students today often have a difficult time under-standing Jim Crow laws and their pervasiveness a century ago. You can find a wide variety of sources on the Library of Congress Web site to illustrate the presence of segregated facilities, schools, and businesses in American history. You can use these sources to initiate class discussion around this difficult topic.

Begin by having students analyze the sources looking for evidence of Jim Crow. Discuss these questions together: Are there more images that designate “colored” places or “white” places? If a facility did not have a sign, what do you think it was assumed to be, and how would that have sug-gested a distinction between the races? How might each example of Jim Crow have influenced an individual, both black and white? Did “colored” facilities always appear inferior to “white” facilities? What benefits might some Af-rican Americans have found in separate facilities? What would have been some of the practical costs to communities of enforcing Jim Crow? How do the signs make you feel today?

Negro drinking at "Colored" water cooler

in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Ok-

lahoma [1939 July]

Teaching with Primary Sources — MTSU

PRIMARY SOURCE SET: JIM CROW IN

AMERICA

Jim Crow [Between 1835 & 1845]

Supreme Court of

the United States

Plessy v. Ferguson

[1896]

To the Colored

Men of Voting

Age in the

Southern States

[190?]

Jump Jim Crow [between 1966 and 1968]

Click here for an audio recording.

LINKS

A guide to Harlem Renaissance material

PBS Rise and Fall of Jim Crow: Games and Activities

Today in History: The Fourteenth Amendment

Political Cartoon Analysis Guide

Race Relations in the 1930s and 1940s

A timeline of African American History

TPS-MTSU Newsletter June 2017

Atlanta Exposition Speech [1895]

Tuskegee History Class [1902]

Washington, Booker Taliaferro

[1903]

Alabama Hall,

Tuskegee In-

stitute, Ala

[1906]

President Roosevelt and Booker Washington reviewing the 61

"industry" floats, Tuskegee, Ala [1906]

Flag announcing lynching, flown from the win-dow of the NAACP head-quarters on 69 Fifth Ave., New York City [1938]

Report of Anti-Lynching Com-

mittee [January 21, 1921]

Lynch law in Geor-gia :a six-weeks' record in the center of southern civiliza-tion, as faithfully chronicled by the Atlanta journal and the Atlanta constitu-tion [1899]

The broad ax (Salt Lake City, Utah)

[1922]

Ida B. Wells in The Topeka State Journal. NIGHT ADDITION, [1895]

Zora Neale Hurston

[1938 April 3]

Listen Here

Bessie Smith

“Wasted Life

Blues” Manuscript

copy [1929]

The Memphis Blues [1913]

Drafts of Lang-ston Hughes’s

Poems “Ballad of Booker

T.” [1941]

Duke and his group on

the cover of Down Beat

Magazine [1946]

Listen Here

Portrait of Louis Armstrong, between 1938 and 1948 [1938]

Click for more on Armstrong

Negro carrying

sign in front of

milk company

[1941]

Apartment building in Negro section of Chicago,

Illinois [1941]

Ev'rybody's crazy 'bout the doggone blues but I'm happy

[1918]

Listen Here

Kenneth L. Kusmer, Ed. The Great Migration and After, 1917–1930, vol. 5, p. 4. Black Communities and Urban Development in America, 1720–1990 [1917-1930]

Smoke billowing over Tulsa, Oklahoma during 1921 race riots [1921]

The broad ax. (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1895-19??, August 02, 1919, Image 1 [1919]

Clayton’s Weekly. (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-

1921 [1920]

Washington,

D.C. Portrait of

A. Philip Ran-

dolph, labor

leader [1942]

The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, December 06, 1919, Image 3 [1919]

A. Philip Randolph to NAACP Secretary Walter White, March 18, 1941. Typed letter. NAACP Records [1941]

Marcus Garvey, 1887-1940 [1924]

W.E.B. (William Edward

Burghardt) Dubois, 1868-1963

[1919]

Click here to hear Dubois speak

about his activism

Silent protest parade in New York [City] against the East St. Louis riots, 1917 [1917]

Click here for Teacher’s Guide (NAACP)

Members of the British arm of the NAACP protest against American violence against blacks [between 1910 and 1940]

20th Annual session of the N.A.A.C.P., 6-26-29, Cleve-land, Ohio [1929]

Niagara Movement Founders

[1905]

Drinking fountain on the county courthouse lawn,

Halifax, North Carolinav[1938 April; detail]

Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee [1939 Oct? ]

Secondhand

clothing stores

and pawn shops

on Beale Street,

Memphis, Ten-

nessee [1939

Oct.?]

At the bus station in Durham, North Car-

olina [1940 May; detail]

Tourist cabins for Negroes. Highway sign.

South Carolina [1939 June]

Jim Crow Resort? [1915]

Colored School at Anthoston. Census

27, enrollment 12, attendance 7...

[1916 September 13; detail]

Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., 1900 -

Theological Hall [1900?]

Click here for more images of Fisk Uni-versity.

Pleads for Jim Crow School [1915]

Pleasant Green School--one-room colored school near Marlinton, W. Va.--Pocahontas Co... [1921 Oct. 6; detail]

Cadentown Rosenwald School, Caden Lane, Lexington, Fayette County, KY [1933] Lesson Plan

Washington, D.C. Campus of Howard University [1942]

CITATIONS: Jim Crow in America

Teachers: Providing these primary source replicas without source clues may enhance the inquiry experience for students. This list of citations is supplied for reference purposes to you and your students. We have followed the Chicago Manual of Style format, one of the formats recommended by the Library of Congress, for each entry below, minus the access date. The access date for each of these entries is 5/16/17.

Lee, Russell, photographer. “Negro drinking at "Colored" water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Ok-lahoma.” Nitrate negative. July, 1939. From the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Infor-mation Black-and-White Negatives. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1997026728/PP/. Rice, Thomas “Daddy”, composer. “Jump Jim Crow [transcription].” Transcribed by Alan Jabbour, from a perfor-mance by Henry Reed. Manuscript. Between 1966-1968. From the Library of Congress, Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: the Henry Reed Collection. http://www.loc.gov/item/afcreed000054/. Hodgson, publisher. “Jim Crow” Etching and Ink. Between 1835-1845?. From the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. https://lccn.loc.gov/2004669584. Wright, E.A, publisher. “To the Colored Men of Voting Age in the Southern States.” 190?. From the Library of Congress, African American Pamphlet Collection. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/rbaapcbib:@field(NUMBER+@od1(rbaapc+33200)). Banks and Brothers Law Publishing. “Supreme Court of the United States. Plessy v. Ferguson” 1896. From the Li-brary of Congress, Law Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/plessy.html Cheynes Studio, photographer. “Washington, Booker Taliaferro.” Film negative. 1903. From the Library of Con-gress, African American Perspectives. https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aap/bookert.html Johnston, Francis Benjamin, photographer. “History Class, Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama.” Photographic print. 1902. From the Library of Congress, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/item/98503043/. Washington, Booker T., publisher. “Atlanta Exposition Speech [transcription].” Manuscript. September, 1895. From Library of Congress, African American Odyssey. https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/aaodyssey:@field(NUMBER+@band(mssmisc+ody0605)). Underwood & Underwood, publisher. “President Roosevelt and Booker Washington reviewing the 61 “industry” floats, Tuskegee, Ala.” Photographic print. C1906. From the Library of Congress, Library of Congress Prints and Pho-tographs Division Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/resource/stereo.1s02155/. The Topeka State Journal. “Ida B. Wells in Town. [from newspaper’.” June 8, 1895. From the Library of Congress, Kansas State Historical Society. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82016014/1895-06-08/ed-1/seq-3/. “Report of Anti-Lynching Committee.” Transcript. January, 21, 1921. From the Library of Congress, African Ameri-can Odyssey. https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/aaodyssey:@field(NUMBER+@band(mssmisc+ody0707)). “Flag announcing lynching, flown from the window of the NAACP headquarters on 69 Fifth, Ave., New York City.” Photographic print. 1936. From the Library of Congress, Visual Materials from the National Advancement of Col-ored Peoples Records. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/95517117/

Wells-Barnett, Ida B., creator. “Lynch law in Georgia : a six-weeks' record in the center of southern civilization, as faithfully chronicled by the Atlanta journal and the Atlanta constitution : also the full report of Louis P. Le Vin, the Chicago detective sent to investigate the burning of Samuel Hose, the torture and hanging of Elijah Strickland, the colored preacher, and the lynching of nine men for alleged arson.” Pamphlet. 1899. From the Library of Congress, Daniel Murray Pamphlet Collection https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/aaodyssey:@field(NUMBER+@band(rbcmisc+ody0611)). The Broad Ax. “Senators Shocked by May Lynching [from newspaper].” June 17,1922. From the Library of Con-gress, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024055/1922-06-17/ed-1/seq-1/print/image_681x737_from_0%2C3981_to_2033%2C6184/. Gottlieb, William P., photographer. “Portrait of Louis Armstrong, between 1938 and 1948.” Film negative. 1938. From the Library of Congress, William P. Gottlieb Collection. https://www.loc.gov/resource/gottlieb.09611.0. Smith, Bessie, composer. “Wasted Life Blues.” Manuscript. 1929. From the Library of Congress, Music Division, Performing Arts Reading Room. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/tri049.html. Handy, W.C., composer. “The Memphis Blues.” Manuscript. 1913. From the Library of Congress, Music Division. https://www.loc.gov/resource/ihas.100006378.0/?sp=1. Hughes, Langston, writer. “Ballad of Booker T.” Manuscript. June, 1941. From the Library of Congress, Langston Hughes Collection. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mcchtml/corhome.html. Gottlieb, William P., photographer. “Duke and his group on the cover of Down Beat Magazine.” 1946. From the Library of Congress, William P. Gottlieb Collection. http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/ellington/aa_ellington_band_1_e.html. Van Vechten, Carl, photographer. “Portrait of Zora Neale Hurston.” Photographic print. April 3, 1938. From the Libray of Congress, Carl Van Vechtan Photographs Collection. https://lccn.loc.gov/2004663047 Vachon, John, photographer. “Negro carrying sign in front of milk company, Chicago, Illinois.” Film negative. Ju-ly, 1941. From the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Nega-tive. https://www.loc.gov/resource/fsa.8c19566/. The Broad Ax. “Blood, Anarchy, Rapine, Race Riots, and All Forms of Lawlessness have Stalked Broad Cast, Throughout Chicago the Past Week [from the newspaper].” August 2, 1919. From Library of Congress, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024055/1919-08-02/ed-1/seq-1/. Krupnick, Alvin C., creator. “Smoke billowing over Tulsa, Oklahoma during 1921 race riots.” Film negative. 1921. From the Library of Congress, Visual Materials from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/95517018/. Lee, Russel, photographer. “Apartment building in Negro section of Chicago, Illinois.” Nitrate negatives. April, 1941. From the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives. https://www.loc.gov/item/fsa1998002268/PP/. Kusmer, Kenneth L., writer. “Great Migration and After 1917-1930.” Manuscript. Between 1917 and 1930. From the Library of Congress, General Collections. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam009.html#obj4.

Creamer & Layton, composers. “Ev'rybody's crazy 'bout the doggone blues but I'm.” Sheet music. 1918. From the Library of Congress, Music Division. https://www.loc.gov/resource/ihas.100005292.0/?sp=2.

“Marcus Garvey, 1887-1940.” Photographic print. August 5, 1924. From the Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection. https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3a03567/

Cayton’s Weekly. “Africa for Africans [from newspaper].” October 9, 1920. From the Library of Congress, Washing-ton State Library. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87093353/1920-10-09/ed-1/seq-1/print/image_681x648_from_291%2C1682_to_1936%2C3249/.

Parks, Gordon, photographer. “Washington, D.C. Portrait of A. Phillip Randolph, Labor Leader.” Film negative. November, 1942. From the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-white Negatives. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/071_fsab.html.

The Kansas City Sun. “What of 1920? [from newspaper]” December 6, 1919. From the Library of Congress, State Historical Society of Missouri. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn90061556/1919-12-06/ed-1/seq-3/.

Randolph, Phillip A., writer. “A. Philip Randolph to NAACP Secretary Walter White.” Typed letter. March 18, 1941. From the Library of Congress, NAACP Records/Manuscript Division. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/naacp/world-war-ii-and-the-post-war-years.html.

“Niagara Movement Founders.” Photographic print. 1905. From the Library of Congress, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, Special Collections & University Archives, UMass Amherst. https://www.loc.gov/item/2014645233/.

Underwood & Underwood, creators. “Silent protest parade in New York [City] against the east St. Louis riots, 1917.” Photographic print. C1917. From the Library of Congress, Visual Materials from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Records. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/95517074/.

Batey, C.M., photographer. “W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois, 1868-1963.” Photographic print. May 31, 1919. From the Library of Congress, Miscellaneous Items in High Demand. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003681451/.

"British NAACP pickets with anti-lynching placards.” Photographic print. Between 1910 and 1940. From the Li-brary of Congress, Visual Materials from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Records. http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/dubois/aa_dubois_naacp_2_e.html.

"20th Annual session of the N.A.A.C.P., 6-26-29, Cleveland, Ohio." Photographic print. June 6, 1929. From the Library of Congress, Visual Materials from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Records. http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/dubois/aa_dubois_naacp_3_e.html.

Wolcott, Marion Post, photographer. “Tourist cabins for Negroes. Highway sign. South Carolina.” Safety film neg-ative. June, 1939. From the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa2000032347/PP/.

Wolcott, Marion Post, photographer. “Secondhand clothing stores and pawn shops on Beale Street, Memphis, Ten-nessee.” Nitrate negative. October?, 1939. From the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1998013755/PP/.

Cleveland Advocate. “Jim Crow Resort? [from newspaper].” October 9, 1915. From Ohio Historical Society, The African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920. http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/africanam/html/paged03a.html?ID=5884 Vachon, John, photographer. “Drinking fountain on the county courthouse lawn, Halifax, North Carolina.” Nitrate negative. April, 1938. From the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1997003218/PP/. Delano, Jack, photographer. “At the bus station in Durham, North Carolina.” Nitrate negative. May, 1940. From the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1998006256/PP/. Wolcott, Marion Post, photographer. “Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee.” Nitrate negative. October?, 1939. From the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa1998013763/PP/. Hine, Lewis Wickes, photographer. “Pleasant Green School--one-room colored school near Marlinton, W. Va.--Pocahontas Co. It is one of the best colored schools in the County, with a capable principal holding a first-grade certificate. All the children are Agricultural Club workers. Location: Pocahontas County--Marlinton, West Virgin-ia / Photo by L.W. Hine.” Photographic print. October 6, 1921. From the Library of Congress, National Child La-bor Committee Collection. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ncl2004005115/PP/. Hine, Lewis Wickes, photographer. “Colored School at Anthoston. Census 27, enrollment 12, attendance 7. Teacher expects 19 to be enrolled after work is over. "Tobacco keeps them out and they are short of hands." Ages of those present: 13 years = 1, 10 years = 2, 8 years = 2, 7 years = 1, 5 years = 1. Location: Henderson County, Kentucky / Lewis W. Hine.” Photographic print. September 13, 1916. From the Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ncl2004004792/PP/. Doerrfeld, Dean A., photographer. “Cadentown Rosenwald School, Caden Lane, Lexington, Fayette County, KY.” Measured drawing. After 1933. From the Library of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html. Cleveland Advocate. “Pleads for Jim Crow School [from newspaper].” July 3, 1915. From Ohio Historical Society, The African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920. http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/africanam/html/page6c14.html?ID=5715. Collier, John, photographer. “Washington, D.C. Campus of Howard University.” Film negative. 1942. From the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/071_fsab.html “Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., 1900—Theological Hall”. Photographic print. [1900?]. From the Library of Congress, African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2001705785/.