Segregation and Racism in America

THE JIM CROW ERA

DO NOW: POP QUIZ!!!!

Would you have been granted the right to vote?

Process:

1. Take off work to go register, potentially get fired. (Bosses who did not fire were harassed)

2. Fill out an application form, oaths you had to take were four pages long. You had to swear that your answers to every single question were true under penalty of perjury…the information you entered on the form would be passed on to the KKK.

3. Pass the literacy test.

4. If you pass and make it past these levels, you will be hunted down by the KKK and often lynched.

Take the Test…

• Southern states enacted poll tax laws

• Grandfather clauses were also added• Allowed any adult male whose father or

grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax.

• How does this exclude African Americans?

Gains for Former Slaves

• 13th Amendment

• 14th Amendment

• 15th Amendment

• Able to travel/leave

• Reunify with families

• Educate themselves

• Hold Political office

• VOTE! 90 %

• 40 acres and a mule- 40,000 former slaves settled on abandoned/forfeited lands

13th

• Prohibited slavery in the United States

14th

• Defined national citizenship• Reduced state representation in

Congress proportional to number of disfranchised voters

• Denied former Confederates the right to hold public office

15th

• Prohibited denial of vote on grounds of race, color, or previous servitude

Study Guide: 13, 14, 15 Amendments

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT (1868)• Citizenship Clause

• Due Process Clause- prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness.

• Equal Protection Clause-requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction.

PLESSY VS. FERGUSON (1896)• Louisiana passed a law requiring railroads to provide “equal but

separate accommodations for the white and colored races”

• 1896- Supreme court ruled this law did not violate the 14th Amendment.

• UPHOLDS SEPARATE BUT EQUAL.

Where did it all begin?

• Jim Crow- state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965.

• They mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans.• The separation led to treatment, financial support and

accommodations that were inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages.

• These Jim Crow Laws were separate from the 1800–1866 Black Codes, which had previously restricted the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans, but not much different.

Where does Reconstruction take a turn for the worse?

"Come listen all you galls and boys,I'm going to sing a little song,

My name is Jim Crow.Weel about and turn about and do jis so,Eb'ry time I weel about I jump Jim Crow.“

- The song and dance of Rice, “black face”

Highly stereotypical and exaggerated Black figure that was subject to white humor.

Who is “Jim Crow”?

• Series of states’ laws passed throughout the nation (most notably in the South) aimed at separating the races.

• Separate facilities provided were always inferior, sometimes absolutely horrific.

What are Jim Crow Laws?

Education

PICTURE ANALYSIS

• KKK – Ku Klux Klan was founded as a social club for Confederate veterans; started in Tennessee in 1866• Membership spread rapidly throughout the South• By 1868, the Klan existed in almost every Southern state• GOAL: RESTORE WHITE SUPREMACY

To achieve the goal, they must prevent African Americans from exercising their political rights

VIOLENCE:• Between 1868 and 1871, the Klan killed thousands of men, women, and

children.• Burned schools, churches, property• Victims: not only African Americans, but those that helped African

Americans as well.• Frightened African Americans away from exercising rights, most notably

voting.• Lynching- a mob congregates to attack a black man/woman/child and

hang them openly in a public setting• Nearly 3,500 African Americans were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968,

mostly from 1882 to 1920.

THE HORRORS OF JIM CROW

Jim Crow Examples:

Underline the laws you find the most shocking, strange, or unbelievable.

Unit 12, JOURNAL #2-

1. What do these laws say about the nation?2. Are these beliefs held around the

country or in specific areas? How do you know?3. How are these laws used? What is their purpose?