Jim Crow Era

The Jim Crow era was a era where Afircan Americans were stopped from voting and held from jobs, Those who attempted to defy Jim Crow laws often faced arrest, fines, jail sentences, violence and death

The Jim Crow era started in the year 1865 and ended 1877

The Jim Crow era laws existed for about 100 years

At the start of the 1880s, big cities in the South were not wholly beholden to Jim Crow laws and Black Americans found more freedom in them.

During the Jim Crow era, which lasted from the late 19th to early 20th centuries in the Southern United States, Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation and prohibited Black children from attending white school

These laws also authorized separate facilities for many other places, including hospitals, clinics, sports events, restaurants, barbershops, railroad and bus stations, restrooms, beaches, and public parks

Common Jim Crow laws included literary tests, poll taxes, and the grandfather clause

Jim Crow Laws Expand

At the start of the 1880s, big cities in the South were not wholly beholden to Jim Crow laws and Black Americans found more freedom in them.

This led to substantial Black populations moving to the cities and, as the decade progressed, white city dwellers demanded more laws to limit opportunities for African Americans.

Im Crow laws soon spread around the country with even more force than previously. Public parks were forbidden for African Americans to enter, and theaters and restaurants were segregated

Some states required separate textbooks for Black and white students. New Orleans mandated the segregation of prostitutes according to race. In Atlanta, African Americans in court were given a different Bible from white people to swear on. Marriage and cohabitation between white and Black people was strictly forbidden in most Southern states.
The roots of Jim Crow laws began as early as 1865, immediately following the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States.
Black codes were strict local and state laws that detailed when, where and how formerly enslaved people could work, and for how much compensation. The codes appeared throughout the South as a legal way to put Black citizens into indentured servitude, to take voting rights away, to control where they lived and how they traveled and to seize children for labor purposes.

It was not uncommon to see signs posted at town and city limits warning African Americans that they were not welcome there.

Jim Crow Laws Timeline

The minstrel character, Jim Crow, is created by Thomas Dartmouth Rice, a white actor who performs on stage in blackface. He develops a stereotyped black character for comic effect who appears foolish and illiterate. By the late 1830s the term Jim Crow is widely used as a derogatory epithet for blacks.

After ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which formally abolishes slavery, many regions in the South pass black code laws. Among many other limitations, these laws restrict the types of work formerly enslaved people can perform and the wages they can receive.