Presentation on Jim Crow Laws

1. The End of Reconstruction
and the Rise of Jim Crow
Laws

2. Objective
By the end of the lesson,
SWBAT explain how
Reconstruction ended with the
start of the Jim Crow Laws.
By the end of the lesson,
SWBAT to explain what the Jim
Crow Laws were, and how they
hurt African Americans in the
South.

3. Segregation in the United
States
De Facto Segregation: Segregation by
custom or practice
De Jure Segregation: Segregation by law
At the turn of the century, both are occurring
throughout the United States
NOT JUST A SOUTHERN ISSUE

4. African Americans
North South
Mostly lived in cities
Some highly educated
Many worked industrial
jobs within the cities
Denied admittance to
many unions
Lesser wages
Job discrimination
Large population
Given rights to education
and job opportunities
Many were sharecroppers
or tenant farmers
Kept in a dependent and
low place in society after the
Civil War and
Reconstruction ended

5. Reconstruction 1865-1877
After the Civil War 1861-1865, the federal
government made strides toward equality.
Blacks voted, held many political offices.
The Freedmen’s Bureau helped Blacks find land, it
also established schools and colleges.
Constitutional Amendments provided legal freedoms
Compromise of 1877
Hayes wins election in exchange for the removal of
federal troops in the South

6. Rutherford B. Hayes

7. The following shows
angry white
Southerners burning
down a Freedmen’s
Bureau school and
harassing African
Americans

8. After Reconstruction
Without protection from the
U.S. Army and help from the
Freedmen’s Bureau, African
Americans lost a lot of their
power.

9. Since Reconstruction
African Americans in the South slowly had
their freedoms and rights taken away by
Southern governments.
Job Discrimination
Lesser Wages
Sharecropping/Tenant Farming
Intimated from voting
Racial Violence

10. So What Happened?
Even though the rights of all
people are supposed to be
protected in the Bill of Rights and
the 13th, 14th, and 15th,
Amendments African Americans
were not given their rights in the
South!
How did the racist
Southerners take away the

12. 13th, 14th, 15th AMENDMENTS
RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENTS
13TH AMENDMENT
OUTLAWED SLAVERY
14TH AMENDMENT
MADE AFRICAN AMERICANS CITIZENS
GUARANTEED EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER THE LAW
15TH AMENDMENT
GUARANTEED AFRICAN AMERICANS THE RIGHT TO VOTE
13, 14, 15 – FREE, CITIZENS,VOTE

13. For the next 70
years, Jim Crow
laws dominated
society in the
South for African
Americans.
Preformed in black
face.
“Jim Crow” was a
pejorative term
from the 1828
minstrel song
“Jump, Jim Crow”

14. The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were
supposed to protect the rights of African
Americans under the U.S. Constitution…
But they did not because of a ruling by
the U.S. Supreme Court…

15. PLESSY v. FERGUSON (1896)
Homer Plessy
U.S. Supreme Court
case that made
segregation legal in
the United States
Established
the principle
of “separate
but equal”

16. PLESSY v. FERGUSON (1896)
“Separate but equal”
meant that minorities
were not allowed in the
same places as whites
Southern states passed
laws that legalized
segregation known as
“Jim Crow” laws

18. Some areas that were separate:
Bus station waiting rooms and ticket
windows
Railroad cars or coaches
Restaurants and lunch counters
Schools and public parks
Restrooms and water fountains
Sections of movie theaters
There were even separate cemeteries

19. At the bus station, Durham, North Carolina, 1940.

20. Greyhound bus terminal, Memphis, Tennessee. 1943.

21. A rest stop for bus passengers on the way from
Louisville, Kentucky to Nashville, Tennessee, with
separate entrance for Blacks. 1943.

22. A sign at bus station, Rome, Georgia. 1943.

23. A highway sign advertising tourist cabins for
Blacks, South Carolina. 1939.

24. Cafe, Durham, North Carolina. 1939.

25. Drinking fountain on the courthouse lawn, Halifax,
North Carolina. 1938.

26. Movie theater’s "Colored" entrance, Belzoni,
Mississippi. 1939.

27. The Rex theater for colored people,
Leland, Mississippi. June 1937.

28. Restaurant, Lancaster, Ohio. 1938.

29. Water cooler in the street car terminal, Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma. 1939.

30. Sign above movie theater, Waco, Texas. 1939.

31. Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee. 1939.

32. Ku Klux Klan

33. Ku Klux Klan
• Secret terrorist organization founded in
Tennessee in 1865 by Confederate
veterans
– Started after Civil War to fight Reconstruction
in the South
• Believed in the innate inferiority of blacks
– mistrusted and resented the rise of former
slaves to an equal status
• Attacked, murdered, and lynched both
freedmen and white Republicans

34. • Intimidated African Americans and their allies
– If intimidation didn’t work, they would torture
and/or murder these individuals
• Local chapters (klaverns) became so
uncontrollable and violent that the Grand
Wizard, former Confederate general Nathan
B. Forrest, officially disbanded the Klan in
1869
• In 1871, President Grant issued a
proclamation calling on members of illegal
organizations to disarm and disband (Force

35. • Second Klan founded in 1915
– expanded rapidly in 1920s
– 1924 - 3 million members (height of membership)
– Focused its attack on what it considered to be alien
outsiders (Roman Catholic church and all non-
Protestants, aliens, liberals, trade unionists, and
striking workers - threatening traditional American
ways and values)
• Masked Klansmen burned crosses on hillsides,
marched through the streets of many
communities, threatening various persons with
punishment and warning others to leave town.

36. • 1944 KKK disbanded formally when
unable to pay back taxes to federal
government
• Civil Rights Movement caused increased
interest and membership in Klan
– Brown v. Board (1954)

37. Lynchings in the U.S.
• 1890-1960, 4,742 Americans were documented
as having been lynched; actual numbers are
believed to be much higher.
– Over 70 percent of the victims were African-Americans.
• By late 1920s, 95% of lynchings took place in
South.
• Few lynch mob participants ever went to jail.
– Police and other eye-witnesses refused to identify lynch
mob members, and Southern all-white juries rarely
convicted them.

38. • The white mobs who lynched African-
American men often justified their
actions as a defense of "white
womanhood"
– the usual reason given for lynching black
men was that they had raped white women
– lynch mobs' real motive was the
determination to keep African-American
men economically depressed and politically
disenfranchised.

39. Claimed Causes
• 41% Felonious Assault
• 19.2% Rape
• 6.1% Attempted Rape
• 4.9% Robbery and Theft
• 1.8% Insult to White persons
• 22.7% Misc. or no offense at all
• 11.5% Trivial Offenses-"disputing with a white
man”, “attempting to register to vote",
"unpopularity", "testifying against a white man",
"asking a white woman in marriage", "peeping in
a window"

40. Rubin Stacey, 1935: Knocked on door of white
woman, asked for food (NYT)

41. Anti-Lynching Crusade
• Constitution leaves law enforcement
up to the states, a movement
spearheaded by Ida B. Wells and the
NAACP sought to pass anti-lynching
laws at the federal level
– Southern states unwilling
• From 1890 to 1960, nearly 200 anti-
lynching bills were introduced to the
U.S.Congress.
• The U.S. House of Reps. passed
three anti-lynching bills, but all failed in
the Senate
• Left the federal government powerless
to intervene and protect Americans
from these heinous acts of mob
violence.
•Ida B. Wells
(1862 – 1931)

42. Booker T. Washington
1856-1915)
• Leader in black education (Tuskegee
Normal and Industrial Institute)
• Believed the way to achieve economic
equality was through education
• Promoted idea of working with whites to
achieve progress – criticized for this

43. “Put down your bucket where you are” and
work for immediate self-improvement
rather than long-range social change.
- Booker T. Washington
He urged blacks to postpone efforts to
achieve political equality and
concentrate on self-improvement.

44. W.E.B. DuBois
1868-1963)
• Demanded racial equality
immediately and criticized Booker
T. Washington
• Started a newspaper called The
Crisis to report on racial equality issues
• Founded the NAACP in 1905
– “talented tenth”, exceptional blacks would gain
positions of full equality
• 1963 gave up U.S. citizenship and became a
citizen of Ghana

45. Marcus Garvey (1887-1940)
• Believed in black nationalism
• Founded Universal Negro
Improvement Association (1914)
– Audience: lowest class of blacks, most
disenfranchised
– Goals: 1) foster worldwide unity among blacks
2) encourage pride in African heritage 3)
rejected integration 4) “back to Africa”
movement

46. • Moved to New York
(1916)
• Charismatic speaker and
published newspaper
called “Negro World”
– Had millions of followers
• Misused funds in 1925,
jailed, deported and died
in obscurity

47. What to do about it?
Two most influential black leaders:
• Booker T. Washington
• W.E.B. DuBois