The chains clinked as their feet wept across the cold dirt. The loss, the tears, the unbearable devastation clung to them as they had the last glimmer of hope in their eyes. As the last bit of courage swept up from their souls, war was the only way to grant their lives back from the dark. Happiness and relief swept over their eyes as the promise of freedom rang so close to their ears. Finally, they are people. African Americans are people who are now human, human considered to everyone else. This feeling however, did not last as long as the fight for deliverance did. African Americans were free, but not free like a person should be.
African Americans were far from the metal on their hands and feet, but a different type of barrier separated them. This metal was everywhere and they could not get away from it. This stared into their eyes as they passed through the town, through the neighborhood, through the park. African Americans were separated, separated from society, separated from their equality. A document known as the Emancipation Proclamation was able to end slavery in the United States; but despite this new turn of events, Jim Crow laws were instituted just after the war. Jim Crow Laws went under way to provide racial segregation after the Civil War was concluded. Anyone who had an African American ancestor in the past or an ancestor of color, was subject to the Jim Crow Laws. This system of racial apartheid prevailed for three quarters of a century until those with enough courage could change the appalling behavior of America. Many can recall the appalling events of African American segregation and the use of Jim Crow Laws, but what many do not know is that this idea of racial dissociation immensely affected African Americans through their day to day lives, where it is seen through transportation, politics, hospitality, and much more. The promise of freedom to African Americans was the only thing that got these deprived individuals through the hardest times felt by any human being alive; however, the beginning of segregation and the laws categorized as Jim Crow laws separated African Americans from their first taste of independence.
During the late 1870s, Reconstruction was coming to an end, while during this period, several white politicians stopped protecting the rights of African Americans. Researchers of this time period suggest that before these turn of events, the Civil War had been ended, but there was not immediate segregation (“Jim Crow Laws 2” n.p.n.d). The United States was not eager enough to instantly separate the citizens, but to fix the disaster that was just concluded. Nonetheless, decades of state and federal legislation followed the eradication of slavery after the Civil Rights Movement (“Jim Crow and Segregation” 1). Author and researcher Urofsky explains that in 1828, a man named Thomas Dartmouth Rice made a minstrel routine around a character portrayed as a “dim witted buffoon”, where he blacked out his face while singing and dancing in the imitation of an old African American man wearing ragged clothes (Urofsky n.p.n.d). This routine was made to shut down the activity of African Americans and show that they were “inferior”. Along with Urofsky, educators can agree that this imitation in the early 1830s gave an unpleasant view to African Americans as uneducated, shiftless, and dishonest (“Racial Segregation” 2018). Local governments wanted to maintain a legal system based on white supremacy; in turn, taking away the ability for African Americans to vote. This allowed for the legislation of Jim Crow Laws to officially begin and was the first step in taking away African American civil rights.
The Compromise of 1877, maneuvered a way to give political power to almost all southern whites that were part of the former confederacy. This legalized the federal government to not enforce the 14th and 15th Amendments around the country. The University of Southern California adds that in the time period of 1877, the Supreme Court officially began the formation of Jim Crow Laws saying that there had to be forms of segregation on common modes of transportation like trains, streetcars, and riverboats. This source additionally notes that in 1883, the Supreme Court overturned some parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, where the instillment of “separate, but equal” was started (“Jim Crow Laws” n.p.n.d). Segregation was only the first step in maintaining injustice for African Americans. The start of it all was an extravagant blow to the face for most of the African American population, but the real hit was daily life for them. It was bad enough that their freedom and first taste of humanity was immediately restrained, but to have to look at inequality straight in the eyes every day was the real repercussion for being only human.
Today, many see every day as a new start, a new beginning, a new way to live life as though it is their last second on this viable earth; however, African Americans saw every day as an utter devastation as they saw their “inferior” selves in the mirror. This mirror was the opposite direction from the white bathroom and this bathroom was half as feasible as the “superior” races’ accommodations. The U.S. constitution made downright racial discrimination illegal; however, every state of the former confederacy ignored this and then proceeded to start the first step in making African American lives miserable. This was demonstrated through biased reading requirements, property qualifications, and poll taxes on African Americans during the 1890s. Poll taxes were something that citizens were required to pay in order to vote. White democratic parties made this essential to vote, in order to disbar a wide majority of the African Americans from voting.
The Smithsonian National Museum of American History explains that in Mississippi, out of the 147,000 voting aged African Americans, only 9,000 were registered to vote after 1890 due to restrictions (“Separate is Not Equal” 1). Voting was a crucial factor in the way African Americans were treated, but the transportation aspect of it is what many can recognize during this time period of cruel and unusual punishment. Transportation can be recognized as an explicit part in the history of African American segregation. In Montgomery, Alabama, bus operators separated their coaches into two sections, consisting of African Americans in the back, and whites up front. If the bus was to full capacity, whites could not go past the middle line to the African American sector, but those who were ignorant and revolting enough to do so (which was a large portion of the white population), would force the African Americans from their seat and make them stand. History researchers from the American Experience claim that segregation in transit then allowed to be a way for African Americans to protest the inequality, where a famous slogan in the 1940s was “You don’t have to ride Jim Crow” (“Jim Crow Laws 2” n.p.n.d).
The housing and facilities aspect of the Jim Crow Law period could be easily interpreted as the overpower of all inequalities. Across the United States, property owners in communities could sign agreements called restrictive covenants. This contract could restrict African Americans and several other ethnicities from certain neighborhoods and restrict them from buying certain homes. Public facilities for African Americans were almost always inferior to white facilities. Diane Nash puts it best in her own words as – “Travel in the segregated south for black people was humiliating. The very fact that there were separate facilities was to say to black people and white people that blacks were so subhuman and so inferior that we could not even use the public facilities that white people used” (Nash n.p.n.d). Jim Crow Laws were enforced by white mobs, government officials, and violent attacks by the Vigilantes (citizens protesting without legal authorization). Most infractions resulted in fines and imprisonment. Even when avoiding conflict, surviving physically was almost as hard as the mental state, where African Americans were forced into a labor economy that put low wages and debt upon them.
Free was an understatement for the African American population. Free was a word that was used to an extent, where many could see that it’s lasting effects would not last much longer. Laws today are there to protect the majority, to serve the population as individuals. Laws after the Civil War, known as Jim Crow Laws, were there to segregate African Americans from the world. The “superior” race, as whites liked to call themselves, used these laws as a way to secure their position in the social status of the world, but these laws were more than that. Jim Crow laws were an utter disappointment as to look back and see the treacherous things that one human race was capable of. Today, the United States comprises of many specific laws that have levels of codified and uncodified forms. These forms include a constitution that grants citizens the federal government and ways to ensure they are living in a humane way to where they are granted security and conservation. In complete contrast, Jim Crow Laws were laws that separated the nation. These laws include heinous and obstructive ways for white men and women to escape around the equality system of society and to feel superior to those they once used for their own benefit. Jim Crow Laws separated whites and African Americans within public transportation, schools, cemeteries, parks, theatres, restaurants, bathrooms, hospitals, churches, prisons, libraries, public facilities, neighborhoods, and so much more.
The specifics of Jim Crow Laws include some absurd laws, while others were put into action everywhere. Investigators of the time period have found some examples of laws within the constitution that include states like Arizona where in 1865, they made it illegal for marriage between whites and African Americans. In Connecticut during 1935, racial segregation of schools went underway. Illinois made racially segregated housing in 1927. As time went on, the laws became more and more specific where in Tennessee during 1955, white and African American patients could not be treated in the same hospitals (“Jim Crow Laws 3” n.p.n.d). Black codes and segregation laws were put underway for a substantial amount of time, until the African American population was forced to take action against the inconsiderable injustice. African Americans were forced to fight against their own country for their sovereignty, yet little did they know that they would have to do the same thing, but come back even harder than the start. Many succeeded, which in turn, paved the path for them to win yet another fight for freedom. In 1960, four African American freshmen from NC A&T college wanted served at a store’s segregated lunch counter, but were declined the right. These four then sat in the store until closing, where the next day, they returned with fifteen more students, and by the third day there were 300 students protesting in the store.
In 1896, there was one of the most pronounced events in history which is known as the Plessy V. Ferguson case. During the start of the Jim Crow Laws, segregation was far from equal, where there was only a barrier without any necessities African Americans actually needed. The case was brought to the Supreme Court when a black man in New Orleans tried to sit in a whites only railway car. The Supreme Court then proceeded to have the country adopt the saying “separate, but equal” because of the Plessy V. Ferguson case. This case helped lead to the Brown V. The Board of Education case in 1954. This case involved thirteen parents who filed a lawsuit involving 20 children in Topeka, Kansas. The United States government illustrates that Kansas had a law stating that they permitted, but did not require, districts to have separate elementary schools for whites and African Americans (“Jim Crow Laws 3” n.p.n.d). The turning point for this case to be filed was when the third grade daughter of Oliver L. Brown had to walk six blocks every morning to her bus stop to go to the African American segregated school, where she could have gone to the white segregated school that was seven blocks total from her house.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), told every parent to enroll their children in schools closest to them, but all 13 families were denied this right where the Supreme Court’s prior decision in the Plessy V. Ferguson case said the “separate, but equal” still stood (“Jim Crow Laws 3” n.p.n.d). The Brown case transferred back to the Supreme Court once again where they had to decide whether or not the fourteenth amendment pertained to this. A man named Justice Earl overruled the case saying if African Americans did not have the freedom to choose the school where their children are educated, this would show the country that they thought African Americans were the inferior race. Earl also did this to avoid resistance and riots from the south. This later lead to schools making a district plan based on geographical neighborhoods instead of race, which helped to fix the racial imbalance towards education so all students had an equal opportunity. African Americans then were forced to continue to protest the cruel treatment through public advocacy, political activism, and self-defense. Protesting was the only way for African Americans to express their feelings about being “separate, but equal”, which allowed many across the United States to see how this isolation between African Americans and whites allowed for a sort of inhumanly way to go about living interracially.
Some were able to see past the branding of society, which in turn, helped lead to the downfall of segregation. When America was established, the founding fathers wanted to allow a dismaying type of environment, both socially and constitutionally. However, when the amendments were founded, many African Americans saw this as a way to fight back against the traumatic pain brought upon them after the Civil War. The Smithsonian National Museum of American History points out that In January of 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, where no state could deny any person equal protection of the laws. The 14th Amendment was set in 1866, where all were born or naturalized in the United States had to be considered citizens of the nation and no state could make or enforce laws that would change their rights of citizenship.
For instance, no state could deny any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The 15th Amendment of 1869 then did one of the most important things in ending racial segregation, outlawing the denial of voting rights due to race, color, or past servitude (“Jim Crow and Segregation” 1). The Civil Rights Movement followed after several protests during the 50s and 60s. The President of the time known as John F. Kennedy sent Congress a Civil Rights Bill on June 19, 1963, telling legislation to offer federal protection to African Americans in order for them to vote, shop, eat, and to be educated equally (“Jim Crow and Segregation” 1). There started to be many winning civil rights cases and many individuals who were willing to help change society, where the Act of 1964 was passed to abolish Jim Crow Laws. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed where all African Americans were protected the right to vote because discriminatory voting laws were abolished (“Jim Crow Laws” 1). These two acts were the most important in American history, where the appalling behavior of discrimination and segregation were officially illegal. Through specific individuals, and innumerable measures of action put up against whites and the treatment thrust upon them, “separate, but equal” was finally abolished. Contentment replaced the hatred of most eyes, where America was finally the promise land they all had known. The use of Jim Crow Laws and the instillment of a segregated society was used before America evolved as even a remotely virtuous population where mankind has found a way to treat those of different colors, specifically African Americans, in a way that is horrific to many through countless acts.
African Americans were treated as objects not as humans. The Civil War was one way to help protest their inequalities and heinous treatment, but even after, society still found a way to make sure African Americans were “separate and subordinate”. Through each day, every African man and woman was separated through invisible barriers along with physical ones. Protests were set about, but even after winning a majority of cases filed to the Supreme Court, visions put upon these individuals was never changed. Life eclipsed to a better form, but even so, there was still cruel treatment thrust upon them and forms of judgement and uneducated acts. As a country, America was forced to fix the high-priority complication that was first started hundreds of years ago, which evolved into an even bigger negligent act. History is used as a learning opportunity, nonetheless, as a free country, the acts of segregation and subordinate treatment must never present itself ever again.
