Jim Crow law

In the United States, the so-called Jim Crow laws were made to enforce racial segregation, and included laws that would prevent African Americans from doing things that a white person could do. For instance, Jim Crow laws regulated separate use of water fountains, public bath houses, and separate seating sections on public transport. Jim Crow laws varied among communities and states. The term is not applied to all racist laws, but only to those passed post-Reconstruction starting in about 1890, the start of a period of worsening race relations in the United States. Similar laws passed immediately after the civil war were called the Black Codes. These were the codes that transformed into the Jim Crow laws of the twentieth century.

Twentieth century

The Supreme Court began to overturn Jim Crow laws on constitutional grounds in the 20th century. The Supreme Court held in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 (1915) that an Oklahoma law that denied the right to vote to some citizens was unconstitutional. (Nonetheless, the majority of African Americans were unable to vote in most states in the Deep South of the USA until the 1950s or 1960s.) In Buchanan v. Warley 245 US 60 (1917), the Court held that a Kentucky law could not require residential segregation. The court outlawed the white primary in Smith v. Allwright 321 US 649 (1944), and in 1946 in Irene Morgan v. Virginia ruled segregation in interstate transportation to be unconstitutional, though its reasoning stemmed from the commerce clause of the Constitution rather than any moral objection to the practice. It wasn't until 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka 347 US 483 that the Court held that separate facilities were inherently unequal in the area of public schools, effectively overturning Plessy v. Ferguson to outlaw Jim Crow in other areas of society as well. These decisions, along with other cases such as McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Board of Regents 339 US 637 (1950), NAACP v. Alabama 357 US 449 (1958), and Boynton v. Virginia 364 US 454 (1960), slowly dismantled the state-sponsored segregation imposed by Jim Crow laws.

Related Topics:
Guinn v. United States - 1915 - Oklahoma - Deep South - 1950s - 1960s - Buchanan v. Warley - 1917 - Kentucky - White primary - Smith v. Allwright - 1944 - 1946 - Irene Morgan - Commerce clause - 1954 - Brown v. Board of Education - Topeka - Plessy v. Ferguson - McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Board of Regents - 1950 - NAACP v. Alabama - 1958 - Boynton v. Virginia - 1960

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In addition to Jim Crow laws, in which the state compelled segregation of the races, businesses, political parties, unions and other private parties created their own Jim Crow arrangements, barring blacks from buying homes in certain neighborhoods, from shopping or working in certain stores, from working at certain trades, etc. The Supreme Court outlawed some forms of private discrimination in Shelley v. Kraemer 334 US 1 (1948), in which it held that "restrictive covenants" that barred sale of homes to blacks or Jews or Asians were unconstitutional, on the ground that they represented state-sponsored discrimination in that they were only effective if the courts enforced them.

Related Topics:
Shelley v. Kraemer - 1948

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The Supreme Court was unwilling, however, to attack other forms of private discrimination; it reasoned that private parties did not violate the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution when they discriminated because they were not "state actors" covered by that clause.

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However, in 1964 that U.S. Congress invoked the commerce clause to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in public accommodations, i.e., privately owned restaurants, hotels and stores, and in private schools and workplaces, that Congress attacked the parallel system of private Jim Crow practices. This use of the Commerce clause was upheld in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States 379 US 241 (1964).

Related Topics:
1964 - U.S. Congress - Commerce clause - Civil Rights Act of 1964 - Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States

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As attitudes turned against segregation in the Federal courts after World War II, the segregationist white governments of many of the states of the South East countered with even more numerous and strict segregation laws on the local level until the start of the 1960s. The modern civil rights movement is often considered to have been sparked by an act of civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws when Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. This led to a series of legislation and court decisions in which Jim Crow laws were repealed or annulled.

Related Topics:
World War II - Civil rights movement - Civil disobedience - Rosa Parks

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However, the Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Martin Luther King, Jr., which followed Rosa Parks' long planned decision not to give up her seat, did not come in a vacuum. Numerous boycotts and demonstrations against segregation had occurred throughout the 1930's and 1940's. These early demonstrations achieved positive results and helped spark political activism. For instance, K. Leroy Irvis of Pittsburgh's Urban League led a demonstration against employment discrimination by Pittsburgh's department stores in 1947, and later became the first 20th Century African American to serve as a state Speaker of the House.

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