Jim Crow Laws In Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun

After the brutal history of the American Civil War, the aftermath of racism was still a major issue. During the 1940-1950s, the South adopted a law system that allowed white supremacists to legally commit violent acts on previously enslaved African Americans. These laws, known as Jim Crow laws, enforced segregation, but were not legalized in the northern states. Unfortunately, many white citizens still socially accepted segregation and made it difficult for African Americans to live equally among them. In Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, an African American family known as the Youngers experience “societal implications” of segregation in Chicago, Illinois, and the threats as well as harassments that followed. Unlike the Jim Crow Laws that were enforced legally in the South during this time period, the segregation in Chicago was implied and enforced by society rather than law. When the American Civil War ended and the Union found their victory, about four million slaves were granted their freedom. The United States entered a period of Reconstruction (1865-1877) when the northern states attempted to reunite with the south. President Andrew Johnson publicized his proposals for the

This included a strict set of rules enforcing complete segregation between whites and blacks. If these laws were broken, inhumane punishments like lynching, fire-bombing, or even murder would be allowed. As history shows, numerous cases of blacks being murdered went ignored in by the court. Some authority even participated in mass lynching all over the South. The Jim Crow laws continued to be used until the 1950s before the Civil Rights Movement. In spite of these crimes, the North did not approve of the laws and refused to enforce them. However, some white supremacist citizens in the North saw this as a good way to avoid an interracial