Jim Crow Laws Essay

Jim Crow Laws According to the article “Nat Turner Revisited,” it says, “Each of us, helplessly and forever, contains the other- male in female, white in black, and black in white. We are apart of each other” ( “Nat” 14). African Americans continuously had many struggles after the Civil War ended in 1865. After President Abraham Lincoln legalized the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery ended, freeing African Americans. When discussing the importance of the Jim Crow laws, it’s important to understand the definition of the laws, the history behind the laws, and the effect these laws had on today’s segregation issues. There have been many events over the past decades dealing with segregation and it’s something America still has. Over decades,

African Americans were treated poorly during the reign of the Jim Crow laws. During this time, race riots were common in cities all over the nation. From direct-action protests and boycotts to armed self-defense, from court cases to popular culture, freedom was in the air in ways that challenged white authority and even contested established black ways of life in moments of crisis ( Baldwin 1).. One race riot occurred in 1865 in Memphis, Tennessee. Mobs of whites and policemen killed forty-six African Americans. On September 28, 1868, two to three hundred African Americans were massacred in Opelousas, Louisiana( Tischauser xvii). States all over had to deal with race riots. On November 10, 1898, whites killed eight African Americans during a race riot in Wilmington, North Carolina( Tischauser xviii). One incident in particular, the East St. Louis race riot in 1917, hit the nation hard. This riot tore this city apart. The violence was largely one-sided, with mobs of armed whites buring hundreds of black homes and beating and lynching the black residents. First off, St. Louis’ government was made of corrupt political whites that wanted to break the influence of the growing black community. At the time, St. Louis was nicknamed “ The Land of Milk and Honey” for black people( First 5). Blacks would come to St. Louis and within 24 hours, they could have a job at the factories. Most

This movement secured the access of the equality of African Americans in all basic privileges of being a U.S. citizen. What is normally understood as the Civil Rights Movement was in fact a grand struggle for freedom extending far beyond the valiant aims of legal rights and protection(Baldwin 1). Across the country, black organizations, including the National Negro Congress, the MOWM, and the BCSP joined forces with labor unions and politicians ( Baldwin 1). They fought racism within the labor movement, and brought economic concerns to the Statehouse(Baldwin 1). This gave hope that one day, African Americans would be completely Jim Crow free.

Jim Crow laws have created some negative history in this nation’s past, and it has greatly influenced the effects on today’s segregation. This is a subject that will always be around, without a doubt. There are some things that can’t be taken out of the past, or the future. Jim Crow laws gave African Americans a rough life from 1817-1965. From direct-action protests and boycotts to armed self-defense, from court cases to popular culture, freedom was in the air in ways that challenged white authority and even contested established black ways of doing things in moments of crisis (Baldwin