Masaryk university faculty of education

Reunion

The era of Jim Crow began after such affairs as Plessy v. Ferguson. All Southern states passed new laws, more and more restricting the life of the Black people. As a Black person were considered all the people with black ancestors. Even if they did not look as a Black person but their great grandparents were Black, they were considered the Black. The Jim Crow laws got their title from Thomas D. Rice’s song and dance “Jump Jim Crow”. Woodward shows that the first example of the law called Jim Crow law took place in 1904 but the name of the laws was applied by historians earlier in 1890. (7)

These laws were not united; each state had its own unique set of segregation laws. Following part is dedicated to the overview of the Southern states and their Jim Crow laws. Laws refer to white people as to Caucasian race and to the Black people as to African race.

1.3.1. Arizona

Arizona’s education law did not allow mixed schools. It was forbidden to let African and Caucasian race children to attend the same school with the exception of the high schools. The law from 1927 adjusted the conditions at high schools. If at any high school there were more than twenty-five African pupils there would take place an elections based on the petition of the fifteen percent of the school electros that will decide whether to segregate the African students or not. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

The law from 1901 forbids the marriage between “Caucasian bloods with a Negro, Mongolian, Malay, or Hindu race.” (“Examples of Jim Crow law”)

1.3.2. New Mexico

Education law from 1923 provides an obligation to establish special classrooms for the Black pupils. The law also emphasizes that classrooms should be equal and that they “shall be as good and well kept as those used by pupils of Caucasian or other descent”. The separation is underlined by the prohibition of the access of the Black pupils to the classrooms reserved for Caucasian pupils and vice versa. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

1.3.3. Texas

The separation law in Texas could be seen as one of the earliest laws. Segregated education came under the law from 1876. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

Marriage between African and Caucasian race was forbidden and such a marriage that existed before this law was considered void. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

Texas went further and in libraries has ordered in 1919 that Black people had to be served by separated branches of the library by a custodian of an African origin. (“Examples of Jim Crow Laws”)

The system of transportation has been segregated sophisticatedly: Segregated coaches were required; the equality and the same level of a comfort were decreed. The separation was prescribed in trains, sleeping trains, street cars but also in depots and depot buildings separated rooms for passengers there had to be. Black passengers in busses had to get on the bus from the back and let the white passengers that boarded the bus by the front door take the seat even if they paid the ticket for the same price. This was obvious discrimination; the equality disappeared and showed how the law can be blind to the injustice. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

The segregation worked also in sports. White people were not permitted to fight with Black people and vice versa by law from 1933.

1.3.4. Oklahoma

In Oklahoma there were many Jim Crow laws containing many aspects of people’s lives. Education wasn’t exception. Separated schools were adjusted; the law penalized instructors who taught in a school with both, white and colored students. (“Examples of Jim Crow laws”)

Hospitals, coaches and busses were segregated as well as waiting rooms where it was unlawful to enter room reserved for another race. The segregation appeared even in the field of fishing, boating and bathing. Even minors had separated baths and lockers. (“Examples of Jim Crow Laws”)

Marriage of mixed races were not permitted and considered to be unlawful. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

1.3.5. Kansas

Kansas separated Black people from the rest of the society in the field of the education. The law from 1862 orders to educate colored children in separated schools. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

1.3.6. Missouri

The education was segregated in this state as well. It was unlawful to attend school for white when the child was of African descent and vice versa. Jim Crow law forbade marriage between “white persons and negroes or white persons and Mongolians”. Missouri went in their laws so far that public park, libraries and playgrounds were segregated too. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

1.3.7. Louisiana

Louisiana as one of the states of the Deep South set the whole range of Jim Crow laws. The education adjusts the law from 1845 which ordered separated schools for children. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

The state prisons or camps were segregated as well as busses where the seats were divided for white people and for colored people. Train transportation was segregated too. At least two separate coaches were required or the coach itself was supposed to be divided for colored people and for white people. The division was also applied to waiting rooms. Street cars had to provide two separate cars, where two cars were not possible; the cars had to be separated by a wire or wooden partitions for Black and white passengers. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”) Louisiana had very “interesting” system of separation for circuses and tent exhibitions:

All circuses, shows and tent exhibitions, to which the attendance of the public of more than one race is invited or expected to attend shall provide for the convenience of its patrons not less than two ticket offices with individual ticket sellers, and not less than two entrances to the said performance, with individual ticket takers and receivers, and in the case of outside or tent performances, the said ticket offices shall not be less than twenty-five [25] feet apart; that one of the said entrances shall be exclusively for the white race, and another exclusively for persons of the colored races. (“Examples of Jim Crow Laws”)

It is almost unbelievable that this strict law used to be valid for almost 50 years. We can find here the law about housing that forbids to landlords to rent a house to the Black people when the house is already whole or in part occupied by white people. Also care of blind people was provided segregated. (“Examples of Jim Crow Laws”)

As we can see, Louisiana had its system of laws elaborated in the details. White and Black people got barely close to stand next to each other.

1.3.8. Mississippi

Mississippi could also “boast” of the detailed system of the Jim Crow laws. There was segregation from education, through divided hospitals, prohibition to work together in prison to a transport system. In Mississippi there were not only segregated coaches but the conductor was also empowered to order passengers where to go if they wanted to go to the wrong coach. The situation in busses was similar as on the railroads, also street cars operated entirely within the corporate limits of a municipality or within a radius of 5 miles” had to be divided on two sections. The marriage between two races was forbidden and strict punishment was determined for those, who supported or “promoted such an intermarriage or social equality”. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

1.3.9. Tennessee

Jim Crow laws were in Tennessee, too. Schools, accommodation, bathing facilities, seats at the places of public amusements, trains and street cars were segregated. There was an exception in transportation for nurses that attended children, seniors or “helpless persons”. As well as in other states, the marriage between two races was forbidden. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

1.3.10. Virginia

Virginia Jim Crow laws separated schools, prisons, “public hall, theatre, opera house, motion picture show or any place of public entertainment”, busses with waiting rooms, streetcars, coaches and also depots of “aircraft carrier”. The marriage of white and colored people was forbidden. The law specified the term white person; they were people that were max. from one-sixteenth the American Indian and did not have any other non-Caucasian blood. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

Another very restricting law is created for “fraternal beneficiary associations, companies, orders and societies“ and forbids having black officers and white members or white officers and black members in such an association. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

1.3.11. North Carolina

The law in North Carolina contained decrees that were partly similar to the decrees in other states but it provided also some that were different.

The education was separated but the law prohibited any signs of discrimination. The law from 1935 said that school textbooks could not be used by the Black and white pupils in one time but they could be used after each other. Basically it meant that when white children used textbooks, the Black children were taught from these textbooks after them. Similarly to other states, the Jim Crow laws separated prisons, libraries, trains, steamboats and streetcars where the front part of the car was reserved for white and the rear part of the car provided seats for the Black people. The marriage between Black and white people was, as the law states, “forever prohibited”. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

North Carolina proved to be one of the strictest segregated states in the South. The law similar to Virginia (about “fraternal beneficiary associations, companies, orders and societies”) can be seen also here. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

Troops in militia had to be separated too. The colored militia troops had to be permitted to be organized and every troop had to have a white officers. The law remembered on the separation at workplace where the toilets had to be separated for “white males, white females, colored males and colored females”. (“Examples of Jim Crow Laws”)

1.3.12. South Carolina

Schools in South Carolina were separated as well as prisons. White persons were not allowed to operate billiard rooms that were used by Black people. Similarly to Louisiana, all the tent shows or travelling shows had to keep separated entrances. South Carolina was also very strict in the recreation area. The law from 1934 stipulated that in cities with higher population than 60 000 “public parks, public recreation centers, public amusements centers, and public bathing beaches” could not be used by both races. Each public place had to be signed to show to which race is this park permitted. The segregation was also in the public transportation (busses, streetcars, trains, station restaurants, waiting rooms) and in the workplace (namely: room, doors, stairway, window, doors for paying off, “lavatories, toilets, drinking water buckets, pails, cups, dippers or glasses”). The law also forbade to white guardians of a white child to entrust this child into the guardianship of the Black people. Marriage between two races was void. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

1.3.13. Georgia

The Jim Crow Laws in Georgia did not allow common education or mental hospitals. Prisoners in the state prisons, parks and trains (coaches) were separated. The owners of the restaurant had to serve exclusively only one race on their license. Similar rule operated in billiard rooms where white operators had to serve white customers and colored operators had to provide billiard to the Black people. Marriage between the Black people and white people was forbidden. The contact between Black men and white woman was also forbidden; the Black barbers were not permitted to serve white women customers. (“Examples of Jim Crow Laws”)

Burials took place separately as well as graves were separated. Georgia remembered also on the sports. Amateur baseball players had to keep distance at least two blocks of a playground. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

1.3.14. Alabama

Alabama is considered to belong to the Deep South states and the Jim Crow laws were also here very limitative. Schools were strictly separated; the cells in state prisons and pool and billiard games were segregated too. “White women nurses” in hospitals could not treat the black patients and they could not work in the hospitals where the Black patients were placed. White and the Black people had to be served in different rooms or in separated rooms with two different entrances in restaurants. Segregation affected transportation too. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

Trains were segregated as well as busses and waiting rooms. Male toilets had to be kept separated at the workplace in the factories. Accounts of the poll taxes had to be kept separately in “each township or separate school district”. Living together with the other race was unlawful and such a crime was punished by 2 or more years in the prison. (“Examples of Jim Crow Laws”)

1.3.15. Florida

Florida had its Jim Crow laws, too. The schools and even the school books were separated for white pupils and for the Black pupils. Prisoners had to be in separated cells; trains, waiting rooms and ticket windows were kept separately. The marriage between the Black and white people was illegal. Such a crime was punished by imprisonment or a very high fine. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

These laws were not established from one day to another day. It was the result of a long period lasting historical and cultural development in the Southern states. Such a huge area cannot be described in a detail within several pages. The laws listed above show the overview and the differences in the law from the state to state. There were also huge differences within a single state. The approach of the white people and the conditions of the living in the big cities were incomparable with the conditions in the villages and the predominantly rural area.

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