The World of Jim Crow chapter 9 section

The World of Jim Crow -- chapter 9, section 3 --

The Roots of Jim Crow • Reconstruction – Union troops enforce rights of former slaves in South – Blacks vote blacks into office • 1877 = End of Reconstruction – No more Union troops to enforce rights – Freedoms begin to fade

Voting Restrictions • Concern = too much political power for blacks if they vote • 1890 s: voting restrictions emerge – Property requirement – Poll tax – Literacy tests – Grandfather clauses • Limit black voting w/out specifying

De Facto Segregation • Segregation that simply results from tradition. – It exists in fact, but not in law. • Soon became legalized – Jim Crow laws required segregation in schools, parks, hospitals, theaters, restrooms, other public buildings. – Black facilities were always inferior.

Jim Crow Etiquette • Keeping blacks “in their place” • System of etiquette requiring blacks to show deference to whites – Whites say, “Boy” or “(first name)” – Blacks say, “Mister” or “Sir” • Small breaches of etiquette: – Loss of job for blacks – Subjected to violence

Lynching • The murder of an accused person by a mob w/out a lawful trial. – Sometimes included a mock trial. – Sometimes victims were mutilated before being hanged or shot. • Lynchers were rarely pursued, caught, convicted, or punished.

Northern Migration • Many African Americans moved north de facto discrimination – Schools, housing, employment • Job competition in N. cities creates fear. RACE RIOTS! – NYC, 1900 – Springfield, Illinois, 1908 (not job-related)

It becomes LEGAL. • Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896 – Homer Plessy (1/8 African) buys a firstclass train ticket from New Orleans. He refuses to sit in the black only car. – He is arrested. • Case reaches the Supreme Court.

Plessy Decision • RULING: Segregation is legal as long as the separate facilities were equal to the whites’ facilities. – “Separate but Equal” • The 14 th Amendment was “not intended to give Negroes social equality but only political and civil equality. ”

Resisting Discrimination • 1905: Niagara Movement vows – Never to accept “inferiority” – Never to bow to “oppression” – Never to apologize “before insult” • Only 400 initial members • They are listened to after the 1908 Springfield Race Riots.

NAACP • Mary White Ovington – White social worker – Organized a national conference to address the “Negro Question” – Founding of the NAACP • By 1914 – 50 branches w/ 6, 000 members – Worked through the court system