1. Before we begin…
So far we have studied American life in the 1950s as a time of peace and growing living standards.
Was it like this for everyone?
Think again…

2. What was Jim Crow?

3. Lesson Objectives Understand what the Jim Crow laws were.
Examine how it affected the lives of Black Americans.

4. Task 1: Draw up a diagram like this. Add to it as we progress.
200 years of slavery
Passing of Segregation Laws
Why was racism so bad in early 20th century America?
Civil War
Birth of the KKK
14th & 15th Amendments

5. 200 years of slavery.
You studied slavery in Year 8 and may remember that the development of the slave triangle led to the increase in slavery.
Slavery became a main part of life in the South.
White plantation owners needed Black Americans for their farming of cotton and tobacco.
This had led to extremely racist views that white Americans in the South believed themselves to be socially, economically and politically better than Black Americans.
These views were engrained in the South.

6. The Civil War There were many causes of the American Civil War.
But arguably the biggest was on whether to end slavery.
The North (Yankees) wanted to end it…
The South (Confederates) wanted to keep it…
It lasted for 4 years and left 620,000 Americans dead.
This is almost as many as the amount of Americans that died in all other wars.
In 1865 the North won and slavery ended.
It left many in the South angry – with many taking their anger out on newly freed Black Americans.

7. 14th & 15th Amendments
Following victory in the civil war, the North passed 2 key changes to the constitution.
The 14th Amendment, passed in 1868, meant all Black Americans were now citizens.
The 15th Amendment, passed in 1870, granted Black Americans the vote.
However, the Southern states were forced to agree with this, and many living there were determined to stop these from happening.

8. Birth of the Ku Klux Klan
You studied the KKK in Year in Unit 2.
The KKK were formed in 1865 by ex-Confederate soldiers, determined to intimidate newly freed Black Americans.
The KKK continued to grow into the twentieth century, using lynching tactics and intimidation to terrorise the lives of Black Americans.

9. Jim Crow/Segregation laws
Segregation laws were made in the South, beginning in the 1880s.
These were designed to segregate white and black Americans in public schools, public places and public transport.
This ensured that Black Americans did not have any improvements in their lives after the Civil War in the South.

10. Summary Ensured long term racist views to Black Americans in the South
A series of laws made in the South to stop any social, political or economic improvements for Black people.
Ended Slavery, but huge loses meant many in South were bitter and blamed Black Americans.
200 years of slavery
Passing of Segregation Laws
Why was racism so bad in early 20th century America?
Civil War
Violent group created in South after Civil War. Aimed to restrict Black progress.
Gave freed Black Americans new citizenship and voting rights – but opposed in South.
Birth of the KKK
14th & 15th Amendments

11. Who was Jim Crow? A slave from Cincinnati, Ohio?
or from Charleston, South Carolina
Maybe derived from old man
Crow, the slaveholder?
Perhaps from the simile, black
as a crow?
Whatever the case, by 1838, the term was wedged into the language as a synonym for a Black American. Thus, "Jim Crow laws" meant Black American laws, aimed at segregating African Americans and others, to restrict social contact and to limit the freedom and opportunity of people of colour.
Can anything be truly ‘separate but equal’?

12. The start of Jim Crow
Laws enacted aimed at restoring white supremacy in former and neighbouring Confederate states.
Legislation known as Jim Crow laws separated people of colour from whites in schools, housing, jobs, and public gathering places.
This was the South’s way of denying Black American’s the civil rights granted in the 14th & 15th Amendments.
Beginning in the 1880s, southern states enacted literacy tests and a poll tax that Black Americans could not afford, to exclude black voters.
The Supreme Court even approved of segregation in a case known as Plessy vs Ferguson.
Think – why didn’t Southerners just ban black people from voting?

13. Successful? The laws proved very effective.
In Mississippi, fewer than 9,000 of the 147,000 voting-age African Americans were registered after 1890.
In Louisiana, where more than 130,000 black voters had been registered in 1896, the number had plummeted to 1,342 by 1904.

14. Some examples…
“It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in company with each other in any game of cards or dice, dominoes or checkers.” —Birmingham, Alabama
“Marriages are void when one party is a white person and the other is possessed of one-eighth or more negro, Japanese, or Chinese blood.” —Nebraska, 1911
“Separate free schools shall be established for the education of children of African descent; and it shall be unlawful for any colored child to attend any white school, or any white child to attend a colored school.” —Missouri, 1929
“All railroads carrying passengers in the state (other than street railroads) shall provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races, by providing two or more passenger cars for each passenger train, or by dividing the cars by a partition, so as to secure separate accommodations.” —Tennessee, 1891

15. Poll tax
Poll taxes required citizens to pay a fee to register to vote.
These fees kept many poor African Americans, as well as poor whites, from voting.

16. Housing restrictions
In communities across the country, property owners signed agreements called restrictive covenants.
These contracts barred African Americans and sometimes other groups-including Jews, Asians, and Latinos-from many neighbourhoods.
In this covenant from Arlington County, Virginia, in the 1940s, the purchasers agreed never to sell their house to "persons of any race other than the white Caucasian Race."

17. Summary of the Jim Crow Laws
Illegal for Black and White Americans to marry.
Illegal for Black and White children to go to school together.
Jim Crow: Laws made to limit the lives of Black Americans; starting in the 1880s.
Illegal for Black and White Americans to travel in same rail carriage – Plessy v Ferguson approves this in Supreme Court.
Separate facilities for Black and White Americans in public – fountains, benches etc.

18. Click on picture for video
Task 3
Click on picture for video
Watch this clip – make notes on how Jim Crow laws affected the lives of Black Americans.

19. Question
Explain how Jim Crow laws made lives difficult for Black Americans in the Southern States.
Point – Education/Voting/Public places
Evidence – separate schools with poor facilities; literacy tests/poll tax/grandfather clauses to vote; Black people banned from hotels, restaurants, cinemas, trains (Plessy v Ferguson supported this).
Explain
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