1. America’s Post-Reconstruction Legacy
Jim Crow
America’s
Post-Reconstruction
Legacy

2. “Jim Crow” refers to laws, prejudices, stereotypes, and attitudes in society about African-Americans
Segregation, “separate but equal”
Lack of equal rights
African-Americans were not allowed to serve on juries in some counties/states
Discrimination in voting
Poll taxes, literacy tests, violence Blacks portrayed as unintelligent and animal-like
Black men portrayed as dangerous to white women
Discrimination in employment

3. The "Jim Crow" figure was a fixture of the minstrel shows that toured the South; a white man made up as a black man sang and mimicked stereotypical behavior in the name of comedy.
Origin of Jim Crow
Stereotype
Foolish
Poor – note the ragged clothing and shoes
“Black Face”
Image source:

4. Sheet music cover illustration with caricatures of ragged African-American musicians and dancers. pub. C1847
Poverty
Foolish
Source:

5. 1866 Gubernatorial race in Pennsylvania
Attacking Republican candidates as part of the party that wanted to enfranchise blacks
Playing racism
Even the majority of people who wanted an end to slavery before or during the Civil War did not see blacks as the equal of whites
Source:

6. “They are rich, and want to make the Negro the Equal of the Poor White Man, and then rule them both.”
Playing the rich vs. the poor
This was an old tactic
Poor non-slave holding whites in the antebellum period still could see themselves as “better” than blacks
Discrimination against blacks was often aimed at gaining the political support of poor whites
Source:
1866: One of a number of highly racist posters issued as part of a smear campaign against PA Republican gubernatorial nominee John White Geary by supporters of Democratic candidate Hiester Clymer. Indicative of Clymer's white-supremacy platform, the posters attack postwar Republican efforts to pass a constitutional amendment enfranchising blacks. Artist: Reynolds NY

7. Note the difference in how each person is portrayed
Fear that black suffrage would diminish white power
Source:
Another in a series of racist posters attacking Radical Republican exponents of black suffrage, issued during the 1866 PA gubernatorial race.

8. 1898 Russell Morgan Print for Oliver Scott's Refined Negro Minstrels.
Foolish
Poor
Source:

9. Even in portraying actors for a production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, blacks are portrayed as foolish
Source:
1898 Russell Morgan Print for Al W. Martin's mammoth production of Uncle Tom's cabin.

10. The most recognizable trademark in the world by 1900, Bull Durham tobacco ads and trading cards typically depicted caricatures of foolish looking or silly acting blacks to draw attention to its product. Each ad has a green bull somewhere in the image.
Foolish
Poor
Source:

11. Two foolish looking black hunters have all the equipment for the hunt, but no match with which to light their cigarettes. The hunters are exaggerated images of blacks trying to imitate white people at sport.
Foolish
Ignorant
Poor
Source:

12. Removing an African American from a Philadelphia Railway car--after the implementation of Jim Crow, the integration imposed by Reconstruction was stripped away by new laws.
Plessy v. Fergusson, May 18, 1896
Separate but equal became legal
Legal segregation
Note the black man is taking up the entire seat where a white mother could have been seated
Plays into the black males as a threat to white women
Source:

13. Note the use of the word “justice.”
Sign in Virginia, posted in the 1920s. This sign gives one origin of the term "Lynch law.“
Note the use of the word “justice.”
One definition of lynching
An “informal” court of law
When no established, effective system of law exists, people “take the law into their own hands”
Justification for an illegal act
Excuses lynching as doing the right thing in the wrong way
The ends justify the means
Lynch law, however, did not develop during the American Revolution
The concept of citizens taking action in place of the law extends back into the colonial period of U.S. History
See Pauline Maier’s article “Popular Uprisings and Civil Authority in Eighteenth Century America “
William and Mary Quarterly 27 (January 1970): 3-35
Riots, popular uprisings, etc. were acceptable forms of “supporting” the existing government
A second definition:
Lynch law was named after Lynche’s Creek in South Carolina, a meeting site for the Regulators (see Jacqueline Jones Royster, Southern Horrors and Other Writings: The Anti-Lynching Campaign of Ida B. Wells,
Lynchings were often portrayed as “necessary,” as a form of “justice.”
Myths about lynching during the late 19th and early 20th centuries:
Punishment against blacks who raped or threatened white women
Punishment against blacks who attacked whites
Source:

14. "The Agony of Lynching" by Laurence Foy
"The Agony of Lynching" by Laurence Foy. Block print originally published in the 1920s.
A portrayal of the horrors of lynching
Source:

15. Ivy was accused of assaulting a white girl.
Rocky Ford, Mississippi: September Arrow (in red) points to the victim, JP Ivy, a timber cutter who was burned to death by a mob from Union and Lee Counties.
Ivy was accused of assaulting a white girl.
Although by definition murder and illegal, there was little retribution against vigilantes who lynched people
Typical: a photograph with the deceased body
Postcards were often created with images of lynchings
The lynching of Harold Thurmond and Jack Holmes, 1933, San Jose California; the lynch mob was pictured on the front page of the newspaper, yet no charges were pressed.
Source:

16. In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan again grew.
Originally emerged during Reconstruction
Terrorized blacks through violence and the threat of violence
The KKK said that they were protecting whites
During the 1920s the Klan again rose up
Still racist, but this time also against recent immigrants
Membership numbered over three million nation-wide
Source:
In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan again grew.

17. Illustration (1891) by I. Garland Penn. Ida B
Illustration (1891) by I. Garland Penn. Ida B. Wells ( ) was born a slave in Holly Springs, Mississippi. She raised her four orphaned brothers and then became a schoolteacher in Memphis, Tennessee, where she purchased and edited a newspaper, the Memphis Free Speech. Wells was an outspoken and courageous opponent of lynching.
Ida B. Wells was a writer and activist who was a prominent leader of the anti-lynching campaign
She wrote pamphlets that dispelled the myths of lynching
Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases
A Red Record
Mob Rule in New Orleans
Her pamphlets showed the truth about lynching, that it was racially driven and that it was about controlling blacks through violence
Reference lynching statistics from
An open source copy of Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all Its Phases can be obtained at
Source:

18. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911)
An author and lecturer, fought for equal rights.
Francis Ellen Watkins Harper
Generally credited with introducing black protest poetry
In particular, "The Martyr of Alabama," written in the 1890s.
Although she was an avid advocate of Women's rights, she, like Frederick Douglass, believed that racial equality should be won first, before gender equality.
Source:

19. Helped to found the Tuskegee Institute
Booker T. Washington
Thought that the key to equal rights was to prove to white society that blacks were “worthy” of respect. Believed in a slow, gradual approach to creating equality.
Helped to found the Tuskegee Institute
Booker T. Washington’s approach to gaining equality:
Blacks should learn to function/excel in the white world
Prove that they are worthy, equal, etc.
Gain equality slowly over time by changing the minds of whites
Started the Tuskegee Institute
Source:

20. Source: http://www. jimcrowhistory. org/scripts/jimcrow/gallery. cgi
Tuskegee Institute

21. January 1914: An authors evening for suffrage.
Sitting left to right: Will Irwin, Edwin Markham, Lincoln Steffens, Arturo Giovannitti, Percy MacKay, W.E. Burghardt Du Bois. Standing left to right: Mrs. Flora Gaitlin, Ellis O. Jones, Elizabeth Freeman, William Hard, Mrs. Paula Jakobi, Frederick Howe, and Mrs. Frederick Howe.
W.E.B. Du Bois had a different approach
Saw Booker T. Washington’s approach as accommodating and slow
Du Bois wanted equality immediately
Felt that equality had to be forced upon whites
Source:
January 1914: An authors evening for suffrage.

22. Willie Wallace, Eyewitness Narrative, Natchez, MS
Separate theater entrances
Source:
"Every Saturday morning there was a matinee at these movies, and we would pay 15 cents ... but we were separated; we went upstairs, the white kids went downstairs.“
Willie Wallace, Eyewitness Narrative, Natchez, MS

23. Leland, Misssissippi, 1939 Separate theater
Source:
Leland, Misssissippi, 1939

24. Separate drinking fountains
Source:
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, July 1939: "Colored" water fountains were fixtures throughout the South during the Jim Crow era.

25. -Declaration of Independence, 1776
“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
-Declaration of Independence, 1776