Jim+Crow+Life

(5/7/12)
 * To set the stage for the civil rights movement, you must first understand the environment of segregation in the United States in the first half of the 20th century. What was life like in Jim Crow America? Cut and paste this information into a new page in your Unit 8 Online Notebook. You (and your partner, if you have one) are African Americans who have lived through the era of Jim Crow in America. Using the links provided in this activity, respond to the “oral history questions” in first person . You can do this in Word by copying this document onto a new document , completing it using the resources below, and cutting and pasting it into a new page on your notebook. Make sure your responses are in first person! **

Kat: (text color)
The Fourteenth Amendment, passed immediately after the Civil, War, granted citizenship to people once enslaved, which the amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. Due process means a series of steps that must be followed to legally and justly correct or answer a contested issue. Equal protection of the laws means everyone has a fair chance until proven guilty; the laws will protect everyone despite their race.
 * 1) Right after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment was ratified. What did the 14th Amendment provide for African Americans? What does “due process” and “equal protection of the laws” mean?  [|14th LINK] **

2) **Unfortunately, your equal rights were challenged by the Supreme Court in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. What do you remember about the facts, decision, and impact of this case?  [|Plessy LINK] ** Some of the facts were that although Homer Plessy had a light complexion, he was forced to sit in the "colored car" of the train because of some ancestors with dark skin. When Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act, in 1892, a black civil rights organization decided to challenge the law in the courts. Plessy's lawyer argued that the Separate Car Act violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. The decision of the supreme court, announced by Justice Henry Brown was that, "//A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races -- has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races. ... The object of the Fourteenth Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either.//" However, another justice, Justice John Harlan, disagreed and stated, " //Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. ..."// This decision that "separate" facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were "equal."

There was a man named Thomas Rice that heard a black man singing a song about Jim Crow. Thomas Rice decided to perform this song as Jim Crow because he was an failing actor. He used black makeup on stage to represent Jim Crow. "Jim Crow" was a grinning fool in his play and people began to use this as an insult against blacks. This was not a very bad insult to us blacks but it was still discrimination. But as more laws were passed about segregation, the laws that oppressed blacks started to be called Jim Crow laws. So no, Jim Crow did not write these segregation laws.
 * 3) The laws developed in the South became known as Jim Crow laws. Who was this Jim Crow fellow? Did he write the laws? [|Jim Crow LINK] **

== 4) **What are some specific examples of the Jim Crow laws from southern states? How did the laws affect you? Which on edo you feel is the worst? **== =**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #001ee6; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;">[|Jim Crow Laws LINK 1] <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;"> / <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #001ee6; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;">[|Jim Crow Laws LINK 2] <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;">/ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #001ee6; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;">[|Jim Crow Laws LINK 3] / ****[|Jim Crow Laws Link 4]**= Some specific laws that blacks could only go into colored waiting rooms, schools, bathrooms, housing developments, and some vehicles could only have white people, not colored. The laws affected me by no inference with white men or woman at all. It segregated me from regular life. The laws affect my family and myself, by when we went to dinner, we could only go to colored restaurants, and when we went to the bathroom we had to find "only colored bathrooms." Another law that was very hurtful to us, was that there would be no inter-racial marriage in a majority of the states; meaning that a colored person could not marry a white person, because it would be void and unlawful. Any person involved in assisting with these inter-racial marriages would also face these consequences which would many times include two to seven years in jail. Jim Crow America was filled with signs pointing to where you should go for certain African American facilities, and other signs to white facilities, which tended to be much nicer. Even bathrooms and waiting rooms were different for the two races. Some pictures that would explain these concepts are below:
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #239c95; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;">5) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;"> What did Jim Crow America look like in the 1900s? What are some images that can help explain the realities of the time? <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #6e1a7e; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;">[|Jim Crow Images LINK 1] <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;">/ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #001ee6; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;">[|Jim Crow Images LINK 2] **



In the Scottsboro Case, nine black youths were accused of raping twp white women who were dressed as men. Truthfully, the white women had had sexual relations with some of the white men aboard the train, but in fear of being prosecuted for these actions, the women agreed to testify, dishonestly, against the nine black youths to avoid punishment. When put on trial in a small town in Alabama, the verdict was reached that they would all be sent to jail, and all but the youngest, who was 12, would be sentenced to death. As an African American during these times and these events, I feel very violated and I feel that the verdict reached is very unfair. This makes me feel angry, because what if that were me just innocently riding on a train when all of a sudden I was being charged with the rape of women that I did not even know, and all because we were covering the wrongdoings of a white woman.
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #239c95; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;">6) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;">What happened in the Scottsboro Case? How did it make you feel as an African American in the South? <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #001ee6; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;"> [|Scottsboro LINK] **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;">People should care about my life during these hard times because they should learn from these times that life in Jim Crow America was much more than just signs pointing to segregated places. Racial segregation is only part of the story of Jim Crow America. By learning the basic facts, we should be able to ask, what did the African Americans do in response to these laws? People should care about my life, and the lives of other African Americans during Jim Crow America because it is very important to learn the hardships that certain racial groups went through to get to where they are now, in present day America.
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #239c95; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;">7) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 17.3333px;">Why should anyone care about your life during Jim Crow America? [|Why should I care? Link] **