Jim Crow in America Notes

Jim Crow in America

A depiction of Thomas D. Rice's "Jim Crow"
The term Jim Crow comes from the minstrel show song "Jump Jim Crow" written in 1828 and performed by Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice, a white immigrant to the U.S. and the first popularizer of blackface performance. in 1828 Rice appeared on stage as "Jim Crow" -- an exaggerated, highly stereotypical Black character.The song and blackface itself were an immediate hit. A caricature of a shabbily dressed rural black, "Jim Crow" became a standard character in minstrel shows. He was often paired with "Zip Coon," a ridiculous and flamboyantly dressed urban black who mimicked white culture in a foolish way. White audiences were receptive to the portrayals of Blacks as singing, dancing, grinning fools. Rice, and his imitators, by their stereotypical depictions of Blacks, helped to popularize the belief that Blacks were lazy, stupid, inherently less human, and unworthy of integration. During the years that Blacks were being victimized by lynch mobs, they were also victimized by the racist caricatures propagated through novels, sheet music, theatrical plays, and minstrel shows. Ironically, years later when Blacks replaced White minstrels, the Blacks also "blackened" their faces, thereby pretending to be Whites pretending to be Blacks. They, too, performed the “Coon Shows” which dehumanized Blacks and helped establish the desirability of racial segregation. By 1837, the term “Jim Crow” was being used to refer to racial segregation.




Minstrel Performers in blackface in the tradition of Jim Crow
Jim Dandy
Zip Coon

Jim Crow Laws
Voting: Blacks were denied the right to vote by
• Grandfather clauses (laws that restricted the right to vote to people whose ancestors had voted before the Civil War)
• Poll taxes (fees charged to poor Blacks)
• White primaries (only Democrats could vote, only Whites could be Democrats)
• Literacy tests ("Name all the Vice Presidents and Supreme Court Justices throughout America's history").
Examples of Jim Crow Laws by State
Alabama
• "Nurses. No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to work in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which Negro men are placed.
• "Buses. All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races."
• "Restaurants. It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment."
Arkansas
• Intermarriage/Cohabitation: Various laws from 1884 to 1947 prohibited marriage or sexual relations between whites and blacks or “mulatoes,” providing for specific fines and even imprisonment up to three years.

• Public Accommodations: Various laws from 1891 to 1959 segregated rail travel, streetcars, buses, all public carriers, race tracks, gaming establishments, polling places, washrooms in mines, tuberculosis hospitals, public schools and teachers' colleges.
• Poll tax imposed in 1947.
Florida
• Intermarriage. All marriages between a white person and a Negro, or between a white person and a person of Negro descent to the fourth generation inclusive, are hereby forever prohibited.
• Cohabitation. Any Negro man and white woman, or any white man and Negro woman, who are not married to each other, who shall habitually live in and occupy in the nighttime the same room shall each be punished by imprisonment not exceeding twelve (12) months, or by fine not exceeding five hundred ($500.00) dollars.
• Education. The schools for white children and the schools for Negro children shall be conducted separately.
o 1865: Railroad [Statute] — Negroes or “mulattoes” who intruded into any railroad car reserved for white persons would be found guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, sentenced to stand in the pillory for one hour, or to be whipped, not exceeding 39 stripes, or both, at the discretion of the jury." Whites faced the same penalty for entering a car reserved for persons of color.
• 1895: Education [Statute] — Penal offense for any persons to conduct any school, any grade, either public or private where whites and blacks are instructed or boarded in the same building, or taught in the same class by the same teachers. Penalty: Between $150 and $500 fine, or imprisonment in the county jail between three and six months.
o 1927: Education [Statute] — Criminal offense for teachers of one race to instruct pupils of the other in public schools.
o 1927: Race classification [Statute] — Defined the words "Negro" or "colored person" to include persons who have one eighth or more Negro blood.
• 1967: Public accommodations [City Ordinance] — Sarasota passed a city ordinance stating that "Whenever members of two or more…races shall…be upon any public…bathing beach within the corporate limits of the City of Sarasota, it shall be the duty of the Chief of police or other officer…in charge of the public forces of the City...with the assistance of such police forces, to clear the area involved of all members of all races present."
• Amateur Baseball. It shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race.
• Housing. Any person...who shall rent any part of any building to a Negro person or a Negro family when such building is already in whole or in part in occupancy by a white person or white family, or vice versa when the building is in occupancy by a Negro person or Negro family, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not less than twenty-five ($25.00) nor more than one hundred ($100.00) dollars or be imprisoned not less than 10, or more than 60 days, or both such fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court.

Georgia
• Burial: The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons.
Virginia
• Theaters. Every person...operating...any public hall, theatre, opera house, motion picture show or any place of public entertainment or public assemblage which is attended by both white and colored persons, shall separate the white race and the colored race and shall set apart and designate...certain seats therein to be occupied by white persons and a portion thereof , or certain seats therein, to be occupied by colored persons.
Wyoming
• Intermarriage. "All marriages of white persons with Negroes, “Mulattos,” Mongolians, or Malaya hereafter contracted in the State of Wyoming are and shall be illegal and void." The term 'Mongolian' included Aboriginal Americans as well as Asians.
The Etiquette of Jim Crow or How to Navigate the System
• A Black male could not offer his hand (to shake hands) with a White male because it implied being socially equal. Obviously, a Black male could not offer his hand or any other part of his body to a White woman, because he risked being accused of rape.
• Blacks and Whites were not supposed to eat together. If they did eat together, Whites were to be served first, and some sort of partition was to be placed between them.
• Under no circumstance was a Black male to offer to light the cigarette of a White female -- that gesture implied intimacy.
• Blacks were not allowed to show public affection toward one another in public, especially kissing, because it offended Whites.
• Jim Crow etiquette prescribed that Blacks were introduced to Whites, never Whites to Blacks. For example: "Mr. Peters (the White person), this is Charlie (the Black person), that I spoke to you about."
• Whites did not use courtesy titles of respect when referring to Blacks, for example, Mr., Mrs., Miss., Sir, or Ma'am. Instead, Blacks were called by their first names. Blacks had to use courtesy titles when referring to Whites, and were not allowed to call them by their first names.
• If a Black person rode in a car driven by a White person, the Black person sat in the back seat, or the back of a truck.
• White motorists had the right-of-way at all intersections.
Stetson Kennedy, the author of Jim Crow Guide, offered these simple rules that Blacks were supposed to observe in conversing with Whites:
1. Never assert or even intimate that a White person is lying.
2. Never impute dishonorable intentions to a White person.
3. Never suggest that a White person is from an inferior class.
4. Never lay claim to, or overly demonstrate, superior knowledge or intelligence.
5. Never curse a White person.
6. Never laugh derisively at a White person.
7. Never comment upon the appearance of a White female.

Blacks who violated Jim Crow norms, for example, drinking from the White water fountain or trying to vote, risked their homes, their jobs, even their lives. Whites could physically beat Blacks with impunity. Blacks had little legal recourse against these assaults because the Jim Crow criminal justice system was all-White: police, prosecutors, judges, juries, and prison officials. Violence was instrumental for Jim Crow. It was a method of social control. The most extreme forms of Jim Crow violence were lynchings.
Lynching 1930, Marion Indiana

A mob of 10,000 whites took sledgehammers to the county jailhouse doors to get at these two young blacks accused of raping a white girl; the girl’s uncle saved the life of a third by proclaiming the man’s innocence. Lynching photos were sometimes made into postcards.
Lynchings were public, often sadistic, murders carried out by mobs.
• Between 1882 & 1968 there were 4,730 known lynchings, including 3,440 Black men and women.
• Most of the victims of Lynch-Law were hanged or shot, but some were burned at the stake, castrated, beaten with clubs, or dismembered
• Lynching was used as an intimidation tool to keep Blacks "in their places.”
Under Jim Crow any and all sexual interactions between Black men and White women was illegal, illicit, socially repugnant, and within the Jim Crow definition of rape. The popular belief was that lynchings were necessary to protect White women from Black rapists.
In actuality, most Blacks were lynched for
• demanding civil rights
• violating Jim Crow etiquette or laws
• or in the aftermath of race riots.