Jim Crow

1
Jim Crow

• Americas
• 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.
4
Sheet music cover illustration with caricatures
of ragged African-American musicians and dancers.
pub. C1847
5
(No Transcript)
6
They are rich, and want to make the Negro the
Equal of the Poor White Man, and then rule them
both.
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
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.
9
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.
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.
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.
13
Sign in Virginia, posted in the 1920s. This sign
gives one origin of the term "Lynch law. Note
the use of the word justice.
14
"The Agony of Lynching" by Laurence Foy. Block
print originally published in the 1920s.
15
Rocky Ford, Mississippi September 1925--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.
16
In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan again grew.
17
Illustration (1891) by I. Garland Penn. Ida B.
Wells (1862-1931) 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.
18
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911) An
author and lecturer, fought for equal rights.
19
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
20
Tuskegee Institute
21
January 1914 An authors evening for suffrage.
22
"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
24
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, July 1939 "Colored"
water fountains were fixtures throughout the
South during the Jim Crow era.
25
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