Separate but Equal

Jim Crow Laws

History of Jim Crow “Weel about and turn about and do jis so,

Eb'rytime I weel about I jump Jim Crow”

• Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s.

• Created in 1828 by Thomas Rice when he first appeared on stage as "Jim Crow" -- an exaggerated, highly stereotypical Black character.

Jim Crow Etiquette

•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

• 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

Jim Crow Guideby Stetson Kennedy

• Stetson Kennedy, the author of Jim Crow Guide, offered these simple rules that Blacks were supposed to observe in conversing with Whites:

• Never assert or even intimate that a White person is lying.

• Never impute dishonorable intentions to a White person.

• Never suggest that a White person is from an inferior class.

• Never lay claim to, or overly demonstrate, superior knowledge or intelligence.

• Never curse a White person.

• Never laugh derisively at a White person.

• Never comment upon the appearance of a White female.

U.S. Segregation Laws

• Barbers. No colored barber shall serve as a barber (to) white girls or women (Georgia).

• Blind Wards. The board of trustees shall...maintain a separate building...on separate ground for the admission, care, instruction, and support of all blind persons of the colored or black race (Louisiana).

• 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 (Georgia).

• 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 (Alabama).

• Child Custody. It shall be unlawful for any parent, relative, or other white person in this State, having the control or custody of any white child, by right of guardianship, natural or acquired, or otherwise, to dispose of, give or surrender such white child permanently into the custody, control, maintenance, or support, of a negro (South Carolina).

• Education. The schools for white children and the schools for negro children shall be conducted separately (Florida).

• Libraries. The state librarian is directed to fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of the colored people who may come to the library (South Carolina)

• Mental Hospitals. The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct apartments are arranged for said patients, so that in no case shall Negroes and white persons be together (Georgia).

• Militia. The white and colored militia shall be separately enrolled, and shall never be compelled to serve in the same organization. No organization of colored troops shall be permitted where white troops are available and where whites are permitted to be organized, colored troops shall be under the command of white officers (North Carolina).

• Nurses. No person or corporation shall require any White female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed (Alabama).

• Prisons. The warden shall see that the white convicts shall have separate apartments for both eating and sleeping from the negro convicts (Mississippi).

• Reform Schools. The children of white and colored races committed to the houses of reform shall be kept entirely separate from each other (Kentucky).

• Teaching. Any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution where members of the white and colored race are received and enrolled as pupils for instruction shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined... (Oklahoma).

• Wine and Beer. All persons licensed to conduct the business of selling beer or wine...shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room at any time (Georgia).2

Images

Results

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,Here is a strange and bitter crop.

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The Reasons Given for the Murder of African Americans

Emmett Till Lynching

• (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955

• The murder of Emmett Till was noted as one of the leading events that motivated the nascent American Civil Rights Movement.[The main suspects were acquitted, but later admitted to committing the crime.

•“Milam: "Well, what else could we do? He was hopeless. I'm no bully; I never hurt a nigger in my life. I like niggers -- in their place -- I know how to work 'em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are gonna stay in their place. Niggers ain't gonna vote where I live. If they did, they'd control the government. They ain't gonna go to school with my kids. And when a nigger gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he's tired o' livin'. I'm likely to kill him. Me and my folks fought for this country, and we got some rights. I stood there in that shed and listened to that nigger throw that poison at me, and I just made up my mind. 'Chicago boy,' I said, 'I'm tired of 'em sending your kind down here to stir up trouble. Goddam you, I'm going to make an example of you -- just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.'"(American Experience)

The last known lynching in the Unite Sates occurred in Mobile, Alabama in 1981. Michael A. McDonald, 19, Klux Klan, as he was walking down the street. The two men beat, tortured and slit the throat of Mc Donald before hanging him from the tree near one of the assailants houses.

The Murder of James Byrd Jr.In June of 1998, a sadistic murder of a middle-aged black man from

Jasper, Texas, rekindled memories of lynching practices from the blood stained American past. James Byrd, Jr., 49, was beaten savagely to the point of unconsciousness, chained to the back of a pickup truck by his

neck, and dragged for miles over rural roads outside the town of Jasper. It is believed that Byrd survived through most of this experience, that is,

until he was decapitated. Three white men, John William King, 23, Shawn Berry, 23, (both of whom had links to white supremacist groups) and

Lawrence Brewer Jr., 31, were arrested. Brewer and King were sentenced to death for a racial hate crime that shocked the nation. Berry

was sent to prison for life.

When does this end?