To Kill a Mockingbird: Historical Paper The Great Depression was a difficult time in American history. It occurred throughout the 1930’s, and was a period of unemployment and economic decline (McCabe 12). The events in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird took place as the Great Depression was coming to an end, and the effects of it are seen in the story. Historic events inspired Harper Lee to write To Kill a Mockingbird, a historical fiction piece. In the novel, references are also seen to the Jim Crow laws and mob mentality. The first influence on Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws were dehumanizing and it is important to learn about them so something similar is never repeated. The laws were made to segregate white people from people of color. An example of the laws is there were “laws that required Whites and Blacks to attend separate schools and to sit in different areas on public transportation. The laws extended to parks, cemeteries, theaters, and restaurants” (“Jim Crow Laws” 1). One thing I find particularly disturbing is that even in death (cemeteries), people of color were still not equal to whites. The absurd extent of the Jim Crow laws makes it hard to understand why they were put in place, but there was some, if very little, reason behind it. People thought these laws were needed because it was necessary to keep things in order. For example, “Many whites claimed that although lynchings were distasteful, they were necessary
The Jim Crow Laws were a series of rigid anti-black laws throughout the southern states. These laws follow a belief that whites were superior to blacks (Jim Crow Museum: Origins of Jim Crow 1). Jim Crow was rooted from an African American culture song and made sure that blacks used different schools, prisons, transportation, telephones, housing, bathrooms, and even games. Whites and blacks were never allowed to marry and black were not allowed to vote (American Historama 1). Many states could impose legal punishment if a person with a different race were to consort with a white (Jim Crow Laws 1).
During the 1930’s, racial tension and discrimination had been widespread throughout the South. In the year before, the stock market had crashed, causing the Great Depression. Meanwhile, the Dust Bowl was also going on, affecting farmers and workers in the mid-east. Although life was already hard for many, Jim Crow Laws were created. They were laws written to segregate Blacks and Whites.
Laws and rules had prohibited them from doing the same things as white people. Jim Crow Laws were created in 1877 to subordinate blacks as a group to whites and enforce rules that favored the white population. (Pilgrim, David). They were created with the belief that whites were better than blacks in every way of life. The main goal of the Jim Crow Laws was to segregate the two races in ordinary life.
These new laws became known as Jim Crow laws. They prohibited African Americans from using the same facilities and services as whites. The Supreme Court had ruled the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional because it was not the same as slavery to refuse to serve someone because of race. This evaluation and removal soon after led to the legalization of African American and white segregation. At the time, race was the basis of slavery.
Jim Crow laws Jim Crow law is how white people and colored people didn’t get along; there was lot unfairness between them such as segregation. Segregation is enforcing separation of different racial groups in a country, community, or establishment. Like, in Alabama hospitals private or public, there can’t be any female nurses in the same room as a black man. For the buses, they had separate waiting rooms and separate ticket windows for the white and colored people. With restaurants whites and colored couldn’t be served in the same room unless they had a solid wall built from the roof down to separate them.
In the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, cruelty comes up again and again as a central theme and driving force in the plot. The novel takes place during the Great Depression, a time period where segregation is the norm, and cruelty is commonplace. The main character, Scout, grows up seeing all of this, and questions it. She watched racism take place around her, and grew up throughout the course of the novel, and found that even though the events that transpired were unpleasant, they made her a better person. “To Kill a Mockingbird” was set in the Great Depression.
The Jim Crow Laws Jim Crow Laws guaranteed that African Americans were treated as second class citizens without the freedom and liberties promised by our nation’s constitution. Many segregation laws, called The Jim Crow Laws, were already in place throughout the South before the Supreme Court’s Decision in Plessy v Ferguson. Growing up as a Native American was kind of rough on people, they were separated from others. They were only allowed to use certain water fountains, certain bathrooms plus they had to wait for the Americans to get done before they could walk into a grouchy store.
These laws continued to create seperation between races. Due to the Civil Rights Act of 1866, white supremacists
With the beginning of the Jim Crow Laws in the 1900s to their abolishment in 1965, and even today, America has yet to resolve the issue of “separate but equal.” Throughout the late 1800s, and late 1900’s the “Jim Crow Laws” were a form of enforced segregation against black people in many states all across America. Black segregation was heavy in the southern states especially Alabama, where slavery had been very prevalent. These laws made it legal for people to abuse and punish blacks for consorting with another race.
They were enforced through careful monitoring of birth records and marriage records. What race or color a person was determined what their status was in the United States. If you had the slightest trace of African blood, then you were black. These laws were passed at the height of Eugenics. Eugenics
They had to follow rules and behave in a manner that wouldn’t get them in trouble, but more specifically lynching. Owing to Johnson for making such an impact during this time era. Johnson joined the “staff of the interracial National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was a key figure, perhaps the key figure, in making the NAACP a truly national organization capable of mounting the attack that eventually led to the dismantling of the system of segregation by law” (James Weldon Johnson’s Life and Career). Its hard to imagine how African Americans felt living with this around them all the time, to know if a white person had something against you.
By the implementation of the inferiority among black people compared to their white counterparts, instilled a vitriol that was and still is extremely devastating to a more equal future. Shortly following the civil war, the south being bitter in the aftermath of surrender, took it among themselves to create the segregation laws. Laws that came to be known as the incredibly devious Jim Crow laws. These insidious Laws were enforced by the former Confederate southern states, which began in the late 1870's and early 1880's, that actually made it legal to segregate blacks from whites. The Jim Crow laws confined legal rights of black people to be designated their own colored public facilities, as well as their schools, even to water drinking fountains.
5th Hour Cause and Effect Essay Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were unfair and unjust to all African-Americans by making them unequal. The Jim Crow laws are laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. It used the term separate but equal, even though conditions for African Americans were always worst than their white counterparts. They could not eat at the same restaurant as white people, they could not used the same restrooms, and they couldn't even use the same drinking fountain.
Jim Crow laws were created by the southern states which discriminated against blacks in order to make sure they were segregated by whites. The following document states, “No nurse 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” (Document E) The Jim Crow laws put an end to the use of nurses being able to help blacks. There was such a tremendous focus on separating blacks and whites under the Jim Crow laws as a way to stop them from being equal. Additionally, “Separate rooms shall be provided for the teaching of African descent..”
In the south especially these laws were set to restrict free slaves. African Americans had very little legal rights in court rooms, and could not even own properties. If