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Jim Crow Laws Oppressed African Americans

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How the Jim Crow Laws Oppressed African Americans Racism has been a prominent issue throughout american history. It started when American Colonists traveled to Africa and kidnapped people, bringing them back to America and putting them through extremely harsh conditions. As time progressed slavery had changed its course and the North won the Civil War, and President Abraham Lincoln announced the abolishment of slavery. Although slavery had been (verbed), the tension between slaves and slave owners was greatly present. White slave owners still desired power over their former slaves, but with the reconstruction of the government and the creation of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments they no longer had the ability to control …show more content…

The Jim Crow Laws originated from a performance called Jumping Jim Crow, Jim Crow is a minstrel character who sings and dances. The performer is usually a white man with black face paint that acts in a foolish and uneducated way. The author of the song and character created Jim Crow as a stereotype for all blacks. The term became very derogatory and offensive and when the government and states were creating new laws to restrict blacks from their rights they used this name (Sharp, Carson and Bonk). The Jim Crow Laws made a system for segregation using legal laws (Carson and Bonk). The segregation started out as something called the Black Codes, which was similar to the Jim Crow Laws but was not as enforced. The Jim Crow Laws were later created and enforced throughout the United States, mostly in the south. The Black Laws made it easier for police to arrest blacks, but the Jim Crow Laws created segregation in everyday life. Blacks did not have the full privilege of an American citizen until a century after the civil war ended (Sharp). The Jim Crow laws kept African Americans from exercising their rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment through legal segregation, targeting and blaming blacks for

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