Jim Crow Flashcards
Rise of Jim Crow - why there was a gap between de jure & de facto
- Radical reconstruction - Southerners saw it as an invasion, increased hatred and distrust of outside intervention
- States’ Rights (Carl Sandberg) - laws and individual rights of states should not be overruled by federal government. Primacy of state over federal law in the South - they had seceded to keep their rights to hold slaves. Carl Sandberg said the war fought over a verb - the us IS a nation or ARE a nation
After slavery
1865 legal abolition
1890s - 30 years later there was a legal system of segregation
Jim Crow Statues 1881-1915
Legal: May 1896 Plessy vs Ferguson. Separate but equal
Education: 1890 southern states spent $2 dollars on every white child, $1 on every black child.
1900 Mississippi blacks 60% school age population but 19% education budget.
Political: one of the reasons segregation succeeded was because politics. If allowed to vote they could make changes
Populist “people’s” Party - unite under class not race so poor black and whites together. If it had succeeded would have changed stratification in the South.
Whites started injected racism into political arguments drawing upon stereotypes from slavery - makes poor whites so afraid of blacks that Populist party fails
15th amendment forbade states from denying right to vote
Poll tax - pay certain amount to get on electorate, most blacks poor but also stops poor whites.
Grandfather Clause - grandfather had to have voted - as slaves they couldn’t
“All white primary”: southerners were democrats until mid 60s, lincoln had been republican so party unpopular. Just had to deny them voice in democratic party. 15th amendment says state not party. Stated they were a private party. Politicians didn’t need to appeal to blacks so had no representation at all
Violence: federal records show proof of lynching - 1882-1968 3,446
Southern elites would advertise lynchings - if black prisoner being held a white mob would break in and lynch
Became more ritualised - people would take home souvenirs.
Knew they would not be punished.
