Unit 3 - Jim Crow, 1883-1900

Question 1

What are Jim Crow laws?

Answer 1

A set of laws passed by former Confederate states to introduce legal segregation. The name stems from a famous 19th-century minstrel who did blackface.

Question 2

Did segregation also exist in the North or only in the South?

Answer 2

It existed in the North as well, it was just less extreme and engrained in society than in the South.

Question 3

What was the role of the Supreme Court in establishing segregation?

Answer 3

Its ruling on key cases which helped deny black people fundamental civil rights.

Question 4

Which Supreme Court rulings were essential in helping establish segregation?

Answer 4

Plessy v Ferguson, the Slaughterhouse Decisions, the civil rights cases of 1883 and US v Reese.

Question 5

Briefly explain the Slaughterhouse Decision of 1873.

Answer 5

The Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment protected the rights of national citizenship but not individual civil rights. It made black people safe as Americans outside of the US, but not safe from domestic discrimination.

Question 6

Briefly explain the Plessy v Ferguson ruling of 1896.

Answer 6

The case challenged Louisiana legislation demanding separate but equal accommodation on railroads. The plaintiff was only 1/8 black but educated and a civil rights activist.
The verdict was that segregated facilities were okay as long as they were equal.

Question 7

Briefly explain the US v Reese case of 1876.

Answer 7

It was a voting rights case in which the ruling gave southern state governments the right to not let black people vote. It let everyone vote technically but also let states decide if they would comply.

Question 8

Briefly explain the 1883 cases.

Answer 8

A group of five landmark cases. The rulings established that the 13th and 14th Amendments didn’t empower Congress to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals.

Question 9

Which SCOTUS rulings opened the door to Jim Crow?

Answer 9

The 1883 cases.

Question 9

Who was the only Justice to vote against the rulings of the 1883 cases?

Answer 9

John M. Harlan.

Question 10

Which aspect of life was first affected by Jim Crow laws?

Answer 10

Rail travel changes. It tackled the implementation of ‘separate but equal’ facilities, trains and waiting rooms.
It started in Florida in 1887.
These laws were extended to other aspects of life when the governments realised they could get away with it.

Question 11

Name some aspects of life affected by Jim Crow laws.

Answer 11

Restaurants, waiting rooms, public areas, trams in cities and rail travel.

Question 12

Explain social Darwinism and how governments used it to justify Jim Crow.

Answer 12

Social Darwinism was the fake scientific proof of black inferiority.
Governments used it to keep black people disenfranchised and alienated from society.

Question 13

Name some ways in which Southern governments prevented black people from voting.

Answer 13

Poll taxes, property taxes, literacy tests and the Louisiana Grandfather Clause.

Question 14

What was the poll tax?

Answer 14

A price required to pay to vote. Many black people couldn’t afford it.

Question 15

What were literacy tests?

Answer 15

Tests that required a person to read and write to vote. Designed to exclude black people from the process.

Question 16

What was the Louisiana Grandfather Clause?

Answer 16

It stated that potential voters had to pass a literacy test, except if they had been registered as of 1/1/1867. In that case, no tests or taxes were required of them, their sons and their grandsons.
The Grandfather Clause excluded all black people because they had not been allowed to vote until 1870.

Question 17

Why was the Louisiana Grandfather Clause created?

Answer 17

To make poll taxes and literacy tests exclusively for black people. If they had included white people, many would not have been allowed to vote either.

Question 18

When was the Grandfather Clause declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court?

Answer 18

In 1915.

Question 19

Were tests, taxes and laws successful in excluding potential black voters?

Answer 19

Yes. The number of black voters shrank up to 90%.

Question 20

Name three important civil rights activists of the Jim Crow era.

Answer 20

Booker T Washington, Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois.

Question 21

Who delivered the Atlanta Compromise?

Answer 21

Booker T. Washington.

Question 22

Which Supreme Court ruling dealt with the changes made to the Mississippi state constitution in 1890?

Answer 22

Williams v Mississippi, 1898.

Question 23

How many lynchings happened on average every year in the 1890s?

Answer 23

187.

Question 24

Name some white supremacist groups of the time.

Answer 24

Ku Klux Klan
White League
Knights of the White Camelia
Red Shirts

Question 25

When and by whom was the KKK founded?

Answer 25

In the 1860s by Confederate veterans in the South.

Question 26

Why was the White League founded?

Answer 26

To intimidate freedmen into not voting and prevent republican party organising.

Question 27

When and where were the Knights of the White Camelia founded?

Answer 27

1867 in Franklin, Louisiana.

Question 28

When and where were the Red Shirts founded?

Answer 28

1875 in Mississippi.