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The Jim Crow Laws

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Jim Crow Laws
What would you think if you were to go to the bathroom and see a sign stating that there was a separate bathroom for African Americans, likely one that was in much worse shape? This would have been very common in America in the 1930s. According to Clive Gifford, author of “World Issues, Racism”, “Racial discrimination denies members of one racial group access open to others” (Gifford 19). Racial discrimination has taken place several times throughout history, even in the form of laws, such as the Jim Crow Laws. Jim Crow laws were prejudiced laws that supported racial segregation in the United States for several decades.
THE START OF JIM CROW LAWS
Jim Crow laws began in the United States around the 1880s (“Jim Crow Laws” 1). …show more content…
One of the most famous of these cases was Plessy v. Ferguson. Plessy v. Ferguson was a case that took place in 1896, in which the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of “separate but equal” (“Plessy v. Ferguson” 1). In a way, this served as the foundation of Jim Crow laws. The court said “separate but equal” and people referred back to this statement often when discussing Jim Crow laws. The flaw of this statement was that African Americans were not given equal quality facilities and opportunity.
EXAMPLES OF JIM CROW LAWS
As previously stated Jim Crow laws were segregation laws. So what exactly is segregation? Clive Gifford says “segregation is the keeping a part of different races in some, or all, areas of everyday life.” (Gifford 24). That is exactly what these laws did. They were meant to separate races in basically …show more content…
He was denied entrance to a law school because of his race (Feldman 2). Later, after graduating from law school he won a law school he won a case desegregating the school that turned him away (2). This was a big step in putting an end to Jim Crow laws but, this was not all Marshall did. He helped in many of the civil rights cases and also became the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court (2).
Kingery 5
It was not just a few people that fought against the Jim Crow laws though, it was also large groups. A group that was connected with nearly every fight against Jim Crow was NAACP. Along with groups there were court cases that helped remove Jim Crow laws such as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. This was a Supreme Court case in which the original ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson had been overruled (“Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas 1). This ruling really began the desegregation of America (1).
AN END TO JIM

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