# Jim Crow laws

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States.

## Quotes

* In many ways, pseudo-science merely provided sophisticated rationales for such measures. Ideas like 'Social Darwinism', which erroneously inferred from Darwin's theories a struggle for survival between the races, or 'racial hygiene', which argued that physical and mental degeneration would result from miscegenation, came some time after prohibitions had been enacted. This was especially obvious in Britain's North American colonies and the United States. From the earliest phase of British settlement in North America there had been laws designed to discourage miscegenation and to circumscribe the rights of mulattos. Interracial marriage may have been a punishable offence in Virginia from as early as 1630 and was formally prohibited by legislation in 1662; the colony of Maryland had passed similar legislation a year earlier. Such laws were passed by five other North American colonies.
** Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006), pp. 20-21
* In the century after the foundation of the United States, no fewer than thirty-eight states banned interracial marriages. In 1915, twenty-eight states retained such statutes; ten of them had gone so far as to make the prohibition on miscegenation constitutional. There was even an attempt, in December 1912, to amend the federal constitution so as to prohibit 'forever . . . intermarriage between negros or persons of color and Caucasians . . . within the United States'. The language of the various statutes and constitutional articles certainly changed over time, as rationalizations for the ban on interracial sex evolved, and as new threats to racial purity emerged. Definitions of whiteness and blackness became more precise: in Virginia, for example, anyone with one or more 'Negro' grandparents was defined as a 'Negro', but it was possible to have one 'Indian' great-grandparent and still be white in the eyes of the law. Depending on patterns of immigration, a number of states extended their prohibitions to include 'Mongolians', 'Asiatic Indians', Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos and Malays. Penalties also varied widely. Some laws simply declared interracial unions null and void, depriving couples of the legal privileges of marriage; others specified penalties of up to ten years in prison. Nevertheless, the underlying motivation seems remarkably consistent and enduring.
** Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006), p. 21
* The hundred-year period of racial apartheid and racial terrorism known as Jim Crow.
** Nikole Hannah-Jones, The 1619 Project (2019)
* And what was the cost of this Jim Crow? Not merely that the precious words "America" and "freedom" became suspect in the eyes of the world, but more than that. It cost us lives. Lives of white men, of Frenchmen, Russians and Chinese-because there were many battles in this war when replacements were needed. But the American rule of war was "No Negroes allowed on the front lines" until the 92d finally got there. I listened to the Axis radio. Tokyo Rose said, and she quoted American sources, that Negroes were good enough to serve in the American Army, but they weren't good enough to pitch in the American Big League baseball. And they broadcast this not only to our own troops but also to the billion and a half colored peoples of the earth.
** Ollie Harrington Why I Left America and Other Essays (1993)
* To be in the margin is to be part of the whole but outside the main body. As black Americans living in a small Kentucky town, the railroad tracks were a daily reminder of our marginality. ... We had always to return to the margin, to cross the tracks, to shacks and abandoned houses on the edge of town. There were laws to ensure our return. To not return was to risk being punished.
** bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), Preface, p. xvii.

## See also

* African-American history
* African Americans
* Post-racial America
* Racism
* Racism in the United States
* Residential segregation in the United States
* Reconstruction era
* Southern United States

## External links

* The History of Jim Crow, Ronald L. F. Davis – A series of essays on the history of Jim Crow. Archived index at the Wayback Machine.
** Creating Jim Crow – Origins of the term and system of laws.
** Racial Etiquette: The Racial Customs and Rules of Racial Behavior in Jim Crow America – The basics of Jim Crow etiquette.
* "You Don't Have to Ride Jim Crow!" PBS documentary on first Freedom Ride, in 1947.
* List of laws enacted in various states
* Ferris University page about Jim Crow
* Voices on Antisemitism Interview with David Pilgrim, founder of Jim Crow Museum from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum
* Jim Crow Era, History in the Key of Jazz, Gerald Early, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri (esp. see section "Jim Crow is Born")
* Jim Crow Laws. National Park Service. Retrieved on November 17, 2010. Examples of Jim Crow laws
* Jim Crow Signs at A History of Central Florida Podcast