The Concept “Jim Crow”

IN ANY field of endeavor terminology is a necessary tool and the development of concepts is basic to the functioning and workability of that field. The social sciences have been rich in this regard, to such an extent that the development of concepts has on occasion led to confusion and hindered rather than helped in the clarification of problems. However, in this accumulation of terminology, particularly in sociology, a term of importance is sometimes overlooked and this apparently has been the case in regard to the concept "Jim Crow." Even a brief examination of the term reveals that by all standards for the acceptance of a term as a sociological concept, "Jim Crow" rightfully belongs as a permanent part of the language of the discipline. Although the writer has been interested for some time in the sociological implications of "Jim Crow" and its concommitants, discrimination and segregation, particularly with reference to Negroes, recently legal proceedings in the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York impressed upon him not only the widespread use of this term but the sociological unawareness of it and the consequent need for "official" sociological recognition of the phrase. In a case involving the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company as defendants, the Railroad moved that the court strike from the plaintiff's amended complaint the phrase "Jim Crow," stating that the term was "scandalous, impertinent, and/or immaterial." The plaintiff, however, contended that the term was used in context properly and correctly and wvas a common and accepted part of standard American English, with a meaning generally understood and carrying a significant societal connotation, particularly associated with the separation of Negroes and whites within the framework of society in this country.' While there is no absolute criterion as to the range of operation of sociology, sociologists are in basic agreement that this field relates particularly to the forms and activities of the associational life of mankind. Its concepts, therefore, are those which have emerged in the course of analyzing those associational forms and activities. The word or term may be, and frequently is, used in some other field. As Sapir says, "The birth of a new concept is invariably foreshadowed by a more or less strained or extended use of old linguistic material."2 Even a brief examination of the term "Jim Crow" indicates that it unquestionably relates to the associational life of human beings, and that its extension into the popular vocabulary is based upon old linguistic material. The earliest public use of "Jim Crow" appears to have been in 1832, when a song and dance by that name, which apparently originated in Cincinnati, was introduced to New York.3 In 1841, the term was first used in Massachusetts to apply to a railroad car set apart for the use of Negroes. The phrase, then, has a somewhat more dignified origin than is ordinarily attributed to it by those who have considered it only as an opprobious comparison of the color of the Negro with that of the crow.4 The term itself has become so inseparably affixed to the laws separating the races in public places that at least two states, North Carolina and Maryland, are known to have indexed the laws oln that subject under "J" in some of their annual compilations of statutes.5 The Century Dictionary6 contains several definitions of "Jim Crow," and Krapp, in A Comprehensive Guide to Good English,7 points out that this phrase has been so frequently used that it is accepted as a part of stanidard American English and has been for many years. Eubanks contends that the question, however, is not whether the concept is used elsewhere, but whether as used in sociology it signifies "an idea that is distinctive and essential to itself." Many a term used in popular parlance, when sociologically defined, has a meaning all its own, and which it