The Supreme Court Eats "Jim Crow," or Making Segregation Legal
The courtroom in Atlanta was quiet as the next witness was called to the stand. As the man approached, the bailiff came forward to administer the oath. The procedure was basically the same with all the witnesses. The bailiff held out a bible while the witness placed one hand on it, the other hand was raised, and the witness took an oath to tell the truth. However, with this witness one change was made. Because of the witness's skin color a separate bible would be used. According to an Atlanta law during the late 19th century black and white witnesses had to be sworn in with separate bibles. It sounds ludicrous but this statute was only one of the numerous so-called Jim Crow laws that effectively legalized segregation. Even though the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution had given African-Americans the same legal protection as whites, after 1877 those liberties were restricted and the Supreme Court itself was instrumental in legitimizing segregation.
After the Civil War the United States underwent a twelve-year period known as Reconstruction. During this time the South was placed under military rule and eventually the states belonging to the former Confederacy were re-admitted to the Union. At this time Congress passed three constitutional amendments designed to legally abolish slavery (13th Amendment), grant full U.S. citizenship to blacks (14th Amendment), and provide for black suffrage (15th Amendment). African-Americans made some significant gains during Reconstruction in that blacks were elected to both national and local offices and were able to establish free educational institutions. However, in 1877 Reconstruction was ended and the military pulled out of the South. As a result most of the freedoms African-Americans had gained were now lost. For example, Southern state lawmakers circumvented the 15th Amendment through the use of poll taxes, literacy tests, and the so-called grandfather clause.* An equally distasteful form of discrimination appeared in the passage of separate-but-equal, or Jim Crow laws. By the end of the 19th century America had become a society that had laws for two separate communities, one black, the other white.
Early in the 19th century the term Jim Crow referred to a minstrel show character created by white actor Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice. Apparently he applied black cork to his face and performed a song and dance act that portrayed blacks as fools. The popularity of the shows helped spread the notion that blacks were lazy, stupid, and unworthy of integration into white society. By the end of the 19th century the term began to be applied to laws and customs which oppressed African-Americans. The racial "caste system" operated primarily in the South, but it was not exclusively Southern. Many states and cities all across the United States passed laws that relegated African-Americans to second-class citizens.
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