Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation. The term "Jim Crow" was a pejorative term for an African American. These laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America and in some others, beginning in the 1870s. Jim Crow laws were upheld in 1896 in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, in which the Supreme Court laid out its "separate but equal" legal doctrine concerning facilities for African Americans. In practice, however, black facilities were often of far poorer quality than those reserved for whites, and separate rarely meant equal. Jim Crow laws touched every aspect of everyday life, including public transport, facilities, juries, jobs, and neighborhoods. Here are some of the typical Jim Crow laws, as compiled by the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site Interpretive Staff:
- Blacks and whites could not eat together in a restaurant.
- Separate schools were to be provided for black and white students.
- Blacks and whites could not be buried in the same cemetery.
- Blacks and whites could not use the same public transportation.
- Blacks could not show public affection toward one another in public, especially kissing, because it offended whites.
- Jim Crow laws and system of etiquette were undergirded by violence, real and threatened.
The remaining Jim Crow laws were overturned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
