Jim Crow America
The system of racial segregation that defined the American South for nearly a century after the Civil War.
From Reconstruction to Jim Crow
The end of the Civil War and the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments promised Black Americans freedom, citizenship, and voting rights. During Reconstruction (1865-1877), Black men voted, held office, and built communities across the South.
This progress was destroyed when federal troops withdrew from the South in 1877. White supremacist governments systematically stripped Black citizens of their rights through a combination of violence, legal manipulation, and economic coercion. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses effectively disenfranchised Black voters. The Ku Klux Klan and other terrorist organizations enforced white supremacy through lynching and intimidation.
In 1896, the Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision upheld 'separate but equal' as constitutional, giving legal blessing to racial segregation. In practice, separate was never equal.
