The Jim Crow Laws : The Challenges Of The Jim Crow Laws

His resolve to rise above his broken beginnings persisted while many other black people essentially ceded power to the dominant white population. He was never afraid to question what shaped his life, despite opposition, and he started with his lack of sustenance. Physical hunger was a critical factor in Wright’s existence that underscored his actions and gave weight to Black Boy.

The whole Jim Crow Law rules were based on the separate but equal properties. Any of the laws that enforced racial segregation in the south between the end of reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. Jim crow laws affected public places such as schools, housing jobs, parks, cemeteries, and public gathering places. Ohio was one of the first to ban interracial marriage. There was forms of segregation before the laws came into place. For instance some people had the mentality that they could work with a slave as long as the slave knew his or her place. Brown vs. Board of Education is an example of a Jim Crow law being put into action. After the supreme court unanimously held that racial segregation of children in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause.

Racism was a normal thing in Maycomb County, but out of the entire county Bob Ewell was the worst. “I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin’ on my Mayella.” (Lee 231) Bob Ewell refers to Tom Robinson as (a) “black nigger” on the witness stand in front of everyone. Clearly, he doesn’t care about discriminating Tom Robinson right in front of his face and also in front of the people that are in the courtroom. “As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life…” (Lee 295). If Bob Ewell had put himself in Tom’s shoes, he would have seen how hard of a life it is for African Americans. He is one who will “cheat black men everyday of (his) life”, because of his ignorance. (Lee 295) Being racist not only hurts the victim, but ruins your reputation and your life.

In a progressive society like the United States, looking to the past is common, to learn from our mistakes but some undeniable issues of the past repeat and are omitted from our society because of their unpleasant nature, a great example of this is the Jim-Crow Era. In this paper, I will be discussing the main events of the Jim-Crow era, its initiation, the new style of slavery in the south, and the way it re-shaped the lives of African Americans all across the country, its re-enforcement in the beginning of the twentieth century, its major supporters, like the Ku Klux Klan. Confederate state leaders, and its major oppositions like the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, and the idea of the United States setting a global example of

Wright would examine racial profiling if he was to write Black Boy today. Racial profiling is a very serious issue in the society today. Many African American were being target, and in some case murdered by law enforcement official because of their race. On August 9, 2014, a white police officer named Darren Wilson shoot an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown multiple time in Ferguson, Mo. According to news article “From Ferguson to Charleston and Beyond, Anguish about Race Keep Building”, Even though there was a video tape showing that the black teenager was unarmed, the county grand jury still decided not to indict the police office because they believed the old assumption that African Americans are more likely to be criminals. “Grand juries have tended to give the benefit of the doubt to police officers. National polls revealed deep divisions in how whites and blacks viewed the facts in each case. Whites were more likely to believe officers’ accounts justifying the use of force. Blacks tended to see deeper forces at work: longstanding police bias against black men and a presumption that they are criminals”.

What if you woke up one day and everything became separate? School, sports, and even parks; would you be able to cope with Jim Crow laws? Though many whites opposed the idea of integration and supported Jim Crow laws, many citizens of color fought for the right to use the same restroom, water fountain, go to the same schools, and even to intermarry. Jim Crow laws were instituted to separate those of color and whites, because of this, many blacks were discriminated against in social areas and job and school opportunities.

By the turn of the 20th century, African Americans who were once slave, less than 50 years ago were now full pledge citizens who can vote and exercise their rights as Americans. Reconstructive efforts were issued to aid the newly emancipated black population, more several in the south. Programs such as the Freedman’s Bureau, provided free blacks and poor white with food, housing, schooling and medical assistance in attempts for a better transition. However, freed blacks were met with challenges with discrimination and segregation among their white societals. These challenges came in forms of locally organized laws such as the Black Codes, and the Jim Crow Laws. When those barriers were challenged or wasn’t doing enough, violence is referred to in the epidemic of lyncing. African Americans endured these hardships under restrictions both socially and economically as blacks had little non economic mobility. Majority of the black population were sharecroppers, household personnel and many were also illiterate. Not only did African Americans suffered socially and economically but politically as well. Numerous cases are brought to the courts to exercise their rights as citizen but were often shut down. The 1896, Plessy v. Fergusson, voted in favor of segregation; as long as they are equal in what is being offered. But a break was in for the African Americans to move north. The industrial cities of NY and Philly have already attracted African Americans prior and in the year 1914,

Richard Wright describes in his autobiography 'The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch' the atmosphere at his first job, where his fellow workers

Wright uses violent and fearful diction to inform the readers that conforming would result in physical or mental death. While thinking about the options he was in the South he said, “I could fight the southern whites […] If I fought

The New Jim Crow is a book that discusses how legal practices and the American justice system are harming the African American community as a whole, and it argues that racism, though hidden, is still alive and well in our society because of these practices. In the book, Michelle Alexander, author and legal scholar, argues that legal policies against offenders have kept and continue to keep black men from becoming first class citizens, and she writes that by labeling them as “criminals,” the justice system and society in general is able to act with prejudice against them and subordinate black Americans who were previously incarcerated, on probation, or on parole, by limiting their access to services as a result of their ‘criminal status’ and therefore, further degrading their quality of life. The New Jim Crow urges readers to acknowledge the injustice and racial disparity of our criminal justice system so that this new, more covert form of racism in society can be stopped.

This would result in either a beating or a stern warning; mostly from the white folks around him. Racialization showed Wright that even when working conditions are tough and bleak, the best thing to do is smile like nothing is wrong. From both his experiences and the tales of other black people’s experiences in the south, it is evident that the blacks were becoming accustomed to the idea of not being

Richard Wright was an author who was born before the Civil Rights movement who wrote a who wrote an autobiography called Black Boy. In his book full of memoirs, he talks about his experiences of growing up in the South and how people of his race and skin color were treated. Being a person of color, Wright mentions how colored people were disrespected and discriminated by white southerners during his childhood, teenage years, and even as a young adult. Now that years have passed, racism has decreased, but it still remains. Since slavery ever began, people of color have been fighting for equality for a long period of time.

No matter if you’re black or white, you can do anything. In, “After You, My Dear Alphonse”, the author states, “’Boyd’s father doesn’t have to,’ Johnny said. ‘He’s a foreman.’ Mrs. Wilson felt defeated.” This quote shows how Mrs. Wilson does not like how her family and Boyd’s family is at the same social level. To Mrs. Wilson’s mind, black people are supposed to be on the lowest level there is on the social class scale. She believes that black people would or should only work in factories and leave the highest ranking positions or jobs to whites. In, “The Test”, the author states, “'You-all sho can read fine,' the inspector exclaimed. ‘Where d'you learn to do that, Mandy?' 'I got my college degree last year,' Marian said.” To the driving inspector, Marian is a vacuous woman. The inspector asking Marian, how she learned how to read is a reference to slavery. Slaves usually didn’t get an education which resulted in them not knowing how to read. In this current time education is equal throughout all the races. It doesn’t matter if you’re white or black, we all can get an

keep your mouth shut or the white folks Ôll get you too." As a teenager Wright

Wright had continued to acknowledge his knowledge of racism by the way he was questioned by the librarian when she asked if the books he was getting were for him, in which he replied by saying, “Oh, no, ma'am. I can't read” (Wright 144). Wright describes the situation where he’d wrap the books up in newspapers so he could cover up what he was reading, but his co-workers would yet go into his package and then inquire him about it. When Wright stated, “It was not a matter of believing or disbelieving what I read, but of feeling something new, of being affected by something that made the look the world different” (Wright 145), he reveals how much reading can make a change in one’s life. From reading those books, Wright had learned a lot, but was cautious of not showing it.