Data Bases
Custom Term Papers
Free Term Papers
Free Research Papers
Free Essays
Free Book Reports
Plagiarism?
Links
Top 100 Term Paper Sites
Top 25 Essay Sites
Top 50 Essay Sites
Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com
Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com
Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com
Free Essays
Term Paper Sites
Chuck III's Free Essays
Free College Essays
TermPaperSites.com
My Term Papers
Get Free Essays
Essay World
Planet Papers
Search Lots of Essays
Back to Subjects
-
History Other
jim crow policy
jim crow policy The Jim Crow Policy is one of America’s darkest moments. It started in 1877 and by most accounts did not end until the 1960’s. At first it was made to keep black people “in their place”. Since then it has been used on immigrants in the early 20th century. In this paper I will explain the two parts of the Jim Crow Policy, It’s effect on the freed slaves, and why the freed slaves did not try to fight it. The Jim Crow Policy is broken up into two components. The first of which is segregation. The new southern congress, consisting of all white members, did not like the reconstruction of the south and wanted things back to the way they used to be. In fact, the last major piece of reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act of 1875, was all but ignored in the south. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 prohibited racial discrimination in all public accommodations, transportation, places of amusement, and juries. The South’s refusal to abide by this act caused the Supreme Court in 1983 to strike down all provisions in the Civil Rights Act of 1875 except the one relating to juries. So, with the Supreme Court’s ruling the new southern congress took it’s power to another level when it instituted segregation. Segregation is the use of separate facilities, one for the whites and one for the blacks. The second part of the Jim Crow Policy was the taking away of the freed slaves’ political rights. A few examples of this are poll taxes, Literacy tests, and the grandfather clause. The southern congress knew that all most all of the freed slaves were poor. Making everyone pay a poll tax to vote would eliminated most of the blacks chances on voting. Since it was illegal for slaves to learn how to read the congress knew that many of the freed slaves did not have the time to learn since being freed. This caused a law stating that you had to pass a literacy test before voting. Even if a freed slave could pay a toll tax and pass a literacy test they still had to deal with the grandfather clause. This clause stated that your grandfather had to be a registered voter in 1960 in order for you to vote. The Jim Crow Policy caused an awful strain on the freed slaves. It forced a lot of them to sharecrop and live in debt for the rest of their lives. Still others had no choice but to head west and become cowboys. It even forces some freed slaves to ask for their old owners for jobs. Even if they got their slave labor jobs back, they got paid next to nothing and in some cases had to go back leaving in slave houses. Many people ask why didn’t the freed slaves fight back. The main reason was racism. It doesn’t sound like that big of a deal now of days, but try to put yourself in the Deep South back in the 1880’s. You had to deal with segregation and even if you wanted to change congress you had no political power to do so. You were not even allowed to vote. Throwing that aside you also had to deal with the Ku Klux Klan. A black hating group of white males whom would stop at nothing to terrorize the freed slaves into leaving. In this paper I explained the two components of the Jim Crow Policy, it’s effect on the freed slaves, and why they didn’t fight back against this policy. The Jim Crow Policy has been long gone for many years now, but I think it is important to remember what I believe is one of America’s darkest days. Bibliography:
Word Count: 628
Copyright © 2005
College Term Papers
, INC All Rights Reserved.