Jim Crow

What children learn in Level 76

• After Reconstruction, Southern states passed laws to keep Black and white people apart. Keeping people apart by race is called segregation. These laws were called Jim Crow, after a stage character made to mock Black people.
• Schools, trains, parks, hospitals, and even water fountains were separated, with signs saying who could go where. Georgia passed laws like these too. There were also unwritten rules about who stepped aside and how people could speak to each other.
• In 1896, the Supreme Court decided the case Plessy v. Ferguson. It said separate was legal if it was equal. But it wasn't equal. Black schools got far less money, older books, and crowded rooms.
• The effects reached every part of life. Black Southerners had fewer good jobs, little power to vote, and little protection from violence. Millions moved to Northern cities for a better chance.
• But people never stopped building. Black communities made strong churches, schools, newspapers, and businesses. In Atlanta, Morehouse and Spelman colleges grew. People went to court, and they taught their children that they deserved better.
• Jim Crow lasted until the 1960s. In 1929, a boy named Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, and he'd grow up to help end it. That's a story for Grade 5. The promises of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were still waiting to be kept.