What Does Jim Crow Mean?

Jim Crow refers to the set of laws, traditions and practices which kept the black population of the southern United States subordinate to the white population even after the institution of slavery was abolished following the Civil War. The name Jim Crow derives from a famous character in a minstrel act in which a white person painted his face black and played the part of a subservient negro.

The Jim Crow practices had the effect of segregating the black and white populations of the South in almost all walks of life. There were separate schools for blacks and whites, separate carriages on the railway system, and blacks were banned outright from many clubs and restaurants. Blacks were effectively barred from voting in many areas either through physical intimidation of those who attempted to vote or through the use of bureaucratic impediments such as literacy tests or complex registration requirements which meant, in practice, that few blacks ever had the opportunity to cast a ballot.