The Rise of Jim Crow Although it failed, the Populist movement and other multi-racial efforts made the white Southern elite afraid that the poor whites and Blacks might unite to challenge the power of the plantation owners. So, in all Southern states, various laws were passed by white Southern legislatures to segregate – split up – Blacks and whites in Southern society. This system of segregation was nicknamed “Jim Crow” after a popular song and dance routine by a white man making fun of Black people.
The laws were very extensive. Blacks and whites were forbidden from marrying each other. Blacks and whites had to have separate toilets, separate park benches, separate drinking fountains and restaurants. Blacks on streetcars (and later buses) were forced to sit in back and give up their seats if white passengers needed them. Of course, whites and Blacks had separate schools.
The Supreme Court endorsed this segregation in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, saying segregation was fine as long as it was “separate but equal”. But it was never equal. Black schools were always given less resources and less funding. Black toilets and drinking fountains were always of lesser quality. If a business could not afford separate services, they simply refused to serve Blacks. Blacks were barred from white restaurants, shops, hotels. At gas stations, Black people had to go into the woods to relieve themselves because they were not allowed to use the toilets. It was humiliating to Black people and meant to be.
And it was clear that the main purpose of this segregation was not just humiliation but making sure that Blacks and whites lived in separate social circles so they would not unite as workers or as poor people. All meetings, concerts, and church services were segregated by law. A Tennessee law even forbid Blacks and whites from playing checkers together. Obviously, they had to pass these laws because Blacks and whites were mixing in these ways and it had to be stopped because if they mixed socially, poor whites and Blacks could unite politically against the wealthy elite.
This situation made it difficult to form labor unions, hold strikes or demand better wages and working conditions in the South. Up until this day, the former Confederacy is the poorest part of the country. Welfare payments are the lowest. Services are the weakest. But taxes for the rich are also the lowest. This was the real purpose of Jim Crow. And although segregation itself ended after the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, the effects of this racist system remain today.

1. What was “Jim Crow”?
2. What was the purpose of Jim Crow?