Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow laws were a series of racist legislation enacted primarily in the American South after the Civil War (1861–1865) as a way for whites to maintain power over the newly free Black population. The passage of several constitutional amendments after the war officially abolished slavery and gave Africans Americans citizenship and the right to vote. However, in many places, white leaders sidestepped these amendments with laws designed to keep segregation and discrimination legal. These Jim Crow laws denied Black Americans their rights and maintained a system of disenfranchisement for nearly a century. Among their many provisions, the laws kept African Americans in inferior social, financial, and legal positions, and established a segregated society. Black Americans were forced into separate...