What Were Jim Crow Laws?

Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. They were an official effort to keep African Americans separate from whites in the southern United States for many years. The laws were in place from the late 1870s until the civil rights movement began in the 1950s.

The name Jim Crow comes from a once popular stage performance that began in 1828. This type of show, called a minstrel show, involved lively entertainment that encouraged a negative view of Blacks. The term Jim Crow became an unfavorable name for Blacks as well as a term for their segregation, or separation, from whites.

Each state had its own set of Jim Crow laws. Segregation spread beyond the South to other states in the country as well. Signs were used to show where “people of color” were not allowed to go. In addition to African American people, Jim Crow law limited many racial and ethnic groups in the United States who were not seen as white.

In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court decided in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, or against the country’s set of rules. This decision was the beginning of the end for Jim Crow law. The legal argument to end racial segregation was extended to other public areas. Soon Jim Crow law was removed completely.

In the 1930s, during the era of Jim Crow laws, a Black postal carrier from Harlem named Victor Green published a book that was part travel guide and part survival guide. The Green Book became "the Bible of Black travel".

The annual guidebook was first published in 1936 and helped African Americans safely navigate the roads of a segregated country. Green wrote this guide to identify services and places relatively friendly to African Americans so they could find lodgings, businesses, and gas stations that would serve them along the road.

The Green Book provided comfort and safety for many.