Sunday, January 30, 2011

Jim Crow's Laws

a. The term "Jim Crow's Laws" is sometimes referring to the song-and-dance caricature named "Jump Jim Crow" of African Americans performed by a white actor called Thomas D. Rice. As Rice became famous later, "Jim Crow" became an expresssion used to mean "African American".

b. The Jim Crow's Laws were state and local laws enforced by the United States of America between 1876 and 1965. The law is to restrict the rights of the African Americans. Their rights seemed to be equal to the white Americans' rights superficially but both of their rights were actually different due to this law.

c. Some Blacks such as Charles Sumner and Benjamin F. Butler thought that equal treatments were to be given to both white Americans and the Blacks. But this act had only little impact, the Supreme Court did not agree to this law by giving some non-existed reasons. And in year 1892, a African American called Homer Plessy bought a first-class railway ticket from New Orleans and sat in the "white-only" platform. He was later asked to leave the platform and went to the "coloured-only" platform. He refused to leave and he was arrested at once for challenging the Jim Crow's Law. The Blacks in New Orleans fought the case and stood on Plessy's side to support him in the Supreme Court. They losed in the court decision called "Plessy vs. Ferguson" alas.

d. The Jim Crow's Law appeared in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird. This law affects the whole storyline in To Kill A Mockingbird very much especially during the trial of Tom Robinson who was accused of raping the white girl Mayella Ewell. Although he was proved to be the innocent one, but the jury claimed that he was guilty and he was arrested. Tom was killed in the jail as a result he tried to "flee" the prison, but most probably he was killed because he was a Black.

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