Essay on Black Resistance of the Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow laws were statues that legalized racial discrimination and segregation. The rules were named after a character in the Black Minstrel Show (Yuill, 2007). The regulations existed for about a century and were meant to deny the African Americans of their rights. Some of the infringed rights were the right to vote, hold jobs, get an education, and different other opportunities (Yuill, 2007). Those who violated the laws were sentenced, and others were killed. Therefore, this study discusses the African Americans' resistance to the Jim Crow laws by focusing on the 'five W's' who, who, what, where, when, and why.

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Following the enactment of the Jim Crow Laws, few black citizens could exercise their rights to vote. Most of the registered voters had to own properties while only a few black people owned some. The resistance to the Jim Crow laws commenced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Clayton, 2018). Booker T. Washington was among those who resisted the regulations by founding the first Negro university in 1881 (Clayton, 2018). Washington claimed that black people should work towards skill development, and by forming the university, he hoped it would provide the blacks with security and means to fight segregation in the long term.

Additionally, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, among other black leaders, channeled their resistance to the Jim Crow laws by forming the Niagara movement in 1905 (Jones, 2015). According to Jones (2015), the Niagara movement was a civil rights group founded near the Niagara falls that advocated for African Americans' political change. With time, the leaders and members of the movement joined the white reformers in 1909 to form a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) (Jones, 2015). In the fight for equality, the NAACP was initially used to challenge the residential segregation of blacks. Another movement called the National Urban League was formed in 1910, and its focus was to expand job opportunities for black people.

The rebellion and resistance to the Jim Crow laws occurred in rural areas and urban centers. The white landowners in the south portrayed the black sharecroppers and tenants as contented workers who were willing to let the educated decide the processes of sharing profits and lands. However, people like James Monroe in a Georgian plantation refused to allow the black tenant farmers to market their crops on his ground, claiming that not every individual knew how to sell cotton and certainly not the Negro tenants. The angry black tenants revolted against the laws by burning down barns and freeing convicted laborers. In 1905, a black newspaper reported that agricultural workers from the African American race in Kentucky county had formed "A Colored Labor Trust," which was in revolt to the black segregation laws (Jones, 2015).

Similarly, African Americans resisted segregated transit, where the black people faced brutal treatment in the southern streetcars in the late 19th century. Black communities staged over 25 boycotts against the segregated transits between 1900 and 1906 (Wolfinger, 2014). Black passengers in cities such as Atlanta, Charleston, Knoxville, Birmingham, Memphis, New Orleans, Richmond, Norfolk, and Houston fought the segregated transport on a day-to-day basis (Wolfinger, 2014). The passengers discarded the Jim Crow signs and refused to move to the rear of the cars. They persistently battled with white passengers and drivers over the seating arrangements. All the newspapers covered the cases on the blacks' resistance and the responses of their white counterparts. The strikes and protests led the district courts to reframe the Jim Crow laws to contain blacks' resistance and assuage the white passengers.

In 1964, a group of student activists from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) marched to Gadsen county in Florida (Wolfinger, 2014). The protest aimed at converting the old plantation in the region to a bastion of the organization's civil rights crusade. Before the end of the summer season, the students were bombed, beaten, and arrested by the white law enforcers. Regardless of these challenges, the activists helped over 3500 residents in Florida be registered as voters and participate in the 1964 presidential campaign, a landmark victory marking the start of the end of the Jim Crow laws (Wolfinger, 2014). The civil rights movement is another organization that revolted against the Jim Crow laws. The campaign was a struggle for social justice between the 1950s and 1960s for black Americans to have equal rights under the United States' law (Clayton, 2018). Although the civil war abolished slavery, it did not end discrimination. By the mid 20th century, blacks were tired of the persistent discrimination and prejudice that they encountered in America (Clayton, 2018). The civil rights movement led by leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, revolted against the persistent inequalities created by the Jim Crow laws and protested for equality among races.

In conclusion, understanding blacks' resistance towards the Jim Crow laws is critical since it describes the history of blacks in the United States. African Americans were initially slaves who worked for the plantations of the whites. However, the Civil War led to abolishing slavery, but discrimination and segregation of the blacks were still in existence. The Jim Crow laws further worsened the situation by designing laws that encouraged blacks' segregation, hindering them from owning properties, voting, and other means of discrimination. The Blacks were discontent and decided to revolt against the Jim Crow laws. Various people and organizations aided in facilitating the black resistance to the regulations hence freeing the blacks from discrimination.

References

Clayton, D. M. (2018). Black lives matter and the civil rights movement: A comparative analysis of two social movements in the United States. Journal of Black Studies, 49(5), 448–480. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934718764099

Jones, A. (2015). Lessons from the Niagara movement: Prosopography and discursive protest. Sociological Focus, 49(1), 63–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2015.1066632

Wolfinger, J. (2014). Brian Purnell. Fighting Jim Crow in the county of kings: The Congress of Racial Equality in Brooklyn. The American Historical Review, 119(5), 1732–1733. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/119.5.1732

Yuill, K. (2007). Jim Crow moves north: The battle over northern school Desegregation, 1865–1954 - By Davison M. Douglas. History, 92(308), 542-543. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-229x.2007.410_9.x