Wikipedia: Jim Crow

The racist legal and social system which operated primarily in the southern and border states of the United States from the 1870s to the mid-1960s.

The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 had granted Blacks the same legal status as Whites. However following the end of post-war reconstruction and especially after 1877, and the election of Rutherford B. Hayes, many southern and border states began restricting the liberties of Blacks. The Jim Crow laws (also called Black Codes) excluded Blacks from public transport and leisure facilities, juries, jobs, and homes. The [Supreme Court]? helped undermine the legal protections with the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) case, which legitimized the laws as it held that "separate but equal" did not violate an individual's rights.

In conjunction with the laws there was Jim Crow etiquette. A series of unwritten rules governing how Blacks and Whites should interact. Breaking of this code could result in a lynching (1878-1898 saw 10,000 lynchings) or a even more sadistic murder ([Sam Hose]? for example).

The power of the Jim Crow laws began to be reduced in the early 20th C. The Supreme Court in Guinn v. United States (1915) ruled that an Oklahoma law that denied the right to vote to some citizens was unconstitutional. In Buchanan v. Warley (1917), the Court held that a Kentucky law could not require residential segregation. But it was not until Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that overturned the Court's decision in Plessy. It held that separate schools were unequal and its ruling helped dismantle racial segregation and give momentum for the growing [Civil Rights Movement]?.

The laws were possibly named after an 1840s minstrel show character but a number of other possibilities are stated.