Question

1. Did “Jim Crow” help to give rise to the Civil Rights Movement? 
2. What did “Jim Crow” represent for Blacks in America?

3. How did the following Supreme Court decisions affect Blacks: Plessey v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas?

4. Which issues gave rise to protest? What were the results?

5. Did protesters feel justified in their actions?

6. Have the results of their actions had a positive impact on Blacks/American society?
7. Who was Rosa Parks? Was she the first Black woman to be arrested or ejected from a conveyance for sitting or standing in the “wrong” place?

Answer 1

1. Yes, "Jim Crow" laws helped to give rise to the Civil Rights Movement.

Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. All were enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by white Democratic-dominated state legislatures after the Reconstruction period.  The post-World War II era saw an increase in civil rights activities in the black community, with a focus on ensuring that black citizens were able to vote. This ushered in a decades-long effort in the civil rights movement resulting in the removal of Jim Crow laws.

2. The Jim Crow persona was a racist theatre character by Thomas D. Rice and an ethnic depiction in accordance with contemporary white ideas of African-Americans and their culture. The character was based on a folk trickster named Jim Crow that had long been popular among black slaves. Rice also adapted and popularized a traditional slave song called "Jump Jim Crow" (1828).

3. Plessey v. Ferguson : Plessy v. Ferguson, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court, on May 18, 1896, by a seven-to-one majority (one justice did not participate), advanced the controversial “separate but equal” doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws. It prohibits the states from denying “equal protection of the laws” to any person within their jurisdictions.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, case in which on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously (9–0) that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits the states from denying equal protection of the laws to any person within their jurisdictions. The decision declared that separate educational facilities for white and African American students were inherently unequal.

4. To marginalize blacks, keep them separate from whites and erase the progress they’d made during Reconstruction, “Jim Crow” laws were established in the South beginning in the late 19th century. Blacks couldn’t use the same public facilities as whites, live in many of the same towns or go to the same schools. Interracial marriage was illegal, and most blacks couldn’t vote because they were unable to pass voter literacy tests.

After thousands of blacks threatened to march on Washington to demand equal employment rights, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941. It opened national defense jobs and other government jobs to all Americans regardless of race, creed, color or national origin.