Jim Crow and Racial Segregation

Pictured in blackface, this sheet music cover depicts entertainer Thomas Rice performing the minstrel song "Jump Jim Crow" from 1831.

Jim Crow became the common phrase used to describe the series of formal laws and informal practices used in the South to enforce racial segregation.

By the late nineteenth century, challenges to the system of segregation were emerging. Most notably was Plessy v. Ferguson, a pivotal case that called into question the constitutionality of Louisiana's Separate Car Act, a statute mandating separate railway cars for black and white patrons.

Homer Plessy was arrested for violating the Act by riding in a white car and refusing to leave. After filing suit, his case eventually went before the United States Supreme Court in 1896 where justices affirmed that Mr. Plessy's 14th Amendment rights had not been violated by separate cars as long as the facilities were equal.

In the years after the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution were passed, southern states used a variety of practices to prevent African Americans from exercising their constitutional right to vote.

These practices included a poll tax to be be paid when a citizen attempted to vote. Notice the receipt (pictured) indicates that the money is intended "for the support of the public schools."

William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois was born in the North during Reconstruction. He graduated from Fisk University by the age of 20 and went on to become the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard.

Du Bois wrote and taught prolifically, including 20 years as a professor at Atlanta University. His belief in the education of a "Talented Tenth" of African Americans led to his strong philosophical disagreements with Booker T. Washington.

Booker Taliaferro Washington was born into slavery in 1856. His determination to be educated led him to Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute and eventually to Wayland Seminary. In 1881, he helped establish the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute where he served as principal.

In his controversial "Atlanta Compromise" speech in 1895 he proposed the acceptance of racial segregation along with the ideals of hard work and vocational training.

Born into slavery in 1858, Alonzo Franklin Herndon was sent away from home by his father, a white plantation owner. After years of sharecropping and manual labor, he taught himself barbering, moved to Atlanta, and became a partner in a prestigious barbershop.

As an intrepid entrepreneur, within decades he had opened several shops, incorporated the Atlanta Mutual Life Insurance Association to protect the largely underserved black community of Atlanta, and purchased numerous real estate investments. At the time of his death in 1927, he was the wealthiest African American in Atlanta.

After several nights of rioting, Governor Joseph M. Terrell called for National Guard reinforcements from six Georgia cities. Here, military officers correspond about the level of violence that has erupted and the force needed to maintain peace in Atlanta.