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Jim Crow Laws Research Paper

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Civil Rights activist W.E.B Du Bois once said, “To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.” African Americans were not treated with equal respect as whites, making them a poor race. They were unfairly treated during the twentieth century because the color of their skin was not white; however, they soon grew tired of being discriminated against and fought for their rights.
Jim Crow was an unfair racial caste system that many states adopted after the American Civil War. Jim Crow laws began in the early 1880’s with the goal of taking away the rights of African Americans ("Voting Rights"). By 1915 all southern states had a form of Jim Crow laws written in their constitution ("Racial Segregation …show more content…
A critic of the segregationist policies was activist W.E.B Du Bois. Du Bois and other black leaders held a meeting in Niagara Falls, Canada, with the goal of devising a plan to fight white supremacy in America. This meeting became known as the Niagara Movement. Their main focuses included voting rights for African Americans, improved education, and an end to all Jim Crow laws. They had little effectiveness because of the lack of funds; however, they established a foundation for other activist groups to build upon.The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or the NAACP, was one of the the groups that formed after the meeting in Niagara Falls. The NAACP won several Supreme Court Rulings. One of which was the Smith vs. Allwright that ruled it illegal to have a white primary. Another group of African American activists, called the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), used peaceful protests to fight racial segregation. A common protest method they used was a sit-in, the act of walking into public businesses and quietly refusing to leave when asked. Sit-ins became popular all over the South ("Racial Segregation in the American South: Jim Crow Laws"). In a famous incident, four colored college students sat at a lunch counter and refused to leave. The students remained in their seats until the restaurant closed. This protest caused 26 southern cities to officially desegregate their lunch counters ("NAACP"). Activist groups helped strengthen the African American resistance against white

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