Jim Crow laws were state and local statutes enacted primarily in the southern United States between the end of Reconstruction (1877) and the mid-1960s that mandated racial segregation in public facilities, schools, transportation, and other areas of civic life, and that in practice restricted the political, economic, and social rights of black Americans. The term derives from a 19th-century minstrel character. The laws' scope, purpose, and the degree to which they were a continuation versus an intensification of antebellum racial caste systems are subjects of ongoing historical debate; see jim-crow-laws-origins-debate.
As a body of formal law, Jim Crow statutes no longer exist; they were dismantled through litigation, federal legislation, and constitutional amendment over the course of the 20th century, most notably by the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Historical and legal scholarship on Jim Crow today centers on three areas: documenting its mechanisms and enforcement, assessing its long-term social and economic effects, and debating the extent to which informal or facially race-neutral practices constitute its functional continuation. This last question-sometimes framed as the existence of a “new Jim Crow” in areas such as criminal justice or voting administration-remains contested; see jim-crow-laws-legacy-debate.
For the period of legal codification and dismantlement, including the role of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) in providing constitutional cover under the “separate but equal” doctrine and the subsequent civil rights litigation strategy that overturned it, see Jim Crow Laws - History.
1. C. Vann Woodward, //The Strange Career of Jim Crow//, 3rd rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974). 2. //Plessy v. Ferguson//, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). 3. //Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka//, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 4. Civil Rights Act of 1964, Pub. L. No. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241. 5. Voting Rights Act of 1965, Pub. L. No. 89-110, 79 Stat. 437. 6. Michael J. Klarman, //From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality// (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). 7. Michelle Alexander, //The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness// (New York: The New Press, 2010).