Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow Laws"Separate But Equal"

總之就是:當時在公車上，黑人看到白人要讓座，且黑人只能坐在公車的後排。
Toni Morrison在念大學時跟著社團到南部的一些州表演，還史感受得到當時這條法案對當地黑人的歧視及影響，對其日後的作品取材影響甚大

The term "Jim Crow" originally referred to a black character in an old song, and was the name of a popular dance in the 1820s.
Beginning in the 1880s, it saw wide usage as a reference to practices, laws or institutions that arise from or sanction, the physical separation of black people from white people.
Jim Crow laws in various states required the segregation of races in such common areas as restaurants and theaters. The "separate but equal" standard established by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) lent high judicial support to segregation.
A Montgomery, Alabama, ordinance compelled black residents to take seats apart from whites on municipal buses. At the time, the "separate but equal" standard applied, but the actual separation practiced by the Montgomery City Lines was hardly equal.
Montgomery bus operators were supposed to separate their coaches into two sections: whites up front and blacks in back. As more whites boarded, the white section was assumed to extend toward the back. On paper, the bus company's policy was that the middle of the bus became the limit if all the seats farther back were occupied. Nevertheless, that was not the everyday reality.
During the early 1950s, a white person never had to stand on a Montgomery bus. In addition, it frequently occurred that blacks boarding the bus were forced to stand in the back if all seats were taken there, even if seats were available in the white section.

Thanks to the brave obstinance of a few black persons, notably Rosa Parks, things began to change.
On December 1, 1955, Parks wearily refused to relinquish her seat to a white man. She was arrested, fingerprinted, and incarcerated. When Parks agreed to have her case contested, it became a cause célèbre.
Numerous historians agree that Parks' trial*, followed by a nearly 32-month Montgomery bus boycott — and the Supreme Court's November 1956 ruling declaring the unconstitutionality of segregation on public transportation — marked the birth of the modern civil rights movement.
By the 1960s, other Supreme Court decisions, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, invalidated the majority of Jim Crow laws.