Jim Crow Laws Timeline
Timeline Description: Jim Crow Laws are statutes and ordinances that were formed to create "separate but equal" facilities for the black and white races of the south. Instead, these laws doomed the black race to substandard facilities and inferior treatment. The term originated from the song "Jump Jim Crow," where a white actor painted himself black and performed a song and dance routine as a decrepit, intoxicated black man.

Date Event
1865 The Black Codes laws were approved by southern states(1865-1866)

After the civil war, these laws intended to restrict the autonomy of African Americans in order to force them to work in a labor economy.
1857 Dred Scott vs. Sandford

This landmark decision from the Supreme Court ruled that African Americans were not permitted to be United States citizens. With this conclusion, African Americans had no standing to sue in federal courts.
1875 Booker T. Washington graduated

Booker T. Washington, a slave from Virginia, graduated with honors from the Hampton Institute, a black vocational school. He went on to make a difference in the lives of many black people.
1877 Jim Crow Laws were legislated

In order to gain electoral support from the southern states, the government withdrew the last federal troops from the South. The conservative, white Democrats legislated Jim Crow Laws, separate the white and black races.
1890 Lynchings

Over the course of the 1900s, at least 1,132 blacks were burned alive or lynched in the United States for violating Jim Crow Laws and for being black.
1890 Louisiana law required separate accommodations on railroads

Before 1890, colored people could still share the same spaces as white people, even though blacks could not. This law distinguished between white, black, and colored (of European and African descent) people and positioned the colored people separate from the whites as well.
1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson gave higher judicial support to segregation

Plessy refused to sit in the train car for colored people and was arrested instantly. The Citizens Committee of New Orleans fought the case to the Supreme Court and lost. The Supreme Court governed separate but equal facilities to be constitutional. This ruling underwrote fifty-eight additional years of legalized discrimination.
1924 Fisk University Protests began

W.E.B. DuBois gave a speech and urged the Fisk President to change his views. This started a protest led by black male students and resulted in riots.
1948 Executive Order 9981 desegregated the armed services

As the Civil Rights Movement used the federal courts to attack Jim Crow statutes, Harry S. Truman ordered that the United States Army be desegregated.
1948 President Truman took action

Harry S. Truman pressed congress to end the poll tax, enforce fair voting processes, and end Jim Crow Laws. As a result, he lost four southern states from his Democratic party in objection.
1950 The NAACP challenged Separate but Equal

While there was no large ruling in favor of the NAACP's request, Delaware's Supreme Court ruled that a district had to admit black students to white schools until adequate facilities could be provided for them.
1954 Brown Cs

Board of Education of Topeka overturned the verdict of Plessy vs. Ferguson. This pivotal conclusion unanimously overturned the Plessy ruling, ordering legally mandated public school segregation as unconstitutional. However, it did not end segregation immediately.
1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man.

This act was considered civilly disobedient and led to a series of legislative decisions contributing to the growth of the Civil rights movement.
1964 The Civil Rights Act helped to end legally mandated segregation

This court ruling helped to enforce the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling and end segregation that was legally enforced. De facto, or residentially created, segregation, however, did not end and remains in many regions.
1971 Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education

The busing of students was desegregated in order to achieve integration in public schools.After many legal suits, sit-ins, and boycotts, The Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 came together to end the legal sanctions of the Jim Crow Laws. While the laws put an end to the legal segregation of African-Americans, there are still many racial prejudices against people of color today.

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