The Jim Crow laws were a set of “rules” created by racist whites, mostly members of the Ku Klux Klan, that actively tried to keep African-American people second-class citizens.  These “laws” originated in 1877 and were kept active by as late as the mid-1960s.  Many Christian ministers taught that God supported slavery; the white people were the chosen or blessed ones and black people were cursed and destined to be slaves.  They weren’t just rules - they were almost a cult, a sick belief fed by hatred and hostility.

The Jim Crow laws were created to suffocate every single right of a black person, in every way possible.  The Ku Klux Klan, a predominant part of the creation of Jim Crow, believed in “White Supremacy” - that black people were naturally inferior and should stay that way.  A black man could not offer his hand (to shake hands) with or offer any other part of his body to a white woman, because he would be accused of rape.  He also could not offer to light the cigarette of a white woman as it implied intimacy.  A black person had to use a respectable term for a white person (e.g. Mr Wallace) whereas a white man usually addressed a black man by the less respectful first name, or even “Boy”.  Black couples couldn’t show affection to each other in company, as it offended whites.  If a white person and a black person rode together in a car, the black person would have to sit at the back.

Aside from these, basic public services were segregated - hotels, schools, restaurants, transport, fountains - often there were signs saying COLOURED or WHITE to indicate where you were allowed to go depending on what ethnicity you were.  These despicable rules were ignored by the authorities for years and were only properly addressed through organised protests in later years.

The African-Americans of the time could do little to defy these laws.  If someone decided to rebel against them - by drinking at a white water fountain, for example, it could cost them their homes, jobs, or even their lives.  In the worst cases, black people were lynched for their bravery.  It was hard for black people to hold legal action, even against whites who had murdered, because the entire justice system was white - most of the police and the jury and judges of the courts were racist and corrupt.  When deciding a case of when three white men raped a black man’s wife, then tortured him by tying him to a tree, cutting off his fingers, toes and genitals, stabbing him all over with knives and then setting his body on fire, the judge described the offenders as “law-abiding, respectable citizens” (paraphrase) and let them go without trial.

Jim Crow continued in the twentieth century mainly as institutionalised racism, which is using the system to find loopholes in rules.  When African-Americans were finally allowed to vote (via Supreme Court ruling), the Jim Crow law followers produced a set of tests for black people that were supposed to decide if they were mentally able to vote or not.  The questions were ridiculous - for example, “How many bubbles are in a bar of soap?”.  This barred African-Americans from being able to vote, without technically breaking any laws, but still preventing them of their rights.

Nowadays, thankfully, the Jim Crow laws have been squashed out - as far as we know.  Racist white people still exist and the Ku Klux Klan has not been completely destroyed yet.  Civil Rights still has a long way to go, but with the right attitude and a final realisation of how terrible and disgusting racial discrimination is, America (and everywhere else in the world) can finally achieve a fully integrated society, free of racism and Jim Crow.