Sociology 134 2 - Dan Homstad Sociology 134 Extra Credit 1...

Dan Homstad Sociology 134 2/28/08
Extra Credit
1. The First Law of Extra Credit
2. Extra Credits that get full credit are: well written, well organized, proofread and edited,
original, interesting, and geerlaly good.
The Jim Crow Era
American White had 2 means of controlling and suppressing non-whites in the Post-civil War
Era:
1. Segregation and Disenfranchisement laws
2: Violence and threats of violence (police and civilian
The term Jim Crow relates to a popular Minstrel Show or Blackface character
Jim Crow laws solidified the subordinate status of Blacks mostly through the separation of the
races in public accommodations, but also through vote and political disenfranchisement.
Minstrel Shows were popular low-budget traveling variety shows. Their mostly White
performers would often put on “Blackface” a type of makeup which comically exaggerated the
supposed features of African Americans …
In Minstrel Shows Black people were portrayed as stupid, clownish, and happily subservient to
Whites. They danced and sang with great joy buy also “bowed and scraped: to Whites.
Plessy V Ferguson
In 190 the State of /Louisiana passed Act 11 that required separate accommodations for blacks
and whites on railroads, including separate railway cars, though it specified that the
accommodations must be kept “equal.” Homer Plessy, who was 1/8 Black was chosen as a test
plaintiff for a challenge to the Louisiana law. On June 7, 1892 Plessy boarded a “whites only”
car, identified himself as Black to the conductor, and refused to leave. He was arrested and his
lawyer filed suit.
The one exception to the LA railroad segregation law was for Black nannies or servants
accompanying White Children (these Black adults were allowed to sit in the White car.) Again,
suggesting that contact w/ Blacks was perfectly acceptable to Whites so long as it occurred in a
situation of servitude.

“We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff’s argument to consist in the assumption that
the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If
this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race
chooses to put that construction upon it.” – Judge Brown thinks segregation is okay.