Segregation and terror

• After slavery was abolished, many White Americans created new ways to keep Black people from being truly free, forming a lasting social class system.

• The Jim Crow laws made it illegal for Black Americans and White Americans to share public spaces and resources after the Civil War.

• In 1860, there were around 4 million enslaved Black Americans. Once freed, they were still denied equal rights in society.

• Segregation forced Black Americans to go to separate schools, live in different neighborhoods, eat in different restaurants, and use different public facilities.

• The Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) decided that segregation was legal, meaning Black Americans could not change these unfair laws.

• "Jim Crow" originally referred to a character from a minstrel show in the 1830s and became a derogatory term for Black Americans

In the Jim Crow South, violence was used to enforce the oppression of Black people. Lynching, or mob murder, was common for Black individuals who didn't show proper respect to White people, and these acts often went unpunished.

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), created by former Confederate soldiers in 1866, aimed to terrorize Black communities and support White supremacy. They wore white robes, committed lynchings, and targeted Black men, particularly on accusations of sexual misconduct. By the 1920s, the Klan had millions of members.

Many Black people fled the South during the Great Migration in the 1910s and 1920s, moving to Northern cities like Chicago and New York. Even in the North, they faced discrimination, living in crowded neighborhoods and working low-paying jobs.