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Jim Crow law
United States [1877-1954]
WRITTEN BY
Melvin I. Urofsky
Melvin I. Urofsky is Professor of Law & Public Policy and Professor Emeritus of History at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). Before joining VCU as chair of the History Department in 1974, he...
LAST UPDATED: Aug 21, 2020 See Article History
ARTICLE CONTENTS
Jim Crow law, in U.S. history, any of the laws that enforced racial segregation in the South between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. Jim Crow was the name of a minstrel routine (actually Jump Jim Crow) performed beginning in 1828 by its author, Thomas Dartmouth (“Daddy”) Rice, and by many imitators, including actor Joseph Jefferson. The term came to be a derogatory epithet for African Americans and a designation for their segregated life.
