The first step toward racial equality in America was signified by the Thirteenth Amendment, which in theory should have abolished slavery in 1865. Nevertheless, racial oppression was still relevant in many states, specifically in the South. Several laws – which were later named Jim Crow laws – in the 1870s and 1880s paved the way for spatial segregation in public spaces based only on race (Stern, 2021). In other words, these regulations prohibited African-American people from using the same public transport as white people, despite the official abolishment of slavery (Stern, 2021). Consequently, the Jim Crow laws led to voter suppression of African-American people, which was supported by white supremacists (Shah & Smith, 2021). The studies even demonstrate the abundance of pseudoscientific research and false accusations that white supremacists used to prove the necessity of racial segregation (Shah & Smith, 2021). Ultimately, the Jim Crow laws were the primary reason for the disfranchisement of African-American people in the South from 1890 to 1940.
Nevertheless, there was a vivid response from the community that advocated for equal rights and the elimination of Jim Crow laws. One of the instances of successful resistance was the united campaign of newspapers and editorials against police torture in the 1930s (Niedermeir, 2019). The injustices and forced confessions occurring behind bars were leaked to the local institutions and heavily judged by the public (Niedermeir, 2019). Another instance of successful resistance was the testimony of Dave Canty against police brutality in court in 1938, which further reduced the trust in the government (Niedermeir, 2019). Lastly, due to the resistance of falsely accused African-American people, the white supremacist members of the Montgomery court were replaced (Niedermeir, 2019). It was a significant victory for African-American people in Alabama in the 1930s, which helped to dismantle Jim Crow laws.
References
Niedermeir, S. (2019). Forced confessions: Police torture and the African American struggle for civil rights in the 1930s and 1940s South. In A. Wood & N. J. Ring (Eds.), Crime & punishment in the Jim Crow South (pp. 58-78). University of Illinois Press.
Shah, P., & Smith, R. S. (2021). Legacies of segregation and disenfranchisement: The road from Plessy to Frank and voter ID laws in the United States. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 7(1), 134-146.
Stern, S. (2021). “Separate, therefore equal”: American spatial segregation from Jim Crow to Kiryas Joel. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 7(1), 67-90.