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Article: Jim Crow Laws
- Article from:
- Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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JIM CROW LAWS
In 1877, as the post
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Civil War (1861
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1865) era of Reconstruction drew to a close, the former Confederate states of the South were freed from the control of the occupation army of federal troops and carpetbaggers. They began to assert segregationist policies on the exslaves who had experienced only a fleeting taste of freedom. Although defeated, the white people of the former Confederacy considered African Americans inferior. Although the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution had supposedly freed African-Americans from slavery and declared them citizens with enforceable rights, the concerted resistance of the old white South ...