Evelyn here again,
Here is a bit of interesting history from Merriam-Webster Collegiate Newsletter. Sometimes it is good to have a reminder of what has passed, so to continue to safe guard the future for all of mankind.
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November 2005 Word History of the Month: Jim Crow
The passing of Rosa Parks on October 24 brought the phrase Jim Crow back into many people’s conversation. For those who wondered about the origins of this term, here's the story.
Jim Crow Ethnic discrimination, especially against blacks by legal enforcement or traditional sanctions. The body of laws enacted in the South after the end of Reconstruction in 1877 to enforce segregation of the races in virtually every aspect of public activity – in schools, restaurants, theaters, transport, parks, cemeteries, drinking fountains. The purpose was to insure that blacks and whites would not meet as equals. These laws were sanctioned by the Supreme Court in its decision Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, with its “separate but equal†finding. De jure segregation was not ended until the 1960’s, after long and difficult campaigns in the courts, in Congress and state legislatures, and in public facilities.
The term is derived from a song made popular by Thomas Dartmouth Rice. Rice was a white man, an itinerant actor who caught on with a blackface song-and-dance act, “Jump Jim Crow,†first performed in 1828. This act was the germination of the popular minstrel shows, in which white actors performed in black makeup. Rice toured with great success in the United States and Britain, and the song was so popular that is was translated into French.
Jim Crow became a derogatory term for blacks and then served as the nickname for the segregation laws; it still serves as an epithet for both overt and subtle forms of discrimination and segregation.
From: Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Allusions
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