Key Terms You Must Know

📖 Key Terms You Must Know

Jim Crow laws

State and local laws in the American South (and some Northern states) that enforced racial segregation in all public facilities from the 1870s to the 1960s. Named after a minstrel show character used to mock Black Americans. Required separation in schools, hospitals, transport, restaurants, hotels, and public spaces. The legal basis was the "separate but equal" doctrine established by Plessy v Ferguson (1896).

Plessy v Ferguson (1896)

Supreme Court case that established the "separate but equal" doctrine. Homer Plessy challenged Louisiana's Separate Car Act by sitting in a whites-only railway carriage. The Court ruled 7-1 that racial segregation was constitutional as long as facilities were equal. In practice, Black facilities were never equal — Black schools received $43 per pupil versus $179 for white schools. The ruling gave legal backing to segregation for 58 years until Brown v Board of Education (1954).

Segregation

The enforced separation of people by race in public and private spaces. In the American South, this was enforced by law (Jim Crow), by custom, and by violence. It covered virtually every aspect of life — education, transport, healthcare, housing, employment, and the justice system. Segregation was not just inconvenient; it was designed to signal Black Americans' inferior status and to maintain white economic and political dominance.

NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)

Organisation founded in 1909 to fight for the rights of Black Americans. Led the legal challenge to segregation — most famously securing the Brown v Board of Education ruling (1954). During WW2 its membership grew from 50,000 to 500,000. The NAACP's chief lawyer Thurgood Marshall argued Brown v Board before the Supreme Court; he later became the first Black Supreme Court justice.

Lynching

The illegal murder of a person (overwhelmingly Black men) by a mob, typically by hanging. Used to terrorise Black communities and enforce racial hierarchy. At least 4,743 people were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968. Southern states refused to pass federal anti-lynching laws, and all-white juries virtually never convicted white perpetrators. The federal government did not make lynching a federal crime until 2022 (the Emmett Till Antilynching Act).

Poll tax

A fee charged to vote, used in Southern states to prevent Black Americans (and poor white Americans) from voting. Since most Black Southerners were extremely poor, the tax was an effective barrier to registration. Abolished for federal elections by the 24th Amendment (1964) and for all elections by the Voting Rights Act (1965).

Brown v Board of Education (1954)

Supreme Court ruling that declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, overturning Plessy v Ferguson. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." Argued by NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall. Though the ruling applied to schools, it was a direct challenge to the entire "separate but equal" doctrine and opened the door to the Civil Rights movement's legal challenges across all areas of segregation.