African Americans have made extraordinary contributions to the history and culture of the United States as part of the nation and apart from it. This month, Auction Finds presents “28 days (Plus 1)” of this collaborative history. The additional day is intended to break Black history out of the stricture of a month into its rightful place as an equal partner in the history of America. Each day, I will offer artifacts culled from the auction tables and my research, along with the stories they hold.
Feb. 25, 2022
Jim crow signs separated a people and a nation
Racial signs remind us of a time when African Americans could not drink out of the same water fountain, use the same toilet, sit down at the same restaurant or even sit next to a white person on a bus, train or streetcar. These days, it seems, there’s a certain element in the population that would like to see those days return. They will not.
The signs were the representation of Jim Crow laws legislated by local governments bent on reminding blacks to stay in their place. Those laws grew out of so-called Black Codes from the 1860s that were designed to keep newly freed enslaved Africans as subservient as they were before. The codes limited where and when blacks could work and how much they were paid, eliminated their right to vote and determined where they could live and how they could travel.
Starting around the 1890s and into the 20th century, states began in earnest to codify segregation, armed with a nod from the U.S. Supreme Court in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case that “separate but equal” accommodations were not unconstitutional. It gave states the green light to do what they wished to enforce segregation. Read the full story.
