Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow laws - laws which promoted segregation, or the separation of people based on race. These laws worked primarily to restricted the rights of African Americans to use certain schools and public facilities, usually the good ones; to vote; find decent employment and associate with anyone of their own choosing. These laws did not make life "separate but equal," but only served to exclude African Americans and others from exercising their rights as American citizens. In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), the US Supreme Court ruled that Jim Crow laws were unconstitutional. It took many years and much effort, however, before Jim Crow laws would be overturned across the country.