History of the Jim Crow Era and the Early Struggles for Racial Equality

Portrait of 
Dredd Scott

This online exhibition at the New-York Historical Society talks about the life experiences, struggles, and efforts of black individuals in the Jim Crow era in the United States.  The exhibition has an introduction of the topic where it briefly describes the March on Washington in 1963, the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, with Martin Luther King Jr. highlighting the urgent need for an equal society where black individuals would be treated like other human beings based on their personality and merits and not on their skin color.  The exhibition then starts with the major catalyst for the fight against slavery with the Dredd Scott decision and goes into the struggles and efforts during the Civil War where many former slaves joined the Union army to fight to reestablish the nation in exchange for their freedom.  This part of the exhibition also has several items relating to the period that have some unique stories, like two books that have different portrayals of slavery:

First Dixie Reader

The Gospel of Slavery: A Primer of Freedom

The Gospel of Slavery: A Primer of Freedom, written by Northern abolitionists that described the horrors of the institution, and First Dixie Reader, written by southerners which portrayed slavery as prestigious and noble.  Both of these written accounts were read by various audiences, especially black children of slaves who most likely read the latter novel which gave them a fictional perspective on slavery’s realities.[1] 

Sharecropping 
Contract

Furthermore, the exhibition has an interactive feature in which visitors can click on pictures of the floors of each section of the exhibitions, which will take them into a first-person perspective. They can then use a toolbar to look at various written sections and historical objects more closely as if they were actually visiting the exhibition in person.  In the same virtual setting, visitors can go to other parts of the exhibition by clicking on a pull-down list on the top right of the screen and selecting one.  The exhibition then continues to explain the Reconstruction era where former slaves encountered new experiences, like building their own homes and establishing their own

Model Home for Newly
Freed Slaves

schools and churches.  The federal government attempted to assist newly freed black citizens adjust to American society through programs like the
Freedmen’s Bureau when it not only educated black Americans in important skills, but also advocated on their behalf in certain legal circumstances, such as issues concerning sharecropping contracts.  Sharecropping, unfortunately, was one of the only employment options for newly freed slaves in which it functioned like the institution of slavery in many ways.  Many black families had difficulty keeping themselves out of debt to their landlords on sharecropping lands (since they were usually paid very little) which resulted in various dire consequences.[2]

       Even though several people of color managed to run and successfully elected to

KKK outfit

political office in the south escalating white resistance, such as attacks perpetrated

Jim Crow Propaganda

Jim Crow Theater Ad

by supremacy groups like the KKK, eventually eroded black political power and significantly reduced support for Reconstruction, which ended in 1877 with a Compromise that involved President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrawing federal troops from the South.  After the end of Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era seeped in where many

Voter Suppression Methods
in the Jim Crow Era

white individuals regained political power in the South and implemented the

various Black Codes and Jim Crow laws crippling political power from black Americans. The Supreme Court was not very helpful in combating these laws as they reinforced them through several rulings, such as the notorious Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896. In addition to Jim Crow laws and policies, racist white Americans routinely depicted black Americans as dangerous, buffoonish, and stupid through various political cartoons and the film, A Birth of a Nation, which glorified the KKK as heroic characters fighting against the villainous blacks. [3]

Birth of a Nation film

 

 

Harlem Exhibit

Photograph of Hubert 
Harrison

As Jim Crow violence and racism escalated throughout the years, many black Americans responded in various ways, such through the Great  Migration in the 1910s; political activists like W.E.B. Du Bois advocating for racial equality; and new organizations like the NAACP actively pushing for these platforms to be considered.  One of the major destinations of the Great Migration, Harlem, became a center for black empowerment and a staging area for the battle against Jim Crow racism and for racial equality.  A less well-known but vocal supporter in this  fight was Hubert Harrison, a Caribbean immigrant who gave speeches denouncing Jim Crow society and criticizing accommodationists like Booker T. Washington.  He held his speeches at a street corner, which Harrison referred to as an “outdoor university” which drew relatively large crowds.  The exhibition then goes on to explain the roles of universities and historical black colleges in the fight for racial equality and various artworks that depict various aspects of the time period and their significance.[4]

Overall, the exhibition is pretty comprehensive in explaining the history of Jim Crow and black Americans’ fight for racial equality with various artifacts and stories of individuals that relate to its context.  The exhibition is definitely comprehensive enough to inform and educate museum-goers on its history and its importance to our democracy.  The various objects, paintings, cartoons, and other items do an amazing job of hooking visitors’ attention and understanding of how critical it was for black Americans to be full citizens and to be treated equally.  One thing I would suggest for this exhibition would be to expand into the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, the Black Power movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, government policies in the 1970s and 1980s like the War on Drugs and major cutbacks to social programs, and modern issues today (ex., prison system, law enforcement practices, issues in public education, etc.).  However, I do not know if the New-York Historical Society has enough room for this expansion and whether they have any historical artifacts in their collections relating to the subsequent periods to continue the way they curated this exhibition.  There is also the issue of funding and I have no idea of the current status of the museum’s budget and/or where they get their funds from.  Any donors might also have certain influences over the museum which would shape how they curate and organize their exhibitions and collections.

Endnotes:

[1] “Black Citizenship: In the Age of Jim Crow,” New-York Historical Society, accessed December 18, 2022, https://blackcitizenship.nyhistory.org/?_ga=2.83672342.1858182909.

1671386300-1458535739.1669061115#.

           [2] “Black Citizenship: In the Age of Jim Crow"

           [3] Ibid.

           [4] Ibid.