Unit VII: What, Then, Is This American? ca. 1865 - 1900
Question/Problem 3: What was it like to live under segregation?
In Oklahoma, telephone booths were segregated. Mississippi had separate soft-drink machines for blacks and whites. In Atlanta, Georgia, an Afro-American could not "swear to tell the truth" on the same Bible used by white witnesses. In North Carolina, factories were separated into black and white sections. In some Alabama towns it was against the law for blacks and whites to play cards, checkers, dominoes, or other games together on athletic teams. In Florida, school textbooks for white and black students were segregated in separate warehouses. In Washington, D.C., black people could not bury their dead dogs or cats in the same pet cemeteries used by whites. Public parks were segregated. Even jails and prisons had separate sections for black prison prisoners.
From Kenneth Gamerman, Executive Editor, Afro-American History Series, Volume 3, Separate and Unequal-1865-1910 (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation, 1969), p. 89.Some of the Jim Crow laws seem silly to anyone who has not had to live under them. One law tried to stop black and white cotton-mill workers from looking out the same window! Another, in Birmingham, Alabama, said blacks and whites could not play checkers or dominoes together. In Mobile, Alabama, Negroes had to be off the streets by ten o'clock each evening.... White taxi drivers could not carry black passengers; Negro drivers could not accept white passengers. There were Jim Crow elevators in office buildings. A black child could not buy an-ice-cream cone at a white stand. A black college professor--or any other black American--could not use a public library. Jim Crow was the way of life; its touch soiled each day of a Negro's life.
All parts of life were segregated. Laws were passed to prevent marriage between whites and blacks. There were separate hospitals for the two races. White nurses could not treat black men. Even a dying Negro would not be admitted to a "white" hospital. Southern states ran separate orphan homes for black and white children. Some states had separate prisons. If an Afro-American wanted to attend a theater or a movie, he had to buy his ticket at a separate booth. He had to enter by a separate entrance. He had to sit in the balcony, well apart from any white people. Each black person all his life was kept apart from white people. Then, when he died, he had to be buried from a black funeral home in a black cemetery. This was Jim Crow from birth to death.
From Jawn A. Sandifer, Editor, The Afro-American in United States History (New York: Globe Book Company, 1969), p. 214.