Jim Crow is not actually a person, but the subject of a song performed by Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice. Rice was a white man who performed in blackface. Like most blackface performers, Rice denigrated Blacks through his music, his stereotypical behavior, and his rude jokes.

Jump Jim Crow is a lengthy song that was a bonafide hit among Caucasian Americans in the early 19th century. The lyrics of “Jump Jim Crow” express several racist sentiments. First, Jim Crow is satisfied with his lot as a slave. He is sexually promiscuous. Jim Crow is also ignorant, and the song is usually sung in “supposed” slave dialect.

The name Jim Crow sticks with most Americans because of the Jim Crow laws enacted after the American Civil War. Many of these laws were designed to keep Blacks and Caucasians separate. Some expressly forbid marriage between races, sexual contact between races. Others, like the famous one Rosa Parks violated, sectioned out public services as on buses where Blacks had to ride in the back.

Southern conception of “separate but equal” was essentially the working out of Jim Crow laws. Such laws were made to keep Blacks and Caucasians apart, satisfying segregationists while pacifying the more liberal thinkers. However, they often fell short of the mark because they were built on the premise that Caucasians were superior to Blacks and thus deserved better services.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 declared most Jim Crow laws unconstitutional. It would take many years more of persistent law enforcement to rid the Southern US of the “separate but equal” mindset. While most Jim Crow laws have been torn down, there are still many people in the South, and in the North for that matter, who persist in discriminating against blacks with all possible means.

Today, many groups believe that their racism is justified. What these criticisms fail to address is the concept of informal, and off the books Jim Crow laws. For example, much of the imprisoning of Blacks is based on a judicial system that is not always equitable, as well as higher rates of poverty and unemployment among the Black population.

Further, ignorance can be tied to the sorry state of the nation’s school system in congested urban areas. Tours of schools in areas like Harlem and Washington D.C., with a majority of Black students, tend to show buildings that are barely habitable, students having little access to supplies or books, and schools having extreme difficulty retaining teachers. This is not the fault of Blacks but of inadequate funding and/or leadership available to these schools.

Thus Jim Crow sadly dances through the present until all are willing to share in the responsibility of becoming more tolerant, and of supporting the rights of every student to a truly equal education. Further, continuing to stereotype Blacks does our nation a great disservice, and contributes to slow progress in achieving total social equality.