The Five Pillars of Jim Crow

WeWashForWhitePeople

“Jim Crow” refers to a five-part system developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s to support white supremacy and oppress black citizens. Although there were laws that discriminated against African Americans throughout the country, the Jim Crow system existed only in the South. This exhibit briefly describes the five oppressions of the Jim Crow system.

Read More

Making America America

Dr. Vincent Hardy, civil rights

Many Black Americans don’t feel as if they quite belong, which can have a reaching impact on American life and politics.

Read More

Voting Rights for Blacks and Poor Whites in the Jim Crow South

voting_rights_1960-thumb-640xauto-5660

From about 1900 to 1965, most African Americans were not allowed to vote in the South. White people in power used many methods to keep black people from voting. Some of these methods also prevented poor white people from voting. Today there are still laws and customs that make it harder for African Americans, other minorities, and some whites to vote.

Read More

The Education of Black Children in the Jim Crow South

segregated blk school in South

Education is the key to economic success. It is true now, and it was true in the Jim Crow South. Southern education was not very good – even for white children. But education for blacks in the South in the early 1900s was worse in many ways. In this exhibit you can learn what school was like for most African American children in the South – and why.

Read More

Inheriting Home: The Skeletons in Pa’s Closet

Harps on porch 1919

With its store of family memories, Arkansas defines home for me. But embracing and claiming it as my own is prickly business. “Home” has closets of skeletons that are anything but comforting: the Lost Cause, Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan, lynchings.

Read More