The name for the Jim Crow Laws comes from a character in a Minstrel Show. The
Minstrel Show was one of the first forms of American entertainment, which started in 1843.
They were performed by successors of black song and dance routine actors. The first Minstrel
Show was started by a group of four men from Virginia, who all painted their faces black and
performed a small song and dance skit in a small theater in New York City. Thomas Dartmouth
Rice, a white actor, performed the Jim Crow Minstrel Show. Rice was inspired by an old black
man who sang and danced in Louisville, Kentucky (Clay, 1). The skit ended in the same chorus
as the old black mans song which was "Wheel about and turn about and do jis so, Eb'ry time I
wheel about I jump Jim Crow." Rice's song and dance got him from Louisville to Cincinnati to
Pittsburgh to Philadelphia and then to New York City in 1832. Finally, Rice performed
throughout Europe, going to London and Dublin, where the Irish especially liked Rice's
performance (http://www.sims.berkely.edu/courses/is182/paint167.html).
In the north, slavery was just about non existent, so blacks could be seen free in a lot of
cities in the north. In some cities even, blacks and whites lived together without a problem so
segregation was not seen completely throughout America. Before 1890, segregation was not
seen in most of the south, which was where 80 percent of the black population lived (Massey, 17-
Segregation actually started in the north, but when it moved into the south, it became
much worse (Woodward, 17). It was thought that segregation came along with slavery, but there
were more reasons, like pure racism. Cities had ghettos where all of the blacks lived in a
community, away from the whites. After slavery ended, the north did treat the blacks with more
respect, but not much more. In the north, slaves could not be separ...