:On the eve of the Civil War, the universal image of the silly Jim Crow minstrel character provided southern whites with one of many stereotypical images of black inferiority that were a fundamental component of white popular culture. By the 1890s, the term had come to mean the separation of blacks from whites and the general customs and laws that subordinated blacks as an inferior people. [http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/scripts/jimcrow/glossary.cgi] | :On the eve of the Civil War, the universal image of the silly Jim Crow minstrel character provided southern whites with one of many stereotypical images of black inferiority that were a fundamental component of white popular culture. By the 1890s, the term had come to mean the separation of blacks from whites and the general customs and laws that subordinated blacks as an inferior people. [http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/scripts/jimcrow/glossary.cgi] |