THE 1930SThe Great Depression and The Jim Crow South

DOROTHEA LANGEPhotographer who travelled around the United States during the 1930s to capture the lives of those affected by the Great Depression.

Photos and information taken from: http://www.shorpy.com/dorothea-lange-photographs

MIGRANT MOTHER: 1936"Destitute pea pickers living in tent in migrant camp. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two." Nipomo, California. February 1936. The anonymous subject of this famous Depression-era portrait known as "Migrant Mother" came forward in the late 1970s and was revealed to be Florence Owens Thompson.

ZOLLIE LYONS: 1939July 1939. "Zollie Lyons, Negro sharecropper, home from the field for dinner at noontime, with his wife and part of his family. Note dog run. Wake County, North Carolina."

IN THE COTTON: 1935June 1935. Somewhere in California. "Motherless migrant children. They work in the cotton."

535-07-5248 AND WIFE: 1939Oregon, August 1939. "Unemployed lumber worker goes with his wife to the bean harvest. Note Social Security number tattooed on his arm.“ A public records search shows that 535-07-5248 belonged to one Thomas Cave, born July 1912, died in 1980 in Portland. Which would make him 27 years old when this picture was taken.

COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER: 1936November 1936. "Home of Tennessee family of seven, now migratory workers living in camp outside of Sacramento, California. Father was coal miner in Tennessee but when the mines were not working received two days a week relief work. 'Thought we could make it better out here'.“

ELM GROVE: 1936August 1936. "People living in miserable poverty. Elm Grove, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma." A good (or bad) example of the Depression-era shantytowns known as Hoovervilles.

THE JIM CROW SOUTHRacism and Segregation in the Southern United States

Information taken from: National Endowment for the Arts. “Historical Context: The Jim Crow South.” Reader’s Guide: Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Apr. 2009: 8-9. Print.

JIM CROW LAWSAfter the Civil War and by 1910, most southern states passed laws that allowed the segregation, or separation, of white and black people in public places.

These laws were known as “Jim Crow” Laws, named after a white singer who blackened his face and sang the song “Jump Jim Crow”.

JIM CROW LAWSThese laws often enforced a curfew for blacks and posted “Whites Only” and “Colored” signs on parks, schools, hotels, water fountains, restrooms, and all forms of transportation.

REX THEATRE: 1937Leland, Mississippi. June 1937

JIM CROW LAWSLaws against “race-mixing” deemed all marriages between white and black people not only void but illegal.

Often, these laws were different from state to state, and the punishments were more severe depending on the state or even the town’s policy. For example, back-talking would cause a laugh in one town, but a lynching (being hanged from a tree) in the next town over.

KU KLUX KLAN (KKK)The KKK was a white supremacist group that had 6 million members. Mob violence was encouraged Torture became a public spectacle Some white families brought their children to lynchings Between 1889 and 1930, over 3,700 men and women were reported lynched in the United States

LYNCHING AND THE KKK

THE END OF JIM CROWBlacks felt the effects of Jim Crow until the 1960s Civil Rights movement.

Court cases like Brown vs. Board of Education and people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. stood up against the Jim Crow mentality and set blacks free from the segregation and persecution they had suffered for so many years.