"Jim Crow"

According to an informational text by Rick Edmonds, "Jim Crow" is "Shorthand for Separation." Based on material from the American Heritage Dictionary, Safire's Political Dictionary, and From Slavery to Freedom, this list further defines the term.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 9 Unit 3's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: Jim Crow, Jim Crow Laws, Letter from Birmingham Jail, Scout, Atticus & Boo, To Kill a Mockingbird, In Defense of To Kill a Mockingbird
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. colloquialism
    an expression that seeks to imitate informal speech
    By the 1950s, Jim Crow was the colloquialism whites and blacks routinely used for the complex system of laws and customs separating the races in the South.
  2. origin
    the source of something's existence or from which it derives
    Hardly anyone felt a particular need to define it or explore its origins.
  3. evidence
    means by which an alleged matter is established or disproved
    The term appears to date back at least to the eighteenth century, though there is no evidence that it refers to an individual.
  4. derogatory
    expressive of low opinion
    Rather it was mildly derogatory slang for a black everyman (Crow, as in black like a crow).
  5. minstrel
    a singer of folk songs
    A popular American minstrel song of the 1820s made sport of a stereotypic Jim Crow.
  6. segregated
    separated or isolated from others or a main group
    By the mid-1800s, a segregated rail car might be called the "Jim Crow."
  7. facility
    a building or place that provides a particular service
    after Reconstruction, such diverse things as separate public facilities
  8. restrict
    limit access to
    and laws restricting voting rights became known collectively as Jim Crow
  9. opponent
    someone who offers resistance
    A bit like "political correctness" in recent years, the term was particularly popular with opponents of the practice.
  10. staple
    a necessary commodity for which demand is constant
    It was a staple of NAACP conversations of the '30s and '40s.
Created on Tue Sep 23 11:03:50 EDT 2014 (updated Tue Sep 23 18:35:00 EDT 2014)

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