Frederick Douglass and the Reality of Jim Crow

The intrepid abolitionist Frederick Douglass was never content with the state of the world as he knew it. Douglass lived through slavery's demise, but continued to be subjected to racism. Despite the passage of several Constitutional amendments and federal laws that followed the Civil War, unwritten rules continued to curtail the rights and opportunities of African Americans. Douglass succinctly summarized the reality of Jim Crow in an 1887 letter that claimed the South's “wrongs are not much now written in laws which all may see – but the hidden practices of people who have not yet, abanonded the idea of Mastery and dominion over their fellow man.” Racism, violence, and vigilantism were the tools of “Mastery” that permitted whites to accomplish what the law theoretically prohibited. Douglass' correspondence reflected the belief shared among the black community that the best places to combat “hidden practices” of the Jim Crow years were in the schoolhouse and the court room.

Living in Washington, D.C. since 1872, Douglass had ample opportunity to witness discrimination in nearby Maryland and Virginia and was keenly aware of the struggle for quality schooling and judicial access during the post-Reconstruction years. Douglass was passing along his observations when he said “from all I can learn colored lawyers are admitted to practice in Southern Courts and I am very glad to admit the fact – for it implies a wonderful revolution in the public sentiment of the Southern States. I have not yet learned what are the inequalities between the races as to school privileges at the south – In some of the states the time alloted to colored schools is less than that allowed to whites. And I have heard and believe that in none of the states are the teachers of colored Schools as well paid as the teachers of White Schools.” By the 1880s, separation of the races was becoming increasingly apparent with school segregation mandated by law in nearly every Southern state. Despite this adversity, Douglass made it clear that inequalities could be corrected by challenging the system.

During this time, however, many Southern black leaders actually preferred segregated schools as a source of local autonomy and independence. All-black colleges rapidly became the primary centers of resistance to Jim Crow, although their administrators and staff frequently differed over how best to make their stand. At the primary and secondary school levels, truly heroic efforts were made by impoverished teachers to educate their pupils, usually in the face of adversity. With an onslaught of a new era of white supremacy flourishing in the South, it became increasingly difficult for blacks to obtain an education. Employers even went as far as firing black employees for attending school. Vigilante groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, terrorized African Americans by burning schools and randomly beating and murdering teachers and students.

Douglass looked to the courts to provide and enforce equality before the law, an explicit right granted by the 14th amendment. However, his statement that: “colored Lawyers are admitted to practice in Southern Courts” was only partially correct. Even in states where African Americans were permitted to practice, their numbers were few and their achievements limited. Employment records in the United States census show only one African American lawyer in Virginia in 1870, ten by 1880, and fifty-three in 1900. Twenty-seven lawyers were admitted to the Arkansas bar between 1891 and 1923. Many black lawyers in the south came from or obtained their education in the North. Others took correspondence courses or apprenticed to practicing attorneys. For the most part, African American attorneys were relegated to non-trial work. Often class interests trumped racial loyalty. When wealthy blacks had a choice, they usually hired white attorneys.

While Douglass' observation that “a wonderful revolution” had taken place was overly optimistic, he was correct that the courts would become a key battleground for equal rights in the decades to come. But the situation became worse before it improved. Formal legal segregation in all aspects of Southern life became a reality in the Plessy v. Ferguson case, which stated segregation did not constitute discrimination, thus establishing the "separate but equal" doctrine. It would take nearly seventy years before the civil rights revolution which Douglass envisioned would result in a realm of equal citizenship.

David J. Gary
Manuscript Cataloger

GLC 08992 Frederick Douglass, Washington, D.C., 23 November 1887.

For more information or to obtain copies, contact Ana Ramirez-Luhrs at reference@gilderlehrman.com or call (212) 787-6616 ext. 209.

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Gilmore, Glenda Elizabeth. Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina 1896-1920. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.

Klarman, Michael J. From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Moran, Robert E. The Reign of Jim Crow: Separatism and the Black Response. Columbus, OH: American Education Publications, Education Center, 1970.

Woodward, C. Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. New York: Oxford University Press, 1955.

Wormser, Richard. The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003.