The Civil War abolished slavery, but created a new problem. Even those who opposed slavery didn't agree that Blacks deserved the same rights as whites. Jim Crow was woven into laws to legalize segregation.
All above images can be found at the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia
Whites used objects like the ones collected in the Jim Crow Museum to disparage Blacks and match their beliefs of the other race's inferiority. This allowed them to use segregation to separate the races.
Colored Water Fountain, History.com
I, too, sing America
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—I, too, am America
- Langston Hughes, 1926
People of color faced prejudice in American society. They couldn’t drink out of the same water fountains, use the same restrooms, eat in the same restaurants, stay in certain hotels, and had to ride at the backs of buses.
Colored Sign, Library of Congress, 1943
Segregation affected every aspect of life for Black Americans. They knew that it was unfair to segregate the races, but lacked power to change it.
KKK initiation ceremony, Library of Congress, 1956.
KKK burning cross, Library of Congress, 1948
Jim Crow were laws made to enforce segregation. Vigilante groups such as the KKK used these laws to scare people. Black Americans were abducted and lynched.
A Man Was Lynched Yesterday Flag, NAACP, 1936
The reason vigilante groups were so effective in halting the advancement of civil rights was the aspect of fear. If speaking against segregation were to put your life in danger, most people wouldn't want to speak out.
"Southern trees bear a strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root. Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees."
— Strange Fruit, song written by Abel Meeropol, recorded in 1939 by Billie Holiday
Homer Plessy was of mixed heritage. In Louisiana, the law stated that he had to ride in a colored train car, which he violated to test whether it was constitutional. The conductor of the train ordered Plessy to a colored train car; Plessy refused, resulting in his arrest. Plessy was sent to jail for twenty days. Upon getting out, Plessy challenged the court. That challenge made it all the way to the Supreme Court.
Negro expulsion from railroad car, digitalcollctions.nypl.org, 1856
“We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff’s argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.”- Justice Henry Brown, Majority Opinion, Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896.
The ruling resulted in the acceptance of segregation, the legalization of Jim Crow, and temporarily stopped the debate about it. The ruling became known as "Separate but Equal." The problem with the ruling was that no separation was equal.
About the time of the Civil War, baseball became the "national pastime". Some early teams featured racially mixed players. In 1867, however, it was decided that any team featuring Black players would be excluded from professional leagues because of racial views. On February 14, 1920, several teams had a meeting in Kansas City. Eight owners grouped together to create the NNL.
A group of Homestead Grays pose for a picture, National Baseball Hall of Fame, 1946
"When I look back at what I had to go through in black baseball, I can only marvel at the many black players who stuck it out for years in the Jim Crow leagues because they had nowhere else to go."-Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 1972
The Negro Leagues were inferior to the Major Leagues in every aspect. Because of this, many wanted to play in the Major Leagues instead.
Jackie Robinson in Monarchs Uniform, America's Library.gov, 1945
"Baseball was the longest running organized sport that went professional in 1869 and captured the imaginations of fans (and the pocketbooks of monopolist businessmen). And always used as a test case for a lot of American stuff- integration, TV, satellite communications, free agency/labor relations." -Thomas W. Zeiler, Interview with Robert Foster, December 13, 2021