Jim Crow Laws Essay, Research Paper

Grapes of Wrath by the Undercover Research Team

As the Great Grape Boycott

carries onto another summer, Listen Magazine now turns to a real person of this struggle, the farmer. Marina Jalos*, a grape picker for the Giumarra Vineyard Corporation and a single mother of two, of Modesto, CA tells Listen her life in the field.

She, herself, has never met Cesar Chavez, in head of the UFWOC (United Farm Workers Organization Committee) who is struggling to create a uniformed union amongst farmers, however she is very well informed on the changes farmers may look forward to. She hopes that her interview will change views across the nation on whether to participate in the Great Grape Boycott

Jalos tells us that besides the harsh working treatments and low pay, it hurts to see her children exposed to all the pesticides on the fields. The average pay of these hard laborers is just a few dollars a day. Jalos, last year, earned less than three-thousand dollars. Of course, the low pay is an atrocity itself, but the long back bending hours in the sweltering California sun to pick vegetables and fruits.

Jalos exclamated the need for higher pay for farmers and better benifits.

After the death of her husband, Ricardo, her two sons Gabriel and Gibralti, joined with Marina in the fields. She points out that these destitute conditions could be solved if the mere the farmers could receive a larger percent of agriculture profits. Currently, farmers receive only 2-5% of all profits.

Listen magazine encourages that readers decide for themselves on whether or not to participate in the Great Grape Boycott .

*indicates name has been altered for the protection of the interviewee.

Why is Jim Crow Still Around? by Hu Chi & Undercover Team

Jim Crow laws, named for an antebellum minstrel show character, were late-19th-century statutes passed by the legislatures of the Southern states that has created racist discrimination in the South.

Although slavery has been abolished, many whites believe that nonwhites are inherently inferior.

In 1896 it legalized the principle of “separate but equal” in its ruling Plessy VS. Ferguson. The high court rulings led to a profusion of Jim Crow laws. By 1914 every Southern state had passed laws that created two separate societies, one black, the other white. This structure has maintained by denying the franchise to blacks through the use of devices such as poll taxes and literacy tests.

Furthermore, it has strengthened by the creation of separate facilities in every part of society, including schools, restaurants, cars, hospitals, and cemeteries. The first major blow against the Jim Crow system of racial segregation was struck in 1954 by the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown VS. Topeka Board of Education which declared segregation in the public schools unconstitutional.

However, the Bus Boycott and the further hardship of blacks like voting registration restrictions in the South can no longer be dismissed. So we ask, if you are or have been victimized from any Jim Crow law please write us about your experience.