Terrific blog post on Jim Crow photographs from the Library of Congress

Please check this terrific blog post by Jeff Bridgers from the Library of Congress describing the Jim Crow era and highlighting the Library's unparalleled collection in this area.

Titled, "Signs of Their Times: 'Jim Crow' Was Here," the short post features a concise definition of Jim Crow laws and the two Supreme Court cases that framed that era (Plessy v. Ferguson [1896] and Brown v. Board of Education [1954]), then shows four representative photographs documenting how "various facilities (were) for the exclusive use of one race."

Photograph by Russell Lee, July 1939, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8a26761

The blog concludes with a great list of links for further study.

Classroom Connection: Assign this blog post to your students as background reading.  Then direct them to the further study links and ask them to create a presentation answering this question: "How deeply rooted was racial segregation during the Jim Crow era?"  This will guide them to find examples of separate facilities in a host of activities.