The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Special Collection

The landmark four-part series The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow explores segregation from the end of the civil war to the dawn of the modern civil rights movement. It was a brutal and oppressive era in American history, but during this time, large numbers of African Americans and a corps of influential black leaders bravely fought against the status quo, amazingly acquiring for African Americans the opportunities of education, business, land ownership, and a true spirit of community.

Funding for this collection was provided by the Booth Ferris Foundation.

RESOURCE	GRADE LEVEL	MEDIA TYPE
Barbara Johns of Farmville, Virginia In this video from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, learn about 16-year old Barbara Johns, a high school student who, in 1951, organized a student walk-out to protest inferior educational conditions at Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia.	9-12	Video
The Birth of a Nation This video from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow highlights the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, directed by D. W. Griffith, which presents a distorted image of African Americans in the South and created a heightened atmosphere of violence upon its release.	9-12	Video
Black Pioneers: Building African American Communities During the Jim Crow Era Students are introduced to all-black, self-sustaining communities established as a response to the imposition of Jim Crow laws and practices.	9-12	Lesson Plan
Blacks and Whites in the New South This segment from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow illustrates the precarious and ill-defined relationships existing between whites and blacks following the Civil War.	9-12	Video
Booker T. Washington: An Education This video segment from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow chronicles Booker T. Washington’s invitation to head the Tuskegee Institute and explains his philosophy of education.	9-12	Video
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois: The Conflict This video segment from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow highlights W.E.B. Du Bois’ criticism of Booker T. Washington for focusing on the economic advancement of blacks and accepting the injustices of Jim Crow.	7-12	Video
Charles Hamilton Houston: Laying the Groundwork for Integration In this video from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, observe how Charles Hamilton Houston laid the groundwork for the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education as he documented separate and unequal conditions for black and white students in the south.	9-12	Video
Charles Hamilton Houston and His Legal Challenge Against Jim Crow This video fromThe Rise and Fall of Jim Crow profiles Charles Hamilton Houston, the chief council for the NAACP, and his legal challenge against Jim Crow.	9-12	Video
The Crisis: A Weapon Against Jim Crow Learn about W.E.B. Du Bois’ crusade against American segregation and discrimination in this segment from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow.	9-12	Video
Domestic Terror: Understanding Lynching During the Jim Crow Era This lesson exposes the crime of lynching and explores the many political, legal and social attempts made by individuals and organizations to seek justice.	9-12	Lesson Plan
The Economics of Jim Crow In this lesson, students learn how the laws and practices of Jim Crow crippled many African Americans and lead to economic destabilization.	9-12	Lesson Plan
Edisto Island In this video segment from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, freedmen on Edisto Island receive the news that their land will be taken away.	9-12	Video
Fighting Jim Crow in the Schools In this lesson students map the events in the fight for education for African Americans from the Jim Crow era to the Civil Rights movement.	9-12	Lesson Plan
The Geography of Jim Crow In this lesson, students locate statistical information using census data from the United States Historical Census Data Browser.	9-12	Lesson Plan
Ida B. Wells: A Lifetime of Activism Learn about Ida B. Wells’ life-long fight for African-American civil rights in this segment from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow.	9-12	Video
Isaiah Montgomery Founds Mound Bayou This video from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow profiles Isaiah Montgomery who, in 1887, established the all-black town of Mound Bayou in the Mississippi Delta.	9-12	Video
The Jim Crow Years: People Who Made a Difference In this lesson, students identify individuals who distinguished themselves and made contributions to their communities during the Jim Crow era.	9-12	Lesson Plan
The Law and Politics of Jim Crow This lesson examines the changing legal status of African Americans after slavery, the political violence that accompanied that change, and the legal challenges to Jim Crow.	9-12	Lesson Plan
Living with Jim Crow This lesson examines how the history of Jim Crow can be understood through the stories of individuals while still recounting a larger historical narrative.	9-12	Lesson Plan
Lucy Laney Lucy Craft Laney, a former slave who established the first school for black children in Augusta, Georgia, is profiled in this video from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow.	9-12	Video
Ned Cobb: Fighting for the Farmer Learn how Ned Cobb, an African American farmer, became president of the Sharecroppers Union in this segment from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow.	9-12	Video
Pap Singleton: To Kansas! In this video from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, former slave Benjamin “Pap” Singleton leads African Americans out of the South to Kansas.	7-12	Video
Plessy v. Ferguson In this segment from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, discover how in 1896 the Supreme Court, in a landmark case known as Plessy v. Ferguson, sanctioned segregation as long as the separate facilities were equal.	9-12	Video
Read All About It!: The African American Press in the Jim Crow Years In this lesson, students explore the organizational structure of newspapers and learn about the significance of the African American Press during the Jim Crow era.	Pre-K-12	Lesson Plan
Reconstruction Brings White Resistance In this segment from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, white Southerners, resentful of Reconstruction, found many ways to obstruct and deny the new freedoms held by former slaves.	9-12	Video
Rising Negrophobia and Challenging the Lie This video from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow exposes the media’s use of racist imagery during the Jim Crow era and the ways African Americans challenged the lies the images portrayed.	9-12	Video
Students Strike at Fisk University This video from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow features African American students who organized the 1924 strike at Fisk University to protest attempts to make Fisk a vocational school.	7-12	Video
The Truman Administration and The Seeds of Change This video from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow highlights President Truman’s outrage at the treatment of Black service men following World War II and his pledge of federal support for civil rights.	7-12	Video
Walter White: Reporting the Crime In this segment from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, White Walter put his life on the line passing for white to investigate the crime of lynching.	9-12	Video
Walter White v W.E.B. Du Bois The philosophical differences between Walter White, General Secretary of the NAACP, and W.E.B. Du Bois, the editor of The Crisis, are highlighted in this video from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow.	7-12	Video
Who Was Jim Crow? This video from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow depicts the popular 19th-century minstrel song that stereotyped African Americans and later came to personify the system of government-sanctioned racial oppression and segregation in the United States.	7-12	Video
Wilmington, North Carolina,1898: Prelude to a Riot This video from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow demonstrates that by the late 1890s, African Americans in Wilmington, North Carolina, had achieved social standing and economic stability equal to many whites.	6-12	Video
Wilmington: A Peaceful City Turned Violent In this video from The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, observe how Wilmington, North Carolina, a city once characterized by peaceful race relations, turned violent with the election of 1898.	9-12	Video

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