Reading Comprehension Questions

The following questions are based on the document "Jim Crow laws."

1) How did the Jim Crow education laws seek to keep black and white children separated from one another?

2) Imagine you were a restaurant owner in the South during Jim Crow. List three rules that, according to the various state laws, you would have to abide by in order to operate your business legally.

3) What consequences would an interracial couple in Florida have faced if they were living together during Jim Crow?

The following questions are based on stories available from the document "Jim Crow stories."

1) From in "I never got arrested—I got dirty looks," part of "Children of Jim Crow":
Why did Liz Schick feel proud when she drank from the "colored" drinking fountain while traveling in Florida?

2) From "Packing the pee can for the road trip," part of "Blacks Remember Jim Crow":
Why did Jerry Hutchinson's family have to "pack the pee can" when they took road trips?

3) From "First trip below the Mason-Dixon Line," part of "Northerners Experience Jim Crow":
Why were Barbara Pierce-Cruise and her friends confused when their bus stopped on the way to Washington, D.C.?

Answer key

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Listening Comprehension Questions

The following questions are based on Part 1 of audio documentary:

Listen to Part 1 (15:28)

1) What was the purpose of the system of laws and social customs known as Jim Crow?

2) Where did the term "Jim Crow" originate?

3) Under Jim Crow, the best careers that educated African Americans were likely to pursue were ____________ and ______________.

4) What term describes an arrangement between white landowners and the black farmers who worked on their land?

Answer key

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Critical Thinking Questions

The following questions are based on Part 2 of the documentary. Teachers may choose to use the audio or transcript.

Listen to Part 2 (19:29)

1) Describe one circumstance where the "color line" was strictly enforced in the Jim Crow South and one circumstance where it was not enforced. What do you think accounts for this inconsistency?

2) If you were an African American citizen living under Jim Crow, would you look to the police for protection? Why or why not?

3) What did W.E.B. DuBois mean when he said that African Americans lived "behind the veil"? How did living behind the veil protect and nurture Black communities?

4) Why was World War II a turning point in the history of both Jim Crow and the civil rights movement in America?

5) The action taken by Otis Pinkert was one episode of African American resistance to Jim Crow. How do you think actions like Pinkert's contributed to the broader civil rights struggle of the 1950s and '60s?

The following questions are based on Part 3 of the documentary. Teachers may choose to use the audio or transcript.

Listen to Part 3 (16:28)

1) What evidence does Mary Laveaux use to support her claim that black people in her community were "poor, but happy" under Jim Crow?

2) What lesson did Henry Dauterive learn in his family's kitchen when he was seven years old? Why do you think rules like the one he learned existed under Jim Crow?

3) How did Henry Dauterive's views of Jim Crow change when he went to college? How permanent were these changes?

4) What does anthropologist Kate Ellis mean when she says that many of the older white people she interviewed "recognized the injustice of Jim Crow but feel no particular remorse"? How do the comments of Deanne and Smitty Landry reflect this attitude?

5) How do Kate Ellis's interviews with older African Americans tell a different story than do her interviews with older white people? Whose observations do you consider more reliable? Why?

Answer key

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Research Challenges

1) Do you know anyone who lived in or visited the South during Jim Crow? If so, interview them to learn about their memories or experiences during that era.

2) The term "Jim Crow" was taken from the minstrel shows of the 1800s. Find out what you can about minstrel shows as a form of entertainment and also as an expression of racial assumptions.

3) Compare and contrast the Jim Crow system of the American South to the system of apartheid in South Africa.

4) Identify why the Supreme Court decisions in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and Brown v. Board of Education (1954) were important turning points in the history of Jim Crow.

5) Find out what you can about any of the following civil rights actions: the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Freedom Rides, and the 1963 March on Washington, D.C.

6) Investigate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Why are these two laws often seen as marking the "official" end of Jim Crow?

7) Harlem, in New York City, has long been a center of African American arts and culture. Investigate its artistic, cultural, or political history.

8) When was the American military desegregated? How does this turning point tie into the bigger story of the end of Jim Crow?

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Key Terms and Topics

The following vocabulary words are taken from the nine main articles in The Fight Against Fat.

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