Origin Of Jim Crow Laws

When looking into the origin of Jim Crow laws, historians have been able to find the phrase first used back in 1904.  However, there is still some evidence that suggests that Jim Crow laws had been in effect before that.  The name Jim Crow comes from a dance called, "Jump Jim Crow."  This song and dance was based upon a caricature of African Americans that was performed by, no other, then a white actor named Tomas Rice, in a production called blackface.  This performance was first recorded back in 1832.  Jim Crow became a widely well known and famous act and seemed to fit perfectly when the "Jim Crow" laws came to be.  The segregation laws and laws used against the African Americans became enacted around 1838, but were not referred to as Jim Crow laws until the end of the nineteenth century.