Jim Crow Laws: Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana and Iowa Code, Colored, Constitution, Descendant, Felony, Intermarriage, Legislature, Mulatto, Negro, Nurse, Ordinance, Penal Code, Public Transportation, Railroads, Schools, Segregation, Separate But Equal, Slavery, Statute, Supreme Court, Voting, Waiting Rooms

Jim Crow Laws: Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana and Iowa [The editors of Americans All ] (c.1877 - c.1967) Code, Colored, Constitution, Descendant, Felony, Intermarriage, Legislature, Mulatto, Negro, Nurse, Ordinance, Penal Code, Public Transportation, Railroads, Schools, Segregation, Separate But Equal, Slavery, Statute, Supreme Court, Voting, Waiting Rooms

 

HAWAII

Background information is provided to put the Jim Crow laws in context and explain how minorities were treated prior to the Civil War. In a few cases, the dates of specific information also have been provided. Americans had first arrived as missionaries in 1820, and stayed on to establish sugar and pineapple plantations throughout the islands. A shortage of Hawaiian labor led them to seek workers from Asia – first China and later Japan and the Philippines. Beginning in the mid-19th century, Hawaii became a major conduit for Asian migration to the American mainland, where anti-Asian racism led to a series of immigration exclusion acts. The first of these was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which eventually led to the near-total restriction of Asian migration in the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act. Source  Between 1913 and 1948, 30 out of the then 48 states enforced anti-miscegenation laws.  Hawaii never enacted them.

As far as Jim Crow era segregation, those laws never existed in Hawaii. Hawaii did not become a state until 1959, and was a territory only since 1898, so was not even part of the U.S. during the Civil War, and barely so during the Jim Crow era. Most racism you see in Hawaii is the opposite direction of what you see in the mainland United States, mostly due to the majority population in the state being Asian and Pacific Islander, and whites being in the minority. Those with brown skin call light-skinned outsiders “Haoles” which is equivalent to the N-word, including in the fact that they see absolutely nothing wrong with it. If anything, the segregation era is still in effect or just beginning today, as evidenced by 2015 efforts to have a referendum on independence restricted to Native Hawaiians. This was shot down by the US Supreme Court as a violation of the 15th Amendment. Source 

1920s: Before 1920 Hawaii was divided into various nationalist groups of Whites, Hawaiians, Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, Okinawans, Filipinos, and Koreans. The Politics, also referred to as “Jim Crow” circa 1930, was a Democratic political strategy to reassert the authority of the white race and promote American Anglo-Saxon values, in what was then the U.S. Territory of Hawaii. Source 

1922: Takao Ozawa v. United States, 260 U.S. 178. The U.S. Supreme Court found Takao Ozawa, a Japanese-American who was born in Japan, graduated from a U.S. college and had lived in Hawaii with his family, for 20 years, ineligible for naturalization. While he was otherwise qualified for naturalization and citizenship, his application for citizenship was rejected based on his race. Source 

1937: A statehood campaign was stalled because of the loyalty of the islands’ Japanese population, its largest ethnic group. The forces of segregation and racism in the U.S. Congress effectively derailed statehood for more than a decade. The Southern Democrats opposition was based on their fear that statehood would lead to an interracial future for the U.S. Source 

 

IDAHO

Background information is provided to put the Jim Crow laws in context and explain how minorities were treated prior to the Civil War. In a few cases, the dates of specific information also have been provided. Idaho, with a strong Mormon population, has a long history of picking and choosing legislation that supports its “religious” beliefs. The state capital, Boise, has more Mormons per capita than does Salt Lake City, Utah. 

1864: Only white males can vote in school elections. Racial limitation on witnesses at trials-- African Americans, Chinese, and Native American residents of the state could not testify at trials involving white litigants. They could, however, provide witness accounts in trials involving members of their own race. Source 

1864: Idaho passed “An Act to prohibit Marriages and Cohabitation of Whites with Indians, Chinese and persons of African descent,” and was punishable with fines and jail time. Source 

1871: Voting rights extended to all male citizens. Source 

1909: The Anti-Miscegenation Act of 1909 made it illegal for whites to marry African Americans, Chinese, or Japanese, and penalized those who performed such marriages. The Idaho state legislature repealed the anti-miscegenation law in 1959. Source 

1921: The 1864 Act was amended again in 1921 to ban marriage between Whites and ‘Mongolians, Negroes, or Mulattoes,’ although the state’s population at the time was less than .02% African American. Source 

1947: A State Anti-Miscegenation Statute made marriage between Whites and Negroes, Mulattoes or Mongolians is illegal and void. Source is: IDA. CODE. & 32-206

 

ILLINOIS

Background information is provided to put the Jim Crow laws in context and explain how minorities were treated prior to the Civil War. In a few cases, the dates of specific information also have been provided. The northern States pioneered viciously discriminatory black codes long before they existed in any Southern State.  Like their midwestern neighbors, most early Illinois settlers believed in white supremacy and African-American inferiority. Consequently, Illinois' constitutions and laws reflected those views. The Illinois' Constitution of 1848 banned slavery with section 16 of its Declaration of Rights  specifying, "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the State, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." Nevertheless, subsequent legislation led to one of the most restrictive Black Code systems in the nation until the American Civil War. The Illinois Black Code of 1854 Source prohibited any Black persons from outside of the state from staying in the state for more than ten days, subjecting Black emigrants who remain beyond the ten days to arrest, detention, a $50 fine, or deportation. It also followed many of the restrictions of the Revised Indiana Code (1962), such as “Negroes and mulattos are not allowed to come into the State”, forbade the consummation of legal contracts with the same, imposed a $500 fine on anyone who employed a black person, forbade interracial marriage and forbade blacks from testifying in court against a white person. The Code was repealed in early 865. Most northern States in the 1860’s did not permit immigration by blacks or, if they did, required them to post a $1000 bond that would be confiscated if they behaved improperly. Source  

1927: Chicago adopted racially restrictive housing covenants, although other tactics had been used in earlier years to maintain a segregated city. At one time, as much as 80 percent of the city may have been covered by restrictive covenants. Source  

1948: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that enforcement of racial restrictive covenants was unconstitutional. This ruling, however, did not put an end to the problem of blacks finding adequate housing. Homeowner associations continued to push for segregation. Shortly after the court decision, the Woodlawn Property Owners wrote: “If the colored people are convinced that life in Woodlawn would be unbearable, they would not want to come in. There must be ways and means to keep whites from selling, causing colored not to want to come in because life here would be unbearable. We are going to save Woodlawn for ourselves and our children! Source is: Deeds of Mistrust: Race, Housing, and Restrictive Covenants in Chicago, 1900-1950