<P> Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States . Enacted by white Democratic - dominated state legislatures in the late 19th century after the Reconstruction period , these laws continued to be enforced until 1965 . They mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America , starting in 1896 with a `` separate but equal '' status for African Americans in railroad cars . Public education had essentially been segregated since its establishment in most of the South after the Civil War . This principle was extended to public facilities and transportation , including segregated cars on interstate trains and , later , buses . Facilities for African Americans were consistently inferior and underfunded compared to those which were then available to white Americans ; sometimes they did not exist at all . This body of law institutionalized a number of economic , educational , and social disadvantages . Segregation by law existed mainly in the Southern states , while Northern segregation was generally a matter of fact -- patterns of housing segregation enforced by private covenants , bank lending practices , and job discrimination , including discriminatory labor union practices . `` Jim Crow '' was a pejorative expression referring to a minstrel song called `` Jump Jim Crow '' by a performer appearing in blackface . </P>
when did the jim crow law began and end
the late 19th century after the Reconstruction period 1965