Where it All Began :
A white man named Thomas Dartmouth Rice was an entertainer at the time. He wrote a song called Jump Jim Crow this song instantly became a hit. With the song can a dance which imitated the work of an African American slave. When Rice performed the song for people he would make his face dark, act like a crazy person and talk like an uneducated human being. This is what was being portrayed of the African American making them seem helpless and unintelligent. When Jim Crow Laws were first being established some African Americans tested the laws to see if they were real or to see what would happen to them. In 1986 a man named Homer Plessy challenged the laws. Plessy was arrested for riding a railway car made only for the whites. Plessy found this "crime" despicable and unreasonable. He took this simple matter in to big hands at the supreme court. During the trial the supreme court agreed with the idea that the segregation laws were legal and that he was in fact violating them. The choice of the supreme court established the "separate but equal" act which allowed segregation to continue in the United States. From then on it was proved that any African American who did not cooperate with the segregation laws were fined and arrested.