Jim Crow Laws - Preface

This image by John T. McCutcheon, depicting the real (not theoretical) impact of "Jim Crow" laws in public transportation, is cropped from a larger political cartoon entitled "Mississippi at the St. Louis Fair."  Published in McCutcheon's book The Mysterious Stranger and other Cartoons (1905).  Online, courtesy Google Books. 

We cannot say
that a law which authorizes
or even requires
the separation
of the two races
in public conveyances
is unreasonable.

United States Supreme Court 
Plessy vs. Ferguson 
May 18, 1896

On the 20th of January, 2009, Barack Obama became America's 44th President.  A man of African-American heritage, seeking to unify a divided country, he noted in his inaugural address: 

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath. 

The President's father may not have been served in a D.C. restaurant, sixty years ago, because he was a black man.  And in America, at that time, laws discriminated against people of color. 

This is a story about how that system - called "Jim Crow" - developed.