Jim Crow wasn’t just a set of laws — it was a system built to silence voters, segregate communities, and deny representation. After the Civil War, Black Americans began to gain political power during Reconstruction, and the response was swift: poll taxes, literacy tests, gerrymandering, and legalized segregation.

That system lasted for decades, reinforced by Supreme Court decisions like Plessy v. Ferguson and only partially dismantled by rulings like Brown v. Board of Education and legislation like the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Today, parts of those protections have been weakened, and the question isn’t just what Jim Crow was — it’s whether we would recognize it if it started to return.

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