What was the primary nickname for segregation laws in the southern United States?

The primary nickname for segregation laws in the southern United States is Jim Crow. This term refers to a series of state and local statutes that legalized racial discrimination and enforced segregation from the late 19th century until the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Jim Crow laws mandated the separation of races in various public facilities such as schools, transportation, and restaurants, effectively institutionalizing racial inequality. The term itself originates from a character in a minstrel show, reflecting the derogatory attitudes towards African Americans during this era.

In contrast, the Grandfather Clause refers to laws that allowed individuals to vote only if their grandfathers had been eligible to vote before the Civil War, effectively disenfranchising many African Americans. Black Codes were restrictive laws aimed at controlling the freedom and movement of former enslaved people in the post-Civil War South but were not the overarching name for the segregationist policies that subsequently emerged. Separate and Equal is commonly associated with the doctrine established by Plessy v. Ferguson, asserting that separate facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional, but it does not serve as a formal nickname for the laws themselves.