A letter in Is It Night or Day? alludes to the similarity between the Jim Crow laws and Germany’s Nuremberg laws. Some book club members have asked me about that reference.
I found this comparison of the laws in a Teachers’ guide:
It is highly apparent that Hitler used the Jim Crow Laws as a premise for the Nuremberg Laws. Both laws specifically targeted an “inferior” people by depriving them of their natural and civil rights.
If one were to briefly scan through the countless numbers of pages, one would notice the similarities between the two documents. For instance:
1. Nuremberg Laws – First Supplementary Decree, ARTICLE 4
The conditions regarding service of teachers in public Jewish schools remains unchanged until the promulgation of new laws on the Jewish school system.
Jim Crow Laws – Missouri Law
Separate free schools shall be established for the education of children of African descent; and it shall be unlawful for any colored child to attend any white school, or any white child to attend a colored school.
2. Nuremberg Laws – Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor,
SECTION 1- Marriages between Jews and nationals of German or kindred blood are forbidden.
Marriages concluded in defiance of this law are void, even if, for the purpose of evading this law, they are concluded abroad.
Jim Crow Laws – Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Wyoming Law
The marriage of a person of Caucasian blood with a Negro, Mongolian, Malay, or Hindu shall be null and void.
These two examples are significant in the demonstration of similarities between the laws. Both laws strip civil and human rights of the minority group in a foreseen effort to extinguish the minority.