Button, "I Won't Live with Jim Crow: Civil Rights Congress," circa 1948

The term "Jim Crow" implied the systematic practice of discriminating against and segregating African Americans, especially in the American South, from the late 19th to the mid-20th centuries. The Civil Rights Congress (1946-1956) became a brief force in civil rights battles. However, with its ties to the American Communist Party, it became victim to Cold War anticommunism and government repression.