Segregation refers to the policy of keeping black and white Americans separate from one another. In 1875, the Enforcement Act, or the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was passed by 'Radical Republicans' in an effort to end Jim Crow laws. However, it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court within a few years.Jan 31, 2017Jim Crow law, in U.S. history, any of the laws that enforced racial segregation in the South between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. ... The term came to be a derogatory epithet for African Americans and a designation for their segregated life.