Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation. The term "Jim Crow" originally referred to a black character in 1800s minstrel shows in which white performers wore "Blackface" and pretended to be black. Such laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America and in some others, beginning in the 1870s. Jim Crow laws were upheld in 1896 in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, in which the Supreme Court laid out its "separate but equal" legal doctrine concerning facilities for African Americans. In practice, Jim Crow laws touched every aspect of everyday life, including separate hospitals, prisons, public and private schools, churches, cemeteries, restrooms, and public accommodations. Jim Crow laws were based on the theory of white supremacy and were a reaction to Reconstruction. The remaining Jim Crow laws were overturned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.