Search FAQ
What should I search for?
What do “model” and “expert” mean?
What are the differences between law types?
How can I get access to the laws without using the search?
Why am I getting unexpected results from my search? For example, when I search for “park”, laws with the name “Parker” are also returned.
Is it possible to use more advanced or detailed searching methods?
Q: What should I search for?
A: Try some of these keywords: school, rail, voting, cemetery, park, orphanage, asylum, indian, and vote.
Q: What do “model” and “expert” mean?
A: For Jim Crow laws, a law’s “source” field will read “expert” or “model” depending on how the law was identified. Jim Crow laws were identified in two ways: solely by an expert, or by the machine learning model explained here and confirmed by an expert.
Q: What are the differences between law types?
A: Learn more about law types here.
Q: How can I get access to the laws without using the search?
A: There are a couple ways to access the laws without searching. You can browse laws by county, year and subject using the The North Carolina Jim Crow Laws dashboard, or you can download the laws as text files:
Q: Why am I getting unexpected results from my search? For example, when I search for “park”, laws with the name “Parker” are also returned.
A: The search tool on this website looks for partial word matches. To avoid matching partial words, include both quotes and spaces around your search term. For example, if you only want to find laws about parks, try submitting a search for “ park “.
Q: Is it possible to use more advanced or detailed searching methods?
A: For more searching options, we recommend downloading the full set of text files (Jim Crow laws or All laws) and using the DocFetcher program. DocFetcher is free and available for Windows, Mac and Linux. If you would like assistance using DocFetcher to search for laws, please contact us.