Southern History Series: Race Relations In The Jim Crow South

What was it like back then in the dystopia that was segregation?

The following excerpt on the early 20th century South comes from Richard Worsmer’s book The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow:

“As punitive and prejudicial as Jim Crow laws were in the North, they never reached the intensity of oppression and degree of violence and sadism that they did in the South. A black person could not swim in the same pool, sit in the same public park, bowl, play pool or, in some states, checkers, drink from the same water fountain or use the same bathroom, marry, be treated in the same hospital, use the same schoolbooks, play baseball with, ride in the same taxicab, sit in the same section of a bus or train, be admitted to any private or public institution, teach in the same school, read in the same library, attend the same theater, or sit in the same area with a white person. Blacks had to address white people as Mr., Mrs., or “Mizz,” “Boss,” or “Captain” while they, in turn, were called by their first name, or by terms used to indicate social inferiority — “boy,” “aunty,” or uncle.” Black people, if allowed in a store patronized by whites, had to wait until all white customers were served first. If they attended a movie, they had to sit in the balcony; if they went to a circus, they had to buy tickets at a separate window and sit in a separate section. They had to give way to whites on a sidewalk, remove their hats as a sign of respect when encountering whites, and enter a white person’s house by the back door.”

It was hell on earth.

Rod Dreher has this take on segregation:

“Now, nobody can doubt that school segregation was unjust, and that black schools received far fewer resources than white schools. “Separate but equal” was not only immoral, it was a lie. Segregation had to end. …”

I don’t even have to tell you how much progress we have made since the integration of public transportation, public housing, public restrooms, public parks, public swimming pools, private hotels and restaurants and especially the public schools since the 1950s and 1960s.

About Hunter Wallace 12389 Articles
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12 Comments

  1. Most black neighborhoods might as well post signs warning whites to get out after dark.

    While I don’t hate blacks, I don’t think we’ll ever fit well together, and it’s impossible to make a high functioning society together. There’s too much water under the bridge, and we’re too different. Adding 100 million hispanics and others isn’t going to help. What a mess out parents left for our children!

  2. Segregation would be better than what we have now, but it simply doesn’t work in the long(or even short) run. Total separation is the only answer. A species needs its own territory to survive.

      • Yep. Separation from the Northern liberal/leftist is what is needed. I’m not saying it is a viable solution at this moment, but that it’s something we need to strive for. Btw, as for Rod Dreher, errgghh! I remember way back when exposing him for the open-borders fanatic he is at heart. Back then he worked at the Dallas Morning News and wrote an article declaring the Mexican/South American inhabitants of Texas, “Texans of the Year.” Then began to backtrack when some of us got in his rear end about it, exposing his half handed message for what it really was He’s like George Will; his underlying devotion to Northern liberalism will always and forever come forth at some point., thus he’s not to be trusted. Not that I hate the guy; it is just who he is. And I am me. Never the twain shall meet. I have a half-sister whose ‘Merica-centric stupidity creates the selfsame chasm between us. So be it.

      • “it was the most the liberal North would tolerate.”

        Why must the so-called United States be governed exclusively on the basis of the wants and wishes of the North?

        Can’t the Yankees be satisfied with legal and political equality Southrons and Westerners? And with just governing their own states, and not everybody else’s?

    • BS Powell! If every species had its own territory; then there would be nothing but cannibalism throughout the world. If it weren’t for wires preying on blacks then there would have been no industrial revolution, pig laws enacted in the late 1800’s combined with convict leasing, denying freedmen the 40 acres and a mule;which in-turn kept blacks from starting to gather any generational wealth for their families… if not for that; affirmative action would never have been a thought, and working-class blacks would probably be bitching the most about EBT.

  3. How many times have I seen the water fountain photos from the Jim Crow South that are labeled “Whites Only” and “Colored Only”? Countless times. And, they look the same to me. Identical fountains 10 or so feet apart. Did those damn crackers not fix them when they broke, is that the problem?

    The real joke is blacks would love to have their own fountains now. And pools, And schools. And hospitals. In fact, they often do because this time, whitey is the one that stays away. Voluntarily or by threats of violence. So what’s changed other than they’re a mirror image now?

    • I see more & more formerly White spaces being infiltrated by Blacks in a show of strength. Much of it looks coordinated to me. It is almost funny to watch the cucked Whites try to act like the situation is normal.. Almost funny.

  4. God, I’m so sick of tired of idiots talking about racism, which is a nonsense word made up by Trotsky. It’s just another (((special person))) attempt to control people, through setting up an artificial situation and using it to divide and conquer the dumbass gentiles. It’s a rhetorical weapon only successful when used on Whites, because a significant proportion of us seem to be self-hating fools easily tricked into feeling guilty about our lack of perfection.

  5. In the Red River County Courthouse, in Clarksville, Tx, the separate restrooms and fountains still exist. They never took down the signs, either. They’re left up, as an historical curiosity.

  6. Gee, I don’t know. Jim Crow sounds just like the laws the ‘democratic’ nation of [sic] ‘Israel’ has against the Palestinians, today!? One law for me, and another for thee?

    Every. Single. Time. DttJ.

  7. I saw a documentary on the Green Book by the Smithsonian channel. As you know the Green Book was a guide to black owned and operated businesses. I was shocked to see how much blacks have lost since integration. The documentary showed archival footage of black hotels, black camping grounds, black owned car places, black nightclubs, black restaurants, black swimming polls, black beaches. Now I suspect they are owned by people other than blacks. We lost dearly because of integration but so also did black America.

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