Southern History Series: Jim Crow Alabama

There is a growing public interest in “white supremacy. “

I happen to know a great deal about “white supremacy.” I understand it as the system of race relations which existed in the South with the brief exception of the Reconstruction period from colonial times down until 1965. Both slavery and segregation existed within the construct of white supremacy which rested on the belief that Dixie was and ought to remain a White Man’s Country.

The White Cock was the official symbol of the Alabama Democratic Party until 1966. The “Black Panther” was created by Stokely Carmichael’s Lowndes County Freedom Association as a contrast to the White Cock. The idea was to create a symbol of black pride and black power.

What did the White Cock symbolize? Why did White Alabamians choose that symbol to represent their political party? Traditionally, the male rooster or cockerel symbolizes pride, honesty, courage, vigilance, arrogance, strength, watchfulness and flamboyance. In contrast to the mainstream conservative, which is devoid of these masculine qualities, it holds its head up high, struts with confidence and vigorously defends its women and territory. The White Cock symbolized an honor based culture.

In Celtic mythology, the rooster is a symbol of the underworld that screeches out warnings in danger and calls out for the souls of the fallen in battle. In Greek mythology, the rooster was a sacred animal of the divine Apollo who announces the rise of the sun. In Christianity, the rooster is a symbol of Christ’s passion and religious vigilance and redemption. Naturally, the average person doesn’t know any of this because conservatives also failed to preserve that aspect of our heritage.

The Democrats are the real racists.

We haven’t lived under “white supremacy” since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 which revolutionized Southern politics by taking the Black Belt, which was the stronghold of the segregationists, and placing pretty much the entire region under black majority rule.

The phenomenon we are experiencing today is better understood as White populism. The current system of race relations which dates back to the late 1960s/early 1970s is breaking down. It is breaking down because the Civil Rights Movement was based on the assumption of racial equality and the notion that blacks could be successfully integrated into mainstream American society by dismantling racism and the Jim Crow system. It was assumed at the time by liberal integrationists that race relations would improve and that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s colorblind utopia would be shortly realized.

A half century later, White identity and White grievances are still uniquely held to be illegitimate. The only role for White people in mainstream American society is to be guilt-ridden individualists forever a top the cucking stool of repentance. Every other group down to transsexuals is encouraged to celebrate their identity and organize to advance their political interests. The role of mainstream conservatives in this system is to forever lose the culture war to the Left as its loyal opposition while vigorously policing the boundaries of the mainstream to root out any sign of White identity or nationalism. The people who are disaffected with this state of affairs are White populists and nationalists.

The following excerpt on Jim Crow Alabama is from Nikki L.M. Brown and Barry M. Stentiford’s The Jim Crow Encyclopedia: Volume 1:

“Alabama, a Deep South state in the “Heart of Dixie,” was also one of the centers of Jim Crow. In several respects, Alabama followed the lead of other states in establishing Jim Crow legislation, but once Jim Crow was established in the state, eradicating it would be a long, painful, and at times bloody ordeal. During the 1960s, Alabama became the focal point of the Civil Rights Movement, while white resistance and violence brought the state notoriety.”

Alabama was the epicenter of the resistance to the Civil Rights Movement. We had the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956 which made Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. a civil rights celebrity. We had Gov. George Wallace’s stand in the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama in 1963. We had the Birmingham campaign in 1963. We had Bloody Sunday and the Selma-to-Montgomery March in 1965. The optics of Birmingham and Selma gave us the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which brought down the Jim Crow South. Finally, we had George Wallace’s presidential campaigns in 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976 which built on the backlash to the Civil Rights Movement.

“After Reconstruction, Alabama followed the lead of Mississippi in using white Democratic control of the courts, legislature, and governor’s mansion, to establish legal means to prevent black struggle. With blacks rendered negligible as a political force in the state, Jim Crow laws proliferated by the beginning of the twentieth century. During the 1920s, the revived Ku Klux Klan became a powerful force in Alabama, but with poll taxes and other means keeping blacks off juries and out of the polling places, the Klan in Alabama focused more on Populist causes, such as better public schools for white children, and Prohibition. Many poorer whites flocked to the new Klan, seeing it as a way of breaking the monopoly on political power of the large landowners and the factory owners in cities such as Birmingham, the so-called Big Mules. Hugo Black, who would later be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, was elected Senator in 1926 with the backing of the Klan. As a senator, he wholly supported the New Deal. Governor Bibb Graves was elected governor in 1926, also with Klan backing, and he instituted some of the most progressive programs for poor whites in the state’s history.”

Eric Striker brought this up on the last episode of Strike and Mike.

As hard as it is to believe today, Alabama used to be one of the most “progressive” states in the country. Alabama’s delegation in Congress were strong supporters of the New Deal. Blacks were largely disenfranchised in Alabama from the 1890s until the late 1960s. When we think of the Klan, we don’t think of it as a vehicle for the White working class in Birmingham or as an organization that enforced Prohibition, but that is what it was here during the early 20th century.

“However by the late 1920s, the Klan lost much of its popular support in Alabama. Their heavy-handed attempts to enforce a strict moral code harassed many whites. As long as the Klan focused its violent urges on blacks, it was tolerated. But with Alabama’s blacks essentially rendered powerless by Jim Crow, the Klan had found new white targets, white people who could vote and serve on juries. After Klansmen stripped to the waist a divorced white woman, tied her to a tree, and whipped her for immorality, the Klan lost much of its grassroots supporter.”

The Klan lost power and influence in Alabama by thot patrolling flappers in the 1920s.

“The Montgomery Bus Boycott, begun in December 1955, eventually resulted in an ending of the system of segregation on that city’s buses. Governor James Folsom, who served two nonconsecutive terms from 1947 to 1951 and from 1955 to 1959, raised hope among blacks and white liberals that change might come relatively painlessly. A Populist, Folsom often expressed his desire to help “the common man” and unite the people of the state. He sought to abolish the poll taxes that kept many poor whites as well as blacks from voting. He publicly spoke against the formation of a White Citizens Council in Alabama.

However Folsom’s moderate stance on Jim Crow proved too soft for many of Alabama’s white residents who, after all, made up most of the voters. When Folsom tried to accommodate the increased federal involvement in civil rights, his political base dissolved. Poorer whites, often fearing any lessening of Jim Crow, switched their support to candidates they thought would oppose federal intrusion and maintain the status quo on racial issues. In the 1962 gubernatorial election, George C. Wallace defeated Folsom. Wallace had previously been a moderate and had even been backed by the NAACP in his 1958 bid for the governorship. Wallace lost that election to John Patterson, who had the support of the Ku Klux Klan. Learning from his defeat, Wallace adopted a strict segregationist stance, which propelled him to the governor’s mansion and, eventually, into the national spotlight.”

Mainstream conservatives would be aghast at the Alabama of the 1950s and 1960s which was “racist” and “statist” and “white supremacist.” Their ideology didn’t begin to put down any roots here until Barry Goldwater’s ill fated 1964 campaign when he carried Arizona and several Deep South states while getting blown out by LBJ. Previously, Alabama had been represented by men like Sen. Lister Hill and Sen. John Sparkman who was still in the Senate down to Jimmy Carter’s time. Alabama really didn’t become a “ruby red” conservative state until the 1990s and elected Blue Dog Democrats in the 2000s.

What was Jim Crow like in Alabama?

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.”

Here are Alabama’s Jim Crow laws:

Enacted 27 Jim Crow segregation laws between 1865 and 1965: including six each against miscegenation and desegregated schools. A 1915 health care segregation law prevented white nurses from caring for black male patients. Unlike other former Confederacy states, no laws were enacted during the Reconstruction period barring segregation. Miscegenation violations carred the harshest penalties. Violators could be sentenced to the penitentiary for two to seven years of hard labor. After the Brown decision, six segregation laws were passed, including a Birmingham city ordinance requiring segregated public accommodations and recreational areas.

1865: Miscegenation [Constitution]
Stated that it was the duty of the general assembly to periodically enact laws prohibiting intermarriage between whites and blacks, or with persons of mixed blood, and to establish penalties.

1865: Miscegenation [Constitution]
Stated that it was the duty of the general assembly to periodically enact laws prohibiting intermarriage between whites and blacks, or with persons of mixed blood, and to establish penalties.

1867: Miscegenation [State Code]
Set penalties for intermarriage and cohabitation between blacks and whites. Penalties: Confinement in the penitentiary at hard labor between two and seven years. Those who issued the license or performed such a ceremony could be fined from $100 to $1,000, or imprisoned for six months, or both.

1875: Education [Constitution]
Separate schools to be provided for the children of citizens of African descent

1878: Education [Statute]
Repeated separate school requirement of 1875 Constitution.

1891: Railroads [Statute]
Railroads to provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races, providing two or more passenger cars for each passenger train, or by dividing the passenger cars by partitions so as to create separate accommodations. Conductors were given authority to assign passengers to the proper car. Law did not apply to white or colored passengers entering the state upon railroads who purchased their tickets in another state where a similar law was not in force. Penalties: Persons who attempted to ride in the wrong railroad car would be fined $100. Railroad companies that failed to enforce the law would be fined up to $500; conductors could be fined as much as $100.

1901: Miscegenation [Constitution]
Declared that the legislature could never pass any law authorizing or legalizing “any marriage between any white person and a Negro, or descendant of a Negro.”

1901: Education [Constitution]
Separate schools to be provided for white and colored children. No child of either race to be permitted to attend a school of the other race.

1907: Miscegenation [State Code]
Restated 1867 constitutional provision prohibiting intermarriage and cohabitation between whites and blacks. Penalties remained the same. A political code adopted in the same year defined the term “Negro” to include “mulatto,” which was noted as “persons of mixed blood descended from a father or mother from Negro ancestors, to the fifth generation inclusive, though one ancestor of each generation may have been a white person.” Note: This code added two additional generations to the original 1867 definition of what constituted a “Negro” person.

1911: Jails [Statute]
Unlawful for any sheriff or jailer “to confine in the same room or apartment of any jail or prison white and Negro prisoners.”

1915: Health Care [Statute]
White female nurses were prohibited from caring for black male patients.

1927: Education [State Code]
All schools to be segregated by race.

1928: Miscegenation [State Code]
Miscegenation declared a felony.

1928: Race classification [State Code]
Classified all persons with any Negro blood as colored.

1928: Public accommodations [State Code]
Forbid the use by members of either race of toilet facilities in hotels and restaurants which were furnished to accommodate persons of the other race.

1940: Miscegenation [State Code]
Prohibited intermarriage and cohabitation between whites and blacks or the descendant of any Negro. Penalty: Imprisonment in the penitentiary for two to seven years. Ministers and justices of the peace faced fines between $100 and $1,000 and could be imprisoned in the county jail for up to six months.

1940: Prisons [State Code]
Unlawful to chain together white and black convicts or allow them to sleep together.

1940: Railroads [State Code]
Code commanded that separate waiting rooms be provided for blacks and whites as well as equal but separate accommodations on railroad cars. Did not apply to passengers entering Alabama from another state that did not have similar laws.

1940: Education [State Code]
County Boards of Education to provide free separate schools for white and colored children.

1945: Public Carriers [Statute]
Required separate waiting rooms and ticket windows for the white and colored races as well as separate seating on buses. Penalty: Misdemeanor carrying a fine of $500.

1945: Voting Rights [Constitution]
Established voting qualifications to included being able to read and write, understand and explain any article of the U.S. Constitution. Elector had to be employed for the greater part of the 12 months preceding registration.

1955: Public Carrier [Statute]
Called for segregation on public transportation.

1956: Public accommodation [City Ordinance]
The city of Huntsville, Ala., passed a municipal ordinance that set aside one day a week when Negroes could use the municipal golf course.

1956: Recreation [City Council Resolution ]
The Huntsville, Ala., City Council passed a resolution that made it unlawful for white and blacks to play cards, dice, dominoes, checkers, pool, billiards, softball, basketball, baseball, football, golf, or track together. Also applied to swimming pools and beaches.

1956: Public Carriers [City Ordinance]
Birmingham, Ala., acted to “reaffirm, reenact and continue in full force and effect” ordinances which prescribed segregated seating on city buses to prevent “incidents, tensions and disorder.”

1957: Education [State Code]
No child compelled to attend schools that are racially mixed.

1957: Public accommodations and recreation [State Code]
Political subdivisions may alienate recreational facilities if approved by referendum.

1963: Public accommodations and recreation [City Ordinance]
Repeated portions of Birmingham’s city code which had prohibited interracial recreation and had required separation of the races in restaurants and places of entertainment, and separate bathrooms for black and white employees.