History of Jim Crow

[Music] there was an attempt in some ways to reinstate black people for decades after emancipation african-americans struggled to achieve equality Jim Crow denied black people all forms of social respect Jim Crow kept the races apart at work I worked in an all-black section and at play that whole amusement park did not wish to allow black people into their bar that lasted certainly in law until the 1960s was it just an ugly chapter in American history or is Jim Crow making a comeback there is a Jim Crow in the 21st century that wears a suit and tie and carries and tab [Music] once a robust slave trading center today the city of Alexandria honors its black history you will find statues memorializing the Edmondson sisters who try to escape slavery you can stroll through the african-american Heritage Park and drop by the Black History Museum hi I'm Robin Hamilton here in Alexandria and across the country in the days following the Civil War a system of laws and customs called Jim Crow began to be enforced they kept the races separate but more importantly they helped perpetuate negative attitudes towards african-americans for more than a century the Jim Crow impacted blacks and whites it was a system that also taught whites that they were superior in in every way that mattered they taught african-americans that they were inferior it wasn't just a set of ideas it was reflected in the objects that we produced thousands of everyday objects that remind us of the Jim Crow era crammed the display cases here at Ferris State University [Music] David pilgrim founded the Jim Crow Museum on the Big Rapids Michigan campus in 1996 I started when I was a teenager and I went to a historically black college and also learned that you could use objects of intolerance to teach the lessons of Jim Crow there are no pieces in here which are not useful as teaching tools on one law of the museum you can find a bigger-than-life sketch of the character Jim Crow created by a man named Thomas rice he was popularized in minstrel shows as early as the 1830s Rice's performance of the slave tun jump Jim Crow became an international sensation wheel about and turned about and you know every time a wheel about a jump Jim there were people who saw what he did decided to expand you know created troops and from about the 1830s almost through to the end of the 1800s you had professional minstrel shows and a lot of the caricatures of African Americans they were popularized there you know things like the mammy and the the and the picatiny the good old kinds of images at some point Jim Crow stopped being a name associated with stage mockings of african-americans and became a synonym for the racial hierarchy that existed in our country that had White's at the top and blacks at the bottom you could make the argument that it lasted certainly in law until the 1960s sometimes people I don't think they get it when they'll think what does a mammy ceramic cookie jar have to do with Jim Crow well it was a way of placing Jim Crow ideas in your kitchen they became propaganda which both shaped and reflected attitudes toward African Americans walking through the museum certainly brings you face to face with some disturbing realities of our racial history the lynching tree of course is a powerful object and if you know anything about a lynching period in the United States and you're saying then you will have an emotional response to that but it's certainly a high-risk strategy for teaching and given the sort of racial climate in our culture right now there's a an even greater potential for for controversy but that's not our intention it actually our attention is not even to be provocative it's simply to show the evidence of the Jim Crow system that existed in our country and to show those places where the struggle continues in a society where many people are afraid to talk about race we have set out to create a facility where people can have meaningful productive sometimes painful conversations about race [Music] when we return leaving legends of Alexandria share their memories of life during the days of Jim Crow you in 1983 Alexandria established this museum to preserve its black history it includes the Robinson library built in 1940 after one of America's first sit-ins at the all-white city library we came here to see what it was like to live in a segregated world and to listen to the voices of Jim Crow as a kid you knew there was black places and white places it was just acceptable because that's what you had always seen King Street was the shopping nikkor I would go down to Murphy's get a little extra money go buy some toys and I knew something was wrong because the bathroom said white only and colored it didn't take me long to figure out I wasn't white so I must go in this other bath and then they had two food counters one in the front where black people could stand up and eat and one in the back plus the white teeth nobody explained why this was going on I do remember going in a small dress store here in Alexandria not far from where I lived and I had heard people say you don't go in there because they don't want us in there so a girlfriend and I decided to try it out we went in and it just timed just stopped the clerks everybody just sort of stopped in the middle of space and and we just stood there and looked at then where we could tell they weren't gonna say may I help you there was a bus station that you bought your ticket in the drugstore but one day there was a little hallway and a little window that's where we were supposed to buy a ticket well we didn't go to that and my sister went there and a little a little girl she went in the drugstore and a patron Basset you in the wrong Department so she took her money he came home and told my father [Music] separate schools that meant that if you have all new books in your white school then I should have all new books in my black school no you got the new edition we got you're use to our I went to Catholic school two blocks away from universe elementary school it went from the first grade to the eighth grade it was all black and when I was time for me to go to the eighth grade they eliminated the eighth grade and I didn't know where I was going to school the next year and on the south side of town is st. Mary's elementary school that went to the eighth grade so I raised the question I guess that means we'll all go to eighth grade at st. Mary's was all-white school because they all Catholics we all read the same Bible that make sense to me and I was sent to the priests and he only went to the priests when you in trouble priest came to the house that afternoon and he told my father that I was raising issues about the white school and my father it's very vocal and he says why the hell can he go and the priest says I don't know and he said I'll be back and he came back and he said they said you haven't fill out an application so it gave me the application filled it out a couple of days later it's the letter came back saying what the tuition was with the uniform was worth he told everyone else in st. Joseph's there's no room left so I was the only black for a whole year there were small windows in the school door and the other kids would come in he would keep through the door with my Darius there yes and I guess within two weeks I've had a good friend of mine and he said let us go be my friend and it all stopped that no one no one sang any songs anymore about two four six eight we don't want to integrate [Music] segregation that was just a way of life and I don't recall whether I really ever noticed it but I noticed when it it was over [Music] next on Jim Crow freedom deferred personal stories of how black Americans finally cracked the shackles of oppression you inside Alexandria's Black History Museum hundreds of items remind us of the in justices of the past so many lives affected by racist laws and institutional policies and they are so much more than historical facts and figures they are deeply personal and painful stories of Jim Crow in his most hideous form Jim Crow denied black people all forms of social respect despite promises to black leaders before his election which were Wilson did little to advance the cause of racial equality President Woodrow Wilson oversaw what many historians consider to be the largest flood of racist laws and policies for his particular time period his administration would set back years of black upward mobility achieved through federal jobs it is said traditionally that his wife was horrified at seeing black folks and white folks work together in federal buildings and so that had to stop blacks in government struggled against entrenched Wilson policies for nearly 50 years I found myself being the only person of color most of my career and when I attempted to go into other fields the response was I was always over qualified and to see the little young white girls come in and get a job up there as an admin assistant that didn't sit well with me at all I've worked in an all-black section who a Kennedy came in to office it changed those people who were qualified who had these college degrees moved up the higher grades like millions of more entitled Americans black soldiers went off to war in 1917 but when they came home their equality on the battlefield was nowhere to be found these men had put on the uniform of their country they were fighting for America's best ideals they were not going to go quietly into a permanent second-class citizenship there were race riots at the end of the first world war James Weldon Johnson called the riots the long red summer and it was the summer of violence it was the summer of blood the red summer of 1919 would take its toll all across America from April to October leaving 15 dead in Washington 3 in Chicago and more in Heartland cities like Omaha Nebraska and Longworth Texas black folks of course always resisted there were marches and protests long before the classic era of the civil rights movement but it would be another 40 years before the movement would gain momentum I started having sit-ins before there were sit-ins Dionne Diamond led many protests during the early days of the civil rights movement he began his life as an activist in high school at the lunch counters white-only I would sit down at the counter and all of a sudden we can't serve you they would call the manager and I would not get up and then he would call the police and when I saw the police coming into the place I would run like the dickens he continued sit-ins as a student at Howard University where he joined the nonviolent action group known as nag over in Arlington he came face to face with the head of the American Nazi Party whose headquarters were nearby I wasn't afraid of him I was afraid of how those people who encompassed us would react it's almost like a mob he just added the oath of the fire and as a result he was a positive influence he was a port and that bought sympathy to those of us sitting at the quatre we desegregated Northern Virginia within two weeks everything opened up and we just looked at ourselves and said well if we could do that in two weeks what else is that let's cross the river again and get into Maryland echo an easement that whole amusement park did not wish to allow black people into their Park 1960s summer protest at Glen Echo ended when the park closed for the season with no change in policy but when the gates reopened the next year everyone was welcome regardless of color were it not for the people who lived in a community called Bannockburn I don't think we would have been successful without their support we could not have accomplished what we did that same summer the new DC stadium was gearing up for the kickoff of the Washington Redskins season they were the only all-white team left in the NFL owner George Preston Marshall had resisted integration for more than a decade he simply refused to draft any black players sports attorney Phil Hochberg worked as the Redskins stadium announcer for thirty-eight years he can while you with little known facts about Washington's team hail to the Redskins the song the original lyrics were fight for Old Dixie and then it was changed to fight for old DC it was a fitting theme for the franchise Marshall showcased on television all over the south for him not hiring black players was just good business from an economic standpoint he chose not to to do it but in 1961 while the Redskins were moving to the new stadium they were also on a collision course with history it was federal money involved is federal land involved Stewart Udall who was the Secretary of the Interior in the ten the administration was determined that if the Redskins were going to use DC Stadium the Redskins would be an integrated team he let George Marshall know and no uncertain terms you're not gonna have a place to play in the District of Columbia unless you get with the times reluctantly Marshall gave in and the Redskins team of 1961 was the last of the all-white rosters when the Redskins hit the turf in 1962 there were four new black team members Sports was ahead of the rest of the nation if you can perform on the field or on the court or on the ice you're going to be accepted and so sports really has moved the American dream along the 60s marked a phase so that people consider at the end to formal Jim Crow but it has not he is now James crow Esquire he is a suit and tie and he's working his tablet day and night because racial discrimination still exists in the United States [Music] up next we look at the legacy of segregation and Jim Crow you [Music] the race still matters but I understand how Americans black whites and others wish that this was something that we had dealt with but it's not like that the reality is that race does matter if you look in our prisons you can blame the people or you can blame the society the reality is is that there's a pattern there you can look at the poverty roster in our nation and shows you race matters look at a life expectancy of different groups look at the infant mortality rate of different groups we've look at the social goodies who has the power the prestige and the property in our country and you could see that race still matters it's so deeply ingrained on the legacy of Jim Crow in our culture that it's going to take many years and quite frankly mature hard work to move forward here in Alexandria is african-american Heritage Park you can take some time to reflect on black history and it's lessons we hope our show has given you some new perspectives about America's racial past and deeper thoughts about what remains to be done I'm Robin Hamilton thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Robin Hamilton

Views: 235,331

Rating: 4.7556009 out of 5

Keywords: Jim Crow, Aunt Jemima, Racism, Black Lives Matter, Vote, Protests, African American History

Id: KqRv9Jh-7fc

Length: 22min 38sec (1358 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 22 2020