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Old 04-21-2011, 01:22 PM
 
Location: Texas
14,076 posts, read 20,447,131 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Akhenaton06 View Post
Yeah, but that's just one state in the Midwest. Jim Crow was the law of the land (de jure) in every Southern state.

Well, there's two issues here: Racism and laws based upon racism.

The laws existed everywhere, but were indeed more common in the south because the south had more Negroes, at least in general.

Racism (and it's companion prejudice) exist in the human heart and no law can change that. It's as common now as it was back then, but it no longer has the power of law to sustain it, so it's generally hidden.
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Old 04-21-2011, 01:27 PM
 
Location: Texas
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Trimac20 View Post
Sorry I meant Civil Rights movement ended.

Oh, Ok.

Well, I'm one of them old folks and my attitudes began to change the first time I heard Martin Luther King speak. He wasn't trying to foment civil war (unlike some of his contemporaries) but only wanted to pinch us in the heart. It worked. If he didn't do anything else, he forced us to confront our own behavior and study the man in the mirror.

However, I believe at this point that I'm still in the minority. Far too few of my peers have had a change of heart about races, though they have curtailed openly speaking of it. In private, though, it's another matter and I cannot tell you how many of my friends will refer to the President of the United States as "That N----r in the White House," or to Hispanic's as "Wet----s."

The hatred, distrust and fear of other races is still prevalent and needs only the right venue to break out in full force once again.
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Old 04-21-2011, 01:28 PM
 
Location: Texas
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It would be interesting to hear the opinion of an older black person in this thread. I imagine their take on the 1950's and 60's would be far different from mine.
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Old 04-21-2011, 01:37 PM
 
Location: Sierra Vista, AZ
17,531 posts, read 24,593,177 times
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My only experiences were while I was in the military. I recall being drunk one day in Fatalberg NC and winding up in the black waiting room of the bus station. Having grown up in North Philadelphia a bus station full of black people was nothing out of the ordinary so I plunked myselof on a bench and passed out. At some point, after my bus had left someone woke me up and put me in the right room.

I also recall being told I needed to live on base because I had an asian wife, I never took her on the bus
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Old 04-21-2011, 09:58 PM
 
91,981 posts, read 122,078,964 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GunnerTHB View Post
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/hdodson2/www/race.html

This article describes the dynamic between the whites and blacks in the Missouri Bootheel in the early 1900's. Pretty interesting read.

"For example, in January of 1923 an article in the Sikeston Standard berated locals who were responsible for intimidating African Americans and encouraged citizens to protect them. Yet when African Americans crossed social boundaries by trying to live anywhere or by having parties where races mixed, the paper published veiled and overt threats. For most, a “good citizen†meant someone who did not attempt to step out of their prescribed place in society or attempt to achieve equality with white citizens."

(From the Article)
Not surprised, as Missouri was a slave state and any state on the Mississippi River with slaves or in close proximity to slave states, had high Black populations, relatively speaking.

My dad who grew up in Mississippi during the late 40's until 1965, went through the segregated movie theaters, schools and laws. He actually viewed going to such schools as normal until he left abd said the plus side was a sense of community in terms of seeing your teachers living in the community, going to the same churches, going to HBCU's like Alcorn State and Jackson State for Science Fairs and so on. He said that in his town, there was a store owned ny a Chinese family and another owned by a Jewish family. I believe he said the Chinese kids went to the White school. In the Mississippi Delta, there were/are towns woth their share of Chinese, which came by way of Cuba or directly, to work as servant/laborers after slavery. They were kind of a crossover group there, as some went to Black schools too. My dad worked on fields owned by a politician. Interestingly, the son of the politician would sometimes hangout with my dad and his brother, but they had to enter the movie theater at different entrances. My dad didn't start school until he was 9, due to a lack of enforcement in general and the need to work. I'm sure there is more, but that is what I can remember for now.
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Old 04-21-2011, 10:45 PM
 
Location: Nantahala National Forest, NC
27,074 posts, read 11,692,069 times
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Oh, it was indeed as the media made it out to be....I am 57 now and from NC......I distinctly remember the water fountains for blacks and one for whites, the balcony as the "negro section" and the bathrooms labeled also.

It greatly disturbs me now that I did not really consider this back then....it was just the way things were. While my family never spoke in a derogatory manner about the blacks in our area....many did. They were disrespectful and treated blacks as undeserving.

I am so sorry now that I could not manage to speak up on behalf of my fellow schoolmates at that time.

Emmett Till, anyone remember his name? He did not rape a white woman.....he whistled at her. And was murdered for it.

The media forced us to take the blinders off and learn what we needed to know...So it was indeed as bad as depicted and likely much worse.






Quote:
Originally Posted by 4sankofa View Post
Sadly, you are wrong, it was worse than the media made it out to be - especially for the folks living through it. There are lots of documented info available as well as folks still alive. I personally know 2 people with permanent scares from dog bites. There was a reason Blacks migrated to the north and west during that time and money was not the only reason.

Actually, during those times, it was the media that made some folks open their eyes and say wow - I can't believe this is really happening
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Old 04-22-2011, 11:34 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,159,120 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DeaconJ View Post
I'm not old enough to comment, but I do know there was rampant racism and discrimination throughout the entire U.S. - not just in the South. The problems were more sensationalized here, but they certainly existed everywhere.
I grew up in Pennsylvania in the 50s/60s; my dad grew up there a generation earlier. Even in his day, blacks attended the same schools as whites. There were no "white" and "black" drinking fountains, things like that. There were no black and white colleges. There was racism, no doubt about it, but not in the legal sense.


Quote:
Originally Posted by stillkit View Post
Well, there's two issues here: Racism and laws based upon racism.

The laws existed everywhere, but were indeed more common in the south because the south had more Negroes, at least in general.

Racism (and it's companion prejudice) exist in the human heart and no law can change that. It's as common now as it was back then, but it no longer has the power of law to sustain it, so it's generally hidden.
The laws did not exist everywhere. See my previous post.
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Old 04-23-2011, 12:39 AM
 
91,981 posts, read 122,078,964 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana View Post
I grew up in Pennsylvania in the 50s/60s; my dad grew up there a generation earlier. Even in his day, blacks attended the same schools as whites. There were no "white" and "black" drinking fountains, things like that. There were no black and white colleges. There was racism, no doubt about it, but not in the legal sense.




The laws did not exist everywhere. See my previous post.
Actually, there are 2 historically Black colleges outside of Philly, but that could be due to that area having a long time free Black population and the proximity to state that had slaves that couldn't learn anywhere else considering both I believe were starting during slavery, including the first historically Black college in Cheyney State. You are right about schools being integrated up here in the NE though. I know of HS's in Upstate NY where Blacks attended them and graduated from them in the 1870's. Elmira Free Academy and Owego Free Academy are a couple that come to mind.
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Old 04-23-2011, 12:56 AM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,159,120 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ckhthankgod View Post
Actually, there are 2 historically Black colleges outside of Philly, but that could be due to that area having a long time free Black population and the proximity to state that had slaves that couldn't learn anywhere else considering both I believe were starting during slavery, including the first historically Black college in Cheyney State. You are right about schools being integrated up here in the NE though. I know of HS's in Upstate NY where Blacks attended them and graduated from them in the 1870's. Elmira Free Academy and Owego Free Academy are a couple that come to mind.
Yes, you're correct about Cheyney State. I don't know the other historically black college. I'm from the other side of the state, Pittsburgh. My mistake.
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Old 04-23-2011, 01:50 AM
 
Location: Elsewhere
87,960 posts, read 83,789,860 times
Reputation: 114150
This is an interesting thread.

A couple of years ago, I read a story in the New York Times about a southern town--for some reason I am thinking it was in Tennessee--where some development was going on in a certain area. Part of the property where the development was had once been a municipal swimming pool, but only white people could swim there. When the segregation laws changed, rather than allow black people to swim in the town pool, the town simply filled it in with dirt and covered it over. The story came up when the developer excavated the old swimming pool and the Times interviewed people who remembered when the pool was open. Many of them were very vague about it, just referring to "back when all that stuff was going on" and how the town decided that the best way to handle integration at the town swimming pool was to just not have a pool.
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