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yes, NC. I remember the Greensboro protests. Protests didn't last long in NC as you said and the protestors moved on the hard core states. In my day, we never considered ourselves part of the Deep South and really didn't feel much in common with Georgia or Alabama for example.
The civil rights protests were before my time, but I do remember North Carolina transplants in Baltimore (first industrial city from the south east, so it received a lot of transplants from the deep South and from Appalachia).
Ironically, though they came from further south, I got the impression that both the black and the white North Carolinians had a noticeably more relaxed attitude about race than Baltimore's old school Dixie attitude. For what ever reason, Baltimore was visibly more conservative regarding racial mixing than surrounding areas. "Guidance" by real estate agents, and blacks and whites voluntarily having little contact with each other was common even in the early 1980s.
I am not old enough to remember, but I am black and I am "into" genealogy and so I interviewed (and am still interviewing) all of my older relatives especially my great grandparents about their experiences of being black in the 1910s through 2000s (my last great grandparent died in 2008, she was nearly 100 years old. I have a cousin who is 100 years old and still alive).
My 100 year old cousin was born in SC but moved to Ohio when she was around 4 or 5 years old, so around 1920 or so. She said that growing up (as did my great grandparents and my great aunts/uncles) that in our city in Ohio that there was no legal segregation but there was entrenched traditional segregation and that she, as a black person was not "allowed" to be in certain neighborhoods after a certain time.
I our area the schools have been integrated since the late 1800s and my mom's family have lived in the area since the 1850s. My dad's grandmother was also descended of free people of color and she looked like a white woman. She had a brother, who I never met who "passed" and said he was white and never really intereacted with the family. I only knew of him after he died. My great grandmother said she was witness to lots of racial discussions in her job for the city when she was a young woman and how city employees treated black people worse than whites. She never "passed" but didn't really speak about being black at work due to being afraid of being ostracized until she was in her 50s and said she couldn't take it anymore.
My great aunt, who is in her mid 80s went to a school that was majority white in a wealthy neighborhood and she said she was not allowed to go down past a certain street near the school or she would be questioned by police or arrested. A few of her friends were arrested for trespass for going into the neighborhood without a white friend. They would be questioned if they were a laborer, servant, or domestic and if not, they were arrested. They could also be attacked and beat up for going into particular neighborhoods. This usually happened to males. My dad is 60 and said this happened to him when he was a boy due to him being "dared" to go to the Polish neighborhood and he did in order to win the "dare" and a group of Polish boys beat him up for being on their street.
One of my cousins who has passed away was the first black realtor in our city. There were redlined neighborhoods in the city and defined "negro" areas and when she first started selling homes, black people could only live in certain neighborhoods. She and some of her colleagues helped to break down segregation rules via law suits under the Fair Housing laws.
My great aunt did say that there was a "colored" water fountain in one of our courthouses but that it was removed when she was a little girl in the 1930s. But due to me being from "the north" I don't have any experience with overt segregation and institutional racism of the nature of the OP. My mom said she visited some relatives in TN when she was little and she did have to use a "colored" water fountain and that was around 1970. She said she was afraid and that she was happy they only stayed a weekend lol.
We took my son to the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis last year (I highly recommend it BTW). My teenage son had a vague idea about segregation, Jim Crow, etc.
But when we left, he felt literally sick to his stomach. He said he almost felt ashamed of being white. It was really a difficult experience for him. I thought about saying, "Oh honey, WE have never lived in the South. OUR family never did those things." But I thought I would be doing him a disservice by saying that.
Then I told him how I found out my parents belonged to a Restricted country club. I brought my Hispanic friend to the club and the owner pulled me aside to say "her kind" wasn't welcome. I was stunned as this was the 1980s for heaven's sake!
I still don't know which is worse. The big signs announcing WHITES/COLORED or the quiet country club owner pulling me aside to whisper it.
I'm old enough to remember. I visited grandparents who lived in Jacksonville Florida in the 50's. Everything was segregated. Public bathrooms, transportation and neighborhoods. My grandparents and their neighbors and friends were virulent racists.
I remember when we lived in Southern California in the 80s (should be a real enlightened area, right?). Our neighbors across the street were selling their house. The realtor showed it to a black couple. When the black couple left, our neighbors came over to tell my mom, "Don't worry. We told them we already had an offer." (nudge nudge wink wink).
I thoroughly enjoyed all the distress when a black man with his white wife moved in next door. The horror!
Separation was an accepted way of life in everything. When I was in kindergarten an indecent on the playground left me a little bloodied and crying. An older brother came over to check on me and looked around and said "you'er not supposed to be over here with these people." I was on the White side of the play ground. This was in about 1960 in Kansas City. Even with out signs there was this tacit knowledge and we learn about which public facilities we could go to. Our parents protected us by telling us to where we could go and where not to go. It was like a modern underground railroad.
The year was 1963 and I remember this like it was yesterday. I was twelve and my sister was sixteen, when our Mother came to us one day and said: "You do not have to go to church anymore". We looked at each other and when we asked "Why not?", she replied that she had just torn up her membership letter at this church, which she had attended since she was a girl over their staunch segregationist policies. We were rocked, for we had always attended Sunday School (whether we wanted to or not), and for her to tell us we did not have to go anymore was a big deal. We had been partially raised by a black woman who cared for us while our parents worked after school and did not not know the 'meaning' of prejudice. Later that same year (1963), our Dad drove us to her home to deliver a gift basket for Christmas. She had long since retired and was nearly blind due to diabetes, but when she heard our voices, she knew who we were: "Where's my chu'llin?", she called out gleefully. She died two years later. I am so glad we were given the opportunity to see her one more time before she passed away, for she was a part of our lives.
Then I told him how I found out my parents belonged to a Restricted country club. I brought my Hispanic friend to the club and the owner pulled me aside to say "her kind" wasn't welcome. I was stunned as this was the 1980s for heaven's sake!
I still don't know which is worse. The big signs announcing WHITES/COLORED or the quiet country club owner pulling me aside to whisper it.
Sounds like what happened me back in 1992. At the time I was working for a local country music radio station and on Wednesday nights we sponsored an event at a very popular nightclub in nearby West Virginia. Sometimes we would get phone calls from listeners telling us that this club would not allow blacks or gays into the club. At first we were like "..but hey this is 1992...whatever !!". Anyway one night doing the radio event some of us did see some blacks trying to get in only to be asked for their "membership cards" and since those cards did NOT exist they could not get in. We did see one man asked to leave the club because he "..smoked like a sissy" I guess this was how they thought they could spot someone who was gay. After that night the radio station decided to break all ties to this nightclub. About two months later a black couple tried to get in and again was asked for their membership cards. They did not get in only in this case they noticed several of their white friends get in no questions asked. Long story short they sued the club and was awarded quite a bit of money and then the club started to allow blacks and others to get in no questions asked...well other than their IDs anyway.
So, what race would Indians (as in, from India) have been in the old South? Colored due to the dark(er) color of their skin?
They weren't considered white, and were colored. Now it goes back to court cases regarding whiteness.. Many Arabs from the Levant sued for citizenship and then got it because the court deemed them white.. People from India did the same and the court said they were Caucasian but not white..
It's pretty confusing; This also explains btw why Arabs check the white box in the census (caucasian) but Indians check Asian.
Me too... I was ready with my answer, and was about to say it was my dream in the 60s to have a pink one..I cant answer the other coloured bathroom one as we didnt have that here in the UK and thank god for that..
"You do not have to go to church anymore". We looked at each other and when we asked "Why not?", she replied that she had just torn up her membership letter at this church, which she had attended since she was a girl over their staunch segregationist policies...
That doesn't shock me. Martin Luther King once called church "the most segregated hour in American society."
I was raised as a Baptist in a small town in Missouri. I remember one Sunday morning when a black family showed up at our church. After the service, the minister greeted the family and then suggested that they might feel more comfortable at church "among their own kind." He then provided them a list of some nearby churches with all-black congregations.
The minister was polite but he was basically telling them they were not welcomed at his church at all.
I was appalled. As soon as I grew up and left my parent's house, I never darkened the door of that church (or any other Baptist church) again. BTW, the Southern Baptist Convention was one of the main players throughout the 20th century in upholding Jim Crowe laws and segregation. They issued a halfhearted apology for their racist past in 1995.
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