1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:06,440 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey 2 00:00:06,519 --> 00:00:10,600 Speaker 1: brain Stuff. Lauren Vogelbaum here. Today's episode speaks frankly but 3 00:00:10,760 --> 00:00:15,079 Speaker 1: non graphically about racial violence. For the better part of 4 00:00:15,080 --> 00:00:17,960 Speaker 1: a century, American people of color lived under the burden 5 00:00:18,040 --> 00:00:20,880 Speaker 1: of what are now known as Jim Crow Laws. This 6 00:00:21,079 --> 00:00:24,720 Speaker 1: racist system of segregation, mainly of black people from white people, 7 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:28,480 Speaker 1: affected virtually every sector of American life and reached far 8 00:00:28,560 --> 00:00:30,800 Speaker 1: beyond the South, where it was best known and most 9 00:00:30,840 --> 00:00:34,880 Speaker 1: harshly practiced. Jim Crow Laws and the deep wounds that 10 00:00:34,920 --> 00:00:37,640 Speaker 1: they inflicted on American society are not relegated to the 11 00:00:37,680 --> 00:00:41,600 Speaker 1: past tense. Their legacy is still felt in many ways today. 12 00:00:43,080 --> 00:00:46,040 Speaker 1: We spoke with Stephen Barry, a professor of American culture 13 00:00:46,040 --> 00:00:48,519 Speaker 1: at the University of Michigan and the author of the 14 00:00:48,600 --> 00:00:52,320 Speaker 1: Jim Crow Routine, Everyday Performances of Race, civil Rights, and 15 00:00:52,360 --> 00:00:56,920 Speaker 1: Segregation in Mississippi. He said Jim Crow was about so 16 00:00:57,040 --> 00:01:00,160 Speaker 1: much more than laws. It really was an all encompass 17 00:01:00,200 --> 00:01:05,720 Speaker 1: system that involved political practices, economic practices, social practices, cultural practices. 18 00:01:06,520 --> 00:01:09,000 Speaker 1: Some of that was about legal things, but some of 19 00:01:09,040 --> 00:01:12,160 Speaker 1: it wasn't. One of the challenges why Jim Crow often 20 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:14,880 Speaker 1: seems like it's in the past. People tend to think that, oh, 21 00:01:14,920 --> 00:01:16,560 Speaker 1: it was a few laws, and we got rid of 22 00:01:16,560 --> 00:01:19,560 Speaker 1: segregation laws and we got the Voting Rights Act, so 23 00:01:19,600 --> 00:01:24,080 Speaker 1: that must have taken care of it. It didn't. These 24 00:01:24,160 --> 00:01:27,640 Speaker 1: laws weren't named after a real life person. Jim Crow 25 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:31,000 Speaker 1: was a fictional character in a minstrel show representation of 26 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:35,160 Speaker 1: a black man and exaggerated, stereotyped and racist representation, played 27 00:01:35,240 --> 00:01:37,480 Speaker 1: by a white man on stage in black face in 28 00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:41,160 Speaker 1: the early eighteen hundreds. This character was a hit with 29 00:01:41,200 --> 00:01:45,119 Speaker 1: many audiences, and by ninety eight the term Jim Crow 30 00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:49,400 Speaker 1: had become a racial epithet. Estates began passing laws to 31 00:01:49,440 --> 00:01:51,640 Speaker 1: restrict the rights of slaves freed at the end of 32 00:01:51,640 --> 00:01:54,440 Speaker 1: the Civil War. The laws came to be known as 33 00:01:54,520 --> 00:01:59,640 Speaker 1: Jim Crow laws. The Emancipation Proclamation of eighteen sixty three 34 00:01:59,640 --> 00:02:02,760 Speaker 1: freed all slaves from states that had ceded from the Union, 35 00:02:02,960 --> 00:02:05,440 Speaker 1: and in the following years three amendments to the U. 36 00:02:05,480 --> 00:02:10,080 Speaker 1: S Constitution gave former slaves rights. Thirteenth in eighteen sixty 37 00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:14,200 Speaker 1: five abolished slavery, the fourteenth in eighteen sixty eight guaranteed 38 00:02:14,240 --> 00:02:17,680 Speaker 1: equal protection to all citizens, and the fifteenth in eighteen 39 00:02:17,720 --> 00:02:21,359 Speaker 1: seventy guaranteed the right to vote regardless of race, color, 40 00:02:21,560 --> 00:02:25,600 Speaker 1: or previous condition of servitude. The South, coping with its 41 00:02:25,639 --> 00:02:27,680 Speaker 1: loss in the Civil War and what it felt was 42 00:02:27,760 --> 00:02:30,800 Speaker 1: punishment meeted out by the U S government, responded by 43 00:02:30,880 --> 00:02:33,960 Speaker 1: enacting a series of laws over several years to severely 44 00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:36,440 Speaker 1: restrict the rights that had been granted to black people. 45 00:02:37,320 --> 00:02:39,959 Speaker 1: These laws were said to be enacted for many reasons, 46 00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:44,200 Speaker 1: but the simplest explanation is this they aimed to maintain 47 00:02:44,320 --> 00:02:47,280 Speaker 1: white people's claim to first class status in American society 48 00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:51,600 Speaker 1: and to keep black people a second class citizens. Here 49 00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:54,760 Speaker 1: are a few early examples of these laws. In eighteen 50 00:02:54,800 --> 00:02:58,600 Speaker 1: sixty six, the Tennessee legislature passed a bill requiring separate 51 00:02:58,639 --> 00:03:02,280 Speaker 1: schools for black and white people. Between eighteen sixty six 52 00:03:02,320 --> 00:03:06,080 Speaker 1: and nineteen fifty five, Tennessee passed twenty Jim Crow laws, 53 00:03:06,120 --> 00:03:11,120 Speaker 1: including ones that outlawed misagenation and required segregation in public accommodations. 54 00:03:12,040 --> 00:03:14,839 Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy seven, the new constitution of the State 55 00:03:14,840 --> 00:03:18,919 Speaker 1: of Georgia included requirements the primary schools be segregated, and 56 00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:22,200 Speaker 1: it established a separate university for black people. It also 57 00:03:22,280 --> 00:03:26,200 Speaker 1: instituted a poll tax, which disproportionately affected poor black people, 58 00:03:26,480 --> 00:03:30,680 Speaker 1: effectively stripping them of the right to vote. Laws like 59 00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:34,040 Speaker 1: these kept black people from voting and thereby from having 60 00:03:34,040 --> 00:03:37,360 Speaker 1: a say in governance. It barred them from holding public office, 61 00:03:37,480 --> 00:03:41,160 Speaker 1: thus slanting the justice system against them. It restricted them socially, 62 00:03:41,240 --> 00:03:45,280 Speaker 1: requiring Black people to use different phone booths, drinking fountains, restrooms, 63 00:03:45,280 --> 00:03:49,200 Speaker 1: and so on. It's stymied them economically, and in all 64 00:03:49,320 --> 00:03:54,520 Speaker 1: prohibited them from gaining equal footing with white citizens by themselves. 65 00:03:54,560 --> 00:03:58,360 Speaker 1: The Jim Crow laws were devastating, but as Barry points out, 66 00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:01,200 Speaker 1: the legal aspect of Jim Crow was only part of 67 00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:05,280 Speaker 1: the problem. Black people were also subjected to widespread violence 68 00:04:05,280 --> 00:04:08,520 Speaker 1: and murder, implicitly condoned by much of white society and 69 00:04:08,640 --> 00:04:12,720 Speaker 1: rarely prosecuted, that continued well into the twentieth century. The 70 00:04:12,800 --> 00:04:16,440 Speaker 1: Ku Klux Klan, originally a club for Confederate veterans, was 71 00:04:16,520 --> 00:04:18,840 Speaker 1: born in the aftermath of the Civil War and has 72 00:04:18,960 --> 00:04:24,200 Speaker 1: terrorized black people for decades. In the Equal Justice Initiative 73 00:04:24,279 --> 00:04:28,120 Speaker 1: released a report called Lynching in America, confronting the legacy 74 00:04:28,200 --> 00:04:31,679 Speaker 1: of racial terror. It documented in the period between eighteen 75 00:04:31,720 --> 00:04:37,080 Speaker 1: seventy seven and nineteen fifty, almost four thousand lynchings. From 76 00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:41,400 Speaker 1: that report quote racial terror. Lynching was a tool used 77 00:04:41,440 --> 00:04:45,080 Speaker 1: to enforce Jim Crow laws and racial segregation, a tactic 78 00:04:45,120 --> 00:04:49,360 Speaker 1: for maintaining racial control by victimizing the entire African American community, 79 00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:52,640 Speaker 1: not merely punishment of an alleged perpetrator for a crime. 80 00:04:54,480 --> 00:04:58,160 Speaker 1: Barry explained that the fears, frustrations, and injustices created by 81 00:04:58,200 --> 00:05:02,440 Speaker 1: these laws and this violence seeped into everyday life. He said, 82 00:05:02,920 --> 00:05:05,839 Speaker 1: there's this tendency to think of both Jim Crow specifically 83 00:05:05,960 --> 00:05:09,400 Speaker 1: and racism more broadly as being this overt form that 84 00:05:09,440 --> 00:05:12,440 Speaker 1: looks like the KKK, that looks like a cross burning, 85 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:15,920 Speaker 1: that looks like dramatic acts of violence. Sometimes it is that, 86 00:05:16,440 --> 00:05:19,000 Speaker 1: but often it's much more subtle. It's in the air 87 00:05:19,120 --> 00:05:21,920 Speaker 1: that we breathe and the water that we drink. Up 88 00:05:21,960 --> 00:05:25,320 Speaker 1: until eight Jim Crow laws were limited to state and 89 00:05:25,360 --> 00:05:29,560 Speaker 1: local regulations, but in a landmark case that year, the U. S. 90 00:05:29,560 --> 00:05:33,840 Speaker 1: Supreme Court codified the laws nationally. In Plus e versus Ferguson, 91 00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:39,160 Speaker 1: the court upheld the Louisiana Separate Car Act. Of this act, 92 00:05:39,240 --> 00:05:43,320 Speaker 1: also known as the Louisiana Railways Accommodation Act required railways 93 00:05:43,360 --> 00:05:47,200 Speaker 1: to quote provide equal but separate accommodations for white people 94 00:05:47,240 --> 00:05:50,880 Speaker 1: and people of color. Unsuccessful challenges to this law brought 95 00:05:50,920 --> 00:05:53,760 Speaker 1: it to the Supreme Court in Plessy versus Ferguson, and 96 00:05:54,000 --> 00:05:57,560 Speaker 1: in their decision, the Court held up the constitutionality of 97 00:05:57,600 --> 00:06:01,040 Speaker 1: states segregation laws, which opened the door for even more 98 00:06:01,080 --> 00:06:04,960 Speaker 1: restrictive Jim Crow laws in the coming years across the country. 99 00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:09,480 Speaker 1: These included one that passed in Arkansas in three stating 100 00:06:09,520 --> 00:06:12,320 Speaker 1: that it was unlawful for white prisoners to be handcuffed 101 00:06:12,360 --> 00:06:15,760 Speaker 1: or chained to black prisoners, and one from nineteen eleven 102 00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:18,880 Speaker 1: in Nebraska which stated that marriages would be void if 103 00:06:18,920 --> 00:06:21,640 Speaker 1: one person was white and one was one eighth or 104 00:06:21,760 --> 00:06:26,279 Speaker 1: more black, Japanese or Chinese, and one from nineteen twenty 105 00:06:26,360 --> 00:06:29,640 Speaker 1: six in Atlanta that stated the black barbers couldn't serve 106 00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:34,920 Speaker 1: white women or girls. In Californian ninety four, the state's 107 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:38,000 Speaker 1: constitution was amended to strip voting rights from anyone quote 108 00:06:38,080 --> 00:06:40,280 Speaker 1: who shall not be able to read the Constitution in 109 00:06:40,320 --> 00:06:43,720 Speaker 1: the English language and write his name. Remember that under 110 00:06:43,720 --> 00:06:47,600 Speaker 1: these laws, even basic schooling wasn't necessarily available to people 111 00:06:47,640 --> 00:06:51,120 Speaker 1: of color and On top of all of this violence 112 00:06:51,120 --> 00:06:55,880 Speaker 1: and lynchings, continued pockets of resistance to Jim Crow formed 113 00:06:55,880 --> 00:06:59,279 Speaker 1: from time to time, Barry says, especially after Black soldiers 114 00:06:59,279 --> 00:07:01,679 Speaker 1: returned home from World War One and World War Two 115 00:07:01,920 --> 00:07:05,240 Speaker 1: and pressed for equal treatment, but the system of oppression 116 00:07:05,279 --> 00:07:09,119 Speaker 1: remained strong. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, a white 117 00:07:09,120 --> 00:07:12,679 Speaker 1: mob and Blakely Georgia lynched William Little in nineteen nineteen 118 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:15,880 Speaker 1: for refusing to take off his uniform after returning home 119 00:07:15,920 --> 00:07:21,160 Speaker 1: from World War One. Barry said African Americans always challenged 120 00:07:21,240 --> 00:07:24,400 Speaker 1: the system. They always pushed back. Sometimes it came just 121 00:07:24,520 --> 00:07:27,760 Speaker 1: in terms of teaching your children how you survive this system. 122 00:07:27,880 --> 00:07:30,000 Speaker 1: Not only we want you to know these rules so 123 00:07:30,040 --> 00:07:32,440 Speaker 1: that you're safe, but we also want you to know 124 00:07:32,480 --> 00:07:36,080 Speaker 1: that you're just pretending. The poet Lawrence Dunbar referred to 125 00:07:36,120 --> 00:07:39,200 Speaker 1: this as we wear the mask. The idea was, you're 126 00:07:39,240 --> 00:07:41,480 Speaker 1: wearing this mask and pretending to go through the rules, 127 00:07:41,520 --> 00:07:43,840 Speaker 1: but you're learning that that's not who you really are, 128 00:07:44,200 --> 00:07:46,960 Speaker 1: that you're not really inferior, even though you're following those 129 00:07:47,040 --> 00:07:50,840 Speaker 1: rules that are meant to tell you that. Three years 130 00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:54,920 Speaker 1: after the end of World War Two, on July, President 131 00:07:54,960 --> 00:07:58,880 Speaker 1: Harry s. Truman desegregated the military, which was perhaps one 132 00:07:58,920 --> 00:08:01,080 Speaker 1: of the first real steps towards the downfall of Jim 133 00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:04,680 Speaker 1: Crow Laws. It wasn't until nineteen fifty four Supreme Court 134 00:08:04,680 --> 00:08:07,600 Speaker 1: decision in Brown versus the Board of Education, though, which 135 00:08:07,680 --> 00:08:10,160 Speaker 1: ruled that separating school children on the basis of race 136 00:08:10,240 --> 00:08:14,200 Speaker 1: was unconstitutional, thus overturning the idea of separate but equal 137 00:08:14,280 --> 00:08:17,560 Speaker 1: expressed in the Plessy decision about sixty years earlier. The 138 00:08:17,640 --> 00:08:21,840 Speaker 1: Jim Crow Laws were dealt a fatal blow. Barry explained, 139 00:08:22,240 --> 00:08:24,720 Speaker 1: World War Two was a huge turning point. People are 140 00:08:24,720 --> 00:08:27,760 Speaker 1: always pushing back and fighting. There's this constant struggle, but 141 00:08:27,800 --> 00:08:30,080 Speaker 1: it became more visible then, and you do get this 142 00:08:30,160 --> 00:08:34,360 Speaker 1: mobilization in the mid nineteen fifties. The struggle to free 143 00:08:34,400 --> 00:08:37,160 Speaker 1: black Americans from Jim Crow had more setbacks to come. 144 00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:39,680 Speaker 1: The Cold War was a hard time for anyone to 145 00:08:39,760 --> 00:08:42,640 Speaker 1: question American values for fear of being branded a communist. 146 00:08:43,040 --> 00:08:46,400 Speaker 1: But the turbulent nineteen sixties, with the full throated protests 147 00:08:46,440 --> 00:08:48,920 Speaker 1: of the Freedom Rides of nineteen sixty one and the 148 00:08:48,920 --> 00:08:51,439 Speaker 1: passage of the Civil Rights Act in nineteen sixty eight, 149 00:08:51,679 --> 00:08:54,360 Speaker 1: helped solidify the idea that Jim Crow laws were a 150 00:08:54,360 --> 00:08:57,240 Speaker 1: thing of the past, and that segregation had no place 151 00:08:57,240 --> 00:09:02,800 Speaker 1: in American society of the Gerald M. Packard in American Nightmare, 152 00:09:02,880 --> 00:09:06,280 Speaker 1: The History of Jim Crow wrote that quote Jim Crow 153 00:09:06,480 --> 00:09:09,840 Speaker 1: was a disease that once permeated every fissure and fold 154 00:09:09,920 --> 00:09:14,600 Speaker 1: of American society. Yet in the past few years voter 155 00:09:14,640 --> 00:09:17,920 Speaker 1: suppression measures have been introduced by the hundreds. Black people 156 00:09:17,920 --> 00:09:20,640 Speaker 1: in America today are incarcerated at a rate of more 157 00:09:20,679 --> 00:09:24,040 Speaker 1: than five times that of white people, and as of 158 00:09:25,160 --> 00:09:28,720 Speaker 1: investigative journalism by The Guardian found the black citizens and 159 00:09:28,840 --> 00:09:31,760 Speaker 1: black men ages fifteen to thirty four years in particular, 160 00:09:32,080 --> 00:09:35,560 Speaker 1: are disproportionately the victims of deadly forced by police officers. 161 00:09:36,160 --> 00:09:38,240 Speaker 1: Young black men made up just two percent of the 162 00:09:38,280 --> 00:09:42,040 Speaker 1: population but accounted for fifteen percent of deaths perpetrated by 163 00:09:42,040 --> 00:09:44,920 Speaker 1: the police. And we're nine times more likely to die 164 00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:49,040 Speaker 1: in police instance than any other demographic. Jim Crow Laws 165 00:09:49,080 --> 00:09:57,640 Speaker 1: may be dead, Jim Crow, though, is not. Today's episode 166 00:09:57,640 --> 00:09:59,880 Speaker 1: was written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Klang. 167 00:10:00,320 --> 00:10:02,120 Speaker 1: For more on listen lots of other topics, visit how 168 00:10:02,160 --> 00:10:04,880 Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Brainstuff is a production of I 169 00:10:04,960 --> 00:10:07,520 Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts on my heart Radio, visit 170 00:10:07,559 --> 00:10:10,280 Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen 171 00:10:10,320 --> 00:10:11,200 Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.