Yahoo News
By Robert Barnes The Washington Post – Mon, Jun 6, 2011
When Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson decided to start a new civil rights education organization that would bear their famous names, they sealed the deal in a fitting local spot: Cafe Reconcile.
They represent the opposing principals in one of the Supreme Court’s landmark decisions, Plessy v. Ferguson , which upheld the constitutionality of Jim Crow laws mandating segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. It stood from 1896 until the court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954.
Full Story: http://beta.news.yahoo.com/plessy-ferguson-descendants-divisive-supreme-court-decision-unite-135502152.html
Showing posts with label Jim Crow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jim Crow. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Monday, March 15, 2010
The Nation: The New Jim Crow
NPR
by Michelle Alexander
March 15, 2010
Ever since Barack Obama lifted his right hand and took his oath of office, pledging to serve the United States as its forty-fourth president, ordinary people and their leaders around the globe have been celebrating our nation's "triumph over race." Obama's election has been touted as the final nail in the coffin of Jim Crow, the bookend placed on the history of racial caste in America.
Obama's mere presence in the Oval Office is offered as proof that "the land of the free" has finally made good on its promise of equality. There's an implicit yet undeniable message embedded in his appearance on the world stage: this is what freedom looks like; this is what democracy can do for you. If you are poor, marginalized, or relegated to an inferior caste, there is hope for you. Trust us. Trust our rules, laws, customs, and wars. You, too, can get to the promised land.
Perhaps greater lies have been told in the past century, but they can be counted on one hand. Racial caste is alive and well in America.
Most people don't like it when I say this. It makes them angry. In the "era of colorblindness" there's a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we as a nation have "moved beyond" race. Here are a few facts that run counter to that triumphant racial narrative:
• There are more African-Americans under correctional control toda—-- in prison or jail, on probation or parol—-- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
• As of 2004, more African-American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.
• A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The recent disintegration of the African-American family is due in large part to the mass imprisonment of black fathers.
• If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African-American men in some urban areas have been labeled felons for life. (In the Chicago area, the figure is nearly 80 percent.) These men are part of a growing underca—e -- not class, ca—e -- permanently relegated, by law, to a second-class status. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.
Full Editorial: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124687663
by Michelle Alexander
March 15, 2010
Ever since Barack Obama lifted his right hand and took his oath of office, pledging to serve the United States as its forty-fourth president, ordinary people and their leaders around the globe have been celebrating our nation's "triumph over race." Obama's election has been touted as the final nail in the coffin of Jim Crow, the bookend placed on the history of racial caste in America.
Obama's mere presence in the Oval Office is offered as proof that "the land of the free" has finally made good on its promise of equality. There's an implicit yet undeniable message embedded in his appearance on the world stage: this is what freedom looks like; this is what democracy can do for you. If you are poor, marginalized, or relegated to an inferior caste, there is hope for you. Trust us. Trust our rules, laws, customs, and wars. You, too, can get to the promised land.
Perhaps greater lies have been told in the past century, but they can be counted on one hand. Racial caste is alive and well in America.
Most people don't like it when I say this. It makes them angry. In the "era of colorblindness" there's a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we as a nation have "moved beyond" race. Here are a few facts that run counter to that triumphant racial narrative:
• There are more African-Americans under correctional control toda—-- in prison or jail, on probation or parol—-- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
• As of 2004, more African-American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.
• A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The recent disintegration of the African-American family is due in large part to the mass imprisonment of black fathers.
• If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African-American men in some urban areas have been labeled felons for life. (In the Chicago area, the figure is nearly 80 percent.) These men are part of a growing underca—e -- not class, ca—e -- permanently relegated, by law, to a second-class status. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.
Full Editorial: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124687663
Monday, December 1, 2008
Maryland prepares to repeal a bad law from the civil rights era
The Baltimore Sun
By Laura Smitherman laura.smitherman@baltsun.com
November 30, 2008
An effort is under way to repeal a Jim Crow-era law that makes it illegal in Maryland to receive any kind of payment, including bus fare, for participating in a protest against racial discrimination.The law was aimed at discouraging Freedom Riders from traveling to the state to agitate against segregation and racism during the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.As part of a compromise that through the lens of history appears unseemly, lawmakers inserted the provision into an anti-discrimination law after rioting in Cambridge focused national attention on the Eastern Shore town.Although the law has never been enforced, Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, in an opinion this month, concluded that courts would likely find that the 44-year-old statutedoesn't pass constitutional muster under the First Amendment.Legislative leaders plan to introduce legislation to repeal the law during the General Assembly session that begins in January, and Gov. Martin O'Malley's office said he would support the bill.If not for the work of a committee assigned the yeoman's job of reviewing that particular section of the Maryland annotated code, the law might have remained in obscurity.
Full story: http://www.baltimoresun.com/services/newspaper/printedition/sunday/ideas/bal-id.repeal30nov30,0,5709774.story
By Laura Smitherman laura.smitherman@baltsun.com
November 30, 2008
An effort is under way to repeal a Jim Crow-era law that makes it illegal in Maryland to receive any kind of payment, including bus fare, for participating in a protest against racial discrimination.The law was aimed at discouraging Freedom Riders from traveling to the state to agitate against segregation and racism during the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.As part of a compromise that through the lens of history appears unseemly, lawmakers inserted the provision into an anti-discrimination law after rioting in Cambridge focused national attention on the Eastern Shore town.Although the law has never been enforced, Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, in an opinion this month, concluded that courts would likely find that the 44-year-old statutedoesn't pass constitutional muster under the First Amendment.Legislative leaders plan to introduce legislation to repeal the law during the General Assembly session that begins in January, and Gov. Martin O'Malley's office said he would support the bill.If not for the work of a committee assigned the yeoman's job of reviewing that particular section of the Maryland annotated code, the law might have remained in obscurity.
Full story: http://www.baltimoresun.com/services/newspaper/printedition/sunday/ideas/bal-id.repeal30nov30,0,5709774.story
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