I grew up during a time where you would see those signs just about everywhere you went. This kind of stuff could be seen through 1965 during the civil rights movement and anyone who grew up during this time knows all too well what Jim Crow laws were. And trust me, Georgia’s voting laws don’t even come close in any aspect. In fact, by claiming these laws are the same or even worse is an insult to ALL those who suffered under real Jim Crow laws, it’s an insult to those who died and those who lived through it and fought for civil rights. Beijing Biden and all of his cronies who keep crying “Jim Crow, Jim Crow, Jim Crow!” are just fools and to be honest, just plain evil. Let’s take a look at exactly what Jim Crow laws were and then you decide whether or not those who keep crying foul and pushing Jim Crow are fools! Also remember, it was the Democrat party that created the Jim Crow laws back in 1877, the same party calling foul today just because Georgia is calling for voter ID.
The Jim Crow Laws
Going back to the period between 1880 and the 1960s, black folks (colored people) in many parts of the United States suffered under the hands of Jim Crow Laws. Virtually across the nation, in every corner, black Americans were perceived as second class citizens.
To prevent close contact between whites and blacks, Jim Crow Laws were introduced to shame the dignity of African-Americans. Any violation of these laws, no matter what color you were could result in severe punishment. One could be fined and/or sent to jail for not following these laws.
Definition of the Jim Crow Laws
Here’s just a few examples of Jim Crow laws:
- Barbering – In the state of Georgia, the laws made it clear that, it was highly offensive to whites for a black barber to attend to white customers (females). Under no condition could a “colored” barber offer services to white ladies. It was as simple as that, you either comply or you go to jail.
- Public Restrooms – In Alabama, the Jim Crow law made it compulsory for all employers to provide separate bathrooms and toilet facilities for black and white workers. This could be seen in many different states, I recall seeing them in the Midwest where I was born, not just limited to Alabama.
- Schools & Education – Prohibited black and white children from attending the same schools and establishing separate public schools for black children. Similar laws were applied to colleges.
- Vital Records – Separate official records of black births, marriages, and deaths from records of the lives of white people.
- Marriage – Prohibited a person of “pure white blood” from marrying or engaging in “illicit carnal intercourse” with anyone with African blood.
- Transportation – Segregation measures on Steamboats and other forms of public transport. Railroad companies were required to maintain separate coaches for black passengers. African Americans were banned from sleeping cars and parlor cars. Separate waiting rooms and ticket windows were also required. Streetcar companies to designate separate seating areas for black riders. Streetcar companies were required to designate separate seating areas for black riders.
- Tests – Attempted to eliminate the black vote by applying poll taxes literacy tests, and the “grandfather clause”. The grandfather clause was ridiculous because it said that a black person could vote if their grandfather had voted before 1867. (Say what?)
- Prisons – Segregating black and white prisoners in state penitentiaries.
- Segregated Public Places – Segregation in libraries, inns, hotels, restaurants, bars, hospitals, theaters, circuses, parks, beaches, restrooms, cemeteries, and wherever whites and blacks may commingle.
- Housing – Laws prohibited homes designated for blacks to be built in white communities and vice versa.
- Public Telephones – Telephone companies were required to maintain separate phone booths for blacks.
- Sports – Whites and blacks were restricted from playing pool, baseball, basketball, football, cards, dominoes, checkers, or golf together.
- The Blind – In Louisiana separate care centers were allocated for blind people of dark skin. Even though, the blind people could not see, Jim Crow Laws could see that their skin color wasn’t appropriate to receive equal health care as the ones given to the whites.
Examples How Jim Crow Laws Affected Business
- Alabama – “Every employer of white or negro males shall provide for such white or negro males reasonably accessible and separate toilet facilities.” & “It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment.”
- Georgia – “All persons licensed to conduct the business of selling beer or wine…shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to two races within the same room at any time.” & “It shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race.”
- Louisiana – “All carriers must provide equal but separate seats for white and colored. No person of one race is allowed to be in the section set aside for the other race.”
A Few Examples How Jim Crow Laws Affected Marriage:
- California – “All marriages of white persons with Negroes, Mongolians, members of the Malay race, or mulattoes are illegal and void.”
- Florida – “All marriages between a white person and a negro, or between a white person and a person of negro descent to the fourth generation inclusive, are hereby forever prohibited.”
- Wyoming – “All marriages of white persons with Negroes, Mulattos, Mongolians, or Malaya hereafter contracted in the State of Wyoming are and shall be illegal and void.”
A Few Examples How Jim Crow Laws Affected Healthcare:
- Alabama – “No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms or hospitals, either public or private, where negro men are placed.”
- Georgia – “The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct apartments are arranged for said patients [in a mental hospital], so that in no cases shall Negroes and white persons be together.”
- Georgia – “The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons.”
A Few Examples How Jim Crow Laws Affected Education:
- New Mexico – “Separate rooms [shall] be provided for the teaching of pupils of African descent, and [when] said rooms are provided, such pupils may not be admitted to the school rooms occupied and used by pupils of Caucasian or other descent.”
- North Carolina – “The state librarian is directed to fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of the colored people who may come to the library for the purpose of reading books or periodicals.”
- Oklahoma – “Any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution where members of the white and colored races are received and enrolled as pupils for instruction shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined.”
- Texas – The County Board of Education “shall provide schools of two kinds; those for white children and those for colored children.”
Please tell me where the voting laws in Georgia are in any way similar to Jim Crow laws! It is beyond irresponsible for people to say that it is, this is especially true for the President of the United States to utter such ignorance and lies! But this is all we are ever going to get out of this administration and those who support him.
“Choosing ignorance over knowledge is one reason why we are where we are today in this country!”