Who Is Jim Crow And Why Won't He Die

I just finished reading "A Calamity Of Souls" by David Baldacci, an author, whose work I enjoy. I have read a number of his novels but this one was different.

A description I found online stated: "A Calamity of Souls, by David Baldacci, is a historical legal thriller set in 1968 and in small town near Richmond Virginia. The story revolves around Jack Lee, a white lawyer, and Desiree DuBose, a Black lawyer, who team up to defend Jerome Washington, a Black man wrongfully accused of murdering a wealthy white couple. As they navigate a deeply biased legal system reflective of the Jim Crow laws, the novel explores themes of racial injustice, the importance of community support, and overcoming personal biases against the backdrop of the civil rights movement."

The book originally drew my attention not because of the author but because is set in 1968 in a small town near Richmond, Virginia. I lived in a small town near Richmond, Virginia in 1968. The town was Tappahannock. I was 19.

I grew up mostly in the South. My dad was in the Marine Corps so we lived all over, never more than 18 months or 2 years in any one spot. The majority of the time was in North Carolina, Texas and Virginia. Growing up I was not a stranger to the term Jim Crow. I heard it, but never really knew where it came from. I knew it was associated with racial segregation. 

The perception has always been that all the white people in the South are bigots and racists. The white face of hate is ugly. But hate is a learned behavior. You don't come by it naturally. Nobody in my family hated black people, so I never learned to hate black people. Both my parents are from Mississippi. Most people are going to say, if that's the case there is no way you aren't a bigot and a racist. I dated a young lady in college and when I told her both my parents were from Mississippi, she said, "Everybody's from somewhere." She wasn't quick to judge. I like that. Of course, I messed up that relationship because I was young and stupid. We stopped dating. Twenty years later I married her. Love will out.

My family was poor and we moved around a lot. I was always the newbie, the outsider. I was always trying to blend in. All the schools I attended, only had white students, even in California. I was young and didn't think this was unusual. I saw black people but we never lived in a mixed neighborhood. We never had much to do with them. I didn't know why. I didn't really think about it. I was a kid. I thought that was the way the world was supposed to be. The white bullies picked on me because I was the outsider not because of my skin color. I thought this was normal. 

In the early 1950's, we got a new invention called a television. The screen was black and white not in color. It was definitely not HD. Every night we watched Walter Cronkite on CBS. There were only three stations back then, not the thousands we have today. "Uncle Walter" opened up a whole new world for me. He reported the news of the day. He didn't tell you what you should think about it like they do today. He just told you what happened. I liked that because I like to think things out for myself. I trusted him. He had a trustworthy face and demeanor. 

Because of his program, I became aware of the plight of the black people in this country. I saw the Civil Rights Movement as it grew. I watched the battles. I saw the violence. I saw that segregation was never separate but equal, like the majority of the politicians of that day proclaimed. The blacks always got the short end of any stick.  

The violence always occurred on the screen of that television, never in the schools I attended or in the neighborhoods where I lived. So I was disassociated with it. All this violence was in the background of my life. To me this was a problem that the "Great Generation" would solve. They had endured the Great Depression and saved the world in World War Two. They built America into a Superpower.

As kids growing up, we had no fear, not even "The Bomb” scared us. This was back when bomb shelters were all the rage. We were taught to "duck and cover" while we hid under our desks and in the halls at our schools. They told us these actions would protect us from a nuclear blast. 

We experienced the wonders of an American childhood. We played sports, went to class, and learned to drive. We had our first kisses, had our hearts broken and broke a few ourselves. We learned about love, lust, and our bodies in the backseat of a car. We drank our first beers and threw up from drinking our first beers. You know, we had the normal white American upbringing.

I first heard the term Jim Crow on the nightly news, Uncle Walter's show. Who was Jim Crow? How did he relate to these segregation laws? After reading Baldacci's book, I researched it. (What did we do before there was Google... Oh yeah, we went to the library.) 

The term Jim Crow originally referred to a character created by Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice, a white actor and performer in the early 1830's. He was from New York City and his audiences were white. Rice performed in blackface, a practice where white performers painted their faces black to mock and caricature African Americans. His act, called "Jump Jim Crow", involved a song and dance routine that exaggerated and ridiculed African American speech, movement, and appearance. His character was lazy, simple-minded, buffoonish and subhuman.

The character of Jim Crow became widely popular as Rice took his show on the road across what was then the United States and into the coastal South. He was copied by other performers. Blackface by its very nature is offensive. I don't understand how denigrating and ridiculing an entire race is entertaining.  

The term Jim Crow evolved into a derogatory term for African Americans. By the end of the 19th century "Jim Crow" was used to describe laws and regulations that enforced racial segregation and discrimination in the Southern United States. These laws and regulations took away the rights granted to African Americans by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. They mandated separate public facilities, schools, and transportation for Black and White people. Literacy test, poll taxes and residency laws and regulations were used to deny suffrage to African Americans. 

All of this was a part of the "Jim Crow" mindset. Although the term "Jim Crow" was used for the laws in the South, the "Jim Crow" mindset was also in the North and West. In my research, I found that a number of Presidents of the United States encouraged and demanded segregation in the foundations of our government, especially Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt. 

Our founding fathers established a country where "...all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..." Well, all men except American Indian Men, Black Men and Women. These founding fathers were a small group of white, male, colony then state appointed landowners who also thought their type should be the only ones allowed to vote. Why didn't we have any founding mothers?

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." This is the preamble to our Constitution. The "People" described here did not include American Indians, Black People or Women.

Seventeen of the fifty-five signers of the Constitution were the owners of fourteen hundred slaves, even George Washington. The idea of Black People being inferior to White People is not a new concept. It is a concept that refuses to die. 

Politicians and people in power positions figured out a long time ago the way to get and keep power was to divide people. Hitler did it. Stalin did it. Nixon did it. Even today, Trump does it. Pit groups against one another, tell lies long and often, until they become the truth, make your base fearful of the future and they will blindly follow you. This is why Jim Crow will never die. 

Too many people are willing to forget their past. They let injustice exist because it doesn't really affect them. They don't want to become involved. I'm not being judgmental, because I have been guilty of this myself. 

I went through life pursuing the American Dream. I worked hard, long hours. For the most part, I have gotten everything I wanted. I never thought how hard or limited I would have been if I had been black instead of white.

"Calamity Of Souls" and my research has made me think about this a lot. The divisive political climate in this country has made me think about it too. Our government and country was founded by men, men who were human. They were not perfect. They had faults just like all of us. But they had the idea that we could be better. They had the idea that we could have a "...government of the people, by the people, for the people..." I have the hope that we can get that back. I hope we can realize that we have more things that keep us together than things that keep us apart. If you give respect, you get respect. I hope that the people of this country will have more love in their hearts than hate. 

People say I'm a dreamer and they are right because I think in the end love will win. If it doesn't, that will be the real calamity. 

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black." - 

Robert F. Kennedy April 4, 1968   

"Democracy is the worst form of government there is, except for all the others." - Winston Churchill