Week 2 - "Jim Crow" in Kentucky
The abolition of slavery enacted by the 13th Amendment did not guarantee racial equity in the United States. In fact, legalized racial inequity continued through the “separate but equal” Jim Crow laws. The term “Jim Crow” comes from a popular white actor, Thomas Dartmouth Rice, who created a fictional character by that same name. He played a clumsy, dimwitted, African American slave by donning a black face and performing jokes and songs in a stereotypical slave dialect. It was wildly popular among whites and became a widespread derogatory term for African Americans. Even as this fictional character left the spotlight, the blanket term “Jim Crow Laws” for this wave of racist laws remained. These laws enforced segregation in all public facilities, so even though African Americans were not enslaved, these laws ensured a system of economic, educational, and social disadvantages for African Americans.
Jerry Williams, left, and Ronald Berry, right, stand outside Pleasant Green Missionary Baptist Church during a rally (Courtest of Calvert McCann).
Most states had their own set of Jim Crow laws. For example, here is a selection of Kentucky’s Jim Crow laws:
Marriage/Dating
Interracial marriages, cohabitation, and intimate relations were outlawed. Failure to comply resulted in imprisonment and/or fines. The first such law was passed in 1866 (also the first Jim Crow law) and the last was passed in 1952. Depending on when they were born, it’s likely that your grandparents or parents could not legally marry a person of a different race.
Education
It was unlawful for an African American child to attend a white school, and vice-versa. No separate colored school was allowed to be located within one mile of a separate white school. This law excluded schools in cities and towns, but did not allow the schools in those areas within six hundred feet of the other. Separate textbooks were required for white and African American school children.
In 1948, African American physicians were not allowed to take postgraduate courses in public hospitals.
African Americans were only allowed to attend a college or university if comparable courses were not offered at Kentucky State (Kentucky’s only African American college), and even then, that college’s/university’s governing body had to approve.
Children file into Russell School in January 1954. Formerly Colored School No. 1, it was rebuilt in the 1950s and named after G.P. Russell, who supervised Lexington’s African-American schools in the late 1890s. It is the last remaining African-American school built before desegregation.
Public Transportation
All forms of public transportation were segregated - railway cars, streetcars, and buses. Failure to comply resulted in fines and/or imprisonment for the passenger and the conductor.
Housing
In 1932, the state of Kentucky determined that no person or business was allowed to rent an apartment in an apartment complex or other housing buildings to a person who differs in race from the other occupants.
After World War II, there was a systematized system of classifying the “risk” of a mortgage based on the racial makeup of a given neighborhood. This is called redlining. This map show’s how Lexington’s neighborhoods were classified.
Adoption
In 1951, interracial adoptions were banned.
A “Colored” entrance on the side of an old building on Main and Spring Streets, 1941 (Courtesy of Lafayette Collections, UK Special Collections.)
Public Affairs
From 1908 to 1956, a number of public interactions were segregated. For instance, whites and African Americans could not purchase or consume alcohol in the same location. If they did, it was punishable by a fine and/or up to two years in jail. All circuses, shows, and tent exhibitions were required to provide separate ticket offices and entrance for each race. Public libraries were segregated based on race. All public parks, recreation centers, and playgrounds were segregated. All businesses were prohibited from allowing dancing, social functions, entertainments, athletic training, games, sports or contests on their premises in which participants were both white and African American.
One can put together a picture of what Jim Crow life was like for African Americans between the end of the Civil War and Civil Rights. It meant having inferior access to societal benefits like housing and education. It was unjust, and it’s one of a thousand illustrations showing how unequal distribution of power typically leads to the powerful majority oppressing a powerless minority.
Segregated polo teams of the Iroquois Hunt and Polo Club (Courtesy of Lafayette Collections, UK Special Collections).
How did African Americans persist in the face of oppression? What resource did they have to give them hope as a minority? They had the Bible. God’s people in both the New and Old Testaments has spent the majority of her existence knowing what it’s like to be the minority. They knew what it was like to receive unequal treatment:
They were enslaved in Egypt.
They were considered the least of all the peoples of the earth.
They were defeated by Assyria.
They were captivated by Babylon.
They were ruled by Rome during the days of Jesus.
The early church was persecuted by the Jews and the Roman empire throughout the New Testament.
Rarely did God’s people ever receive justice on this side of heaven. Many of us live our lives with an unconscious expectation that things will eventually get better. We think that war, hunger, poverty, oppression, and exploitation will eventually vanish, and all people will live in harmony. But Jesus doesn’t support such an optimistic outlook. For Jesus, there is no happy ending in this world. Our hope is beyond this life and into the next.
The Book of Revelation gives us a picture beyond this world where “separate but equal” is not a thing. Injustice is not a thing. Oppression is not a thing. The picture we have is of a huge crowd of people gathered around Jesus. They are wildly different from one another - different in ethnicity, culture, and language - but all doing the same thing: singing. What is notable is not just what they are doing together (singing), but what they are not doing. There are no more tears...no more death...no more mourning...no more crying...and no more pain.
If this is the picture of the end, then the majority church faces challenges in the here and now. It’s going to require laying down our preferences of what church should be. It’s going to require the majority church to value and learn from the Afircan American church, because she has learned how to remain a faithful minority amidst injustice. Perhaps the most difficult thing for us to do will be to address the ways in which Jim Crow’s legacy remains with us today, particularly in the areas of education and housing. May God give us humility, boldness, and hope as we await being in a diverse choir of singers who sing of our common Lord.
- Jared & Marshall
