One subject of African American history I rarely see discussed is the means
by which Jim Crow was instituted. Yet Jim Crow was certainly the most
important factor in the lives of African Americans for almost a century. The
PBS show African American Lives alluded to it briefly last night when it
said something about white South Carolina Republicans trading the suffrage
of African Americans for a Republican in the White House.
Robert C. Lawrence in "The State of Robeson" (quoted by Karen I. Blu, "The
Lumbee Problem) says that in North Carollina in 1875 "the Democratically
dominated legislature called for the election of delegates to a
constitutional convention. The election was closely contested across the
state, and it became clear that the outcome would be very close. During
these elections, the state Democratic chairman sent a telegram to the
Democratic chariman of Robeson County containing the message, As you love
your State hold Robeson." In the county Democratic candidates were elected
by a slight majority, thereby "holding" Robeson and giving rise to the
expression, "Hold Robeson and Save the State." The final results of the
state election left the Democrats and Republicans tied, after the death of
one Democrat, three Independents held the balance of power. In the end, the
Democrats converted an Independent or two and pushed through the principle
of separate schools for separate races, banned miscegenation, and took the
control of county governments out of local hands."
There was a Republican sheriff in the 1870s, and as late as 1897, a
Republican-Populist fusion government was elected in the state, and Robeson
County Democrats and Republicans were still locked in a struggle for
dominance.
Robeson had a large population of former "free Persons of Color" who had
been accustomed to go to school and church with whites and could vote under
the grandfather clause. The Democrats won their votes by creating a separate
race for them: Indians. They were allowed their own separate schools,
separate seating areas in movie theaters, separate drinking fountains and
rest rooms, and separate waiting rooms in bus and train stations.
"Republicans continued to be threats to Democratic rule until about 1900
when extralegal violence from the "Red Shirts" combined with Jim Crow laws
to make further Republican victories impossible."
What is the history of the process by which Jim Crow was instituted in
Virginia?
Paul
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