Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Bullet Points on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Jim Crow South

Anybody who opposes the 1964 Civil Rights Act is profoundly uninformed about American History or is apologizing for terrible crimes against African Americans conducted under a racial caste system that nullified the US constitution in states where it was imposed. If you’re not convinced read Neil McMillen's book Dark Journey on the Jim Crow regime in Missiissippi, which had chliling similarities to Nazism except the goal was to extract labor rather than exterminate a people

The goal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Right Act of 1965 was to make sure that African Americans were granted full citizenship rights in a section of the country which denied them the right to vote and serve on juries and therefore rendered them vulnerable to physical and sexual assault from whites without the protection of the law. I could go on for days about this, both from personal experience and from my studies of history. I had a girlfriend who grew up Black in Georgia in an upwardly mobile family that was literally terrorized for their economic success by their white neighbors. When you can't serve on juries and can't vote, you not only lack freedom of speech press and assembly, you need a white "protector" to prevent you from being terrorized by whites who resent your self-confidence or your success.


Blacks in the South living under Jim Crow weren't just segregated, they were terrorized,as were the whites who disagreed with the system. I worked closely with a white minister who tried to organize blacks and whites in the South together to form unions. He was, at various points in his life, tarred and feathered, pistol whipped, had his dogs shot, had crosses burned on his lawn, and was punched in a convenience store, at age 80, by a six foot 8 inch white ambulance driver who resented his activities. Fortunately, this minister, the Rev Claude Williams, was one of the toughest people I have ever met in my life and refused to leave the South. Anyone who apologizes for this kind of activity or makes believe it never happened...... may God forgive you

1 comment:

Ivan Sanchez said...

Dr. Mark, African Americans living down South had to be more than human to survive the kinds of torture they did. What's the most shameful in my opinion is that having survived all of that torture, they'd only gone on to see this generation worship false prophet's who preach materialistic wealth at any cost. Most youth today are not in touch with the struggle of yesterday and care nothing for the rights fought for with actual blood and death to give them the freedoms they so easily squander away... It's truly shameful...