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Originally Posted by JeffYoung  I grew up in the South in the 70s and 80s.
So I'm not sure what your point is.. |
Jeff, you really did not get your money's worth if you studied race relations in the 70s and 80s. I taught at a black university in New Orleans and black folks, you may be surprised ot learn, actually voted in the 70s and 80s. As for Jim Crow Laws , read C. Vann Woodward's book, "The Strange Career of Jim Crow“. I quote, "One of the strangest things about the career of Jim Crow was that the system was born in the North and reached an advanced age before moving South in force.” In 1821 the Democrats changed the New York State constitution to enfranchise all white males, while erecting barriers to black male voters, so that by 1825 fewer than three hundred blacks out of a total State population of almost thirty thousand, and only sixteen of New York City's more than twelve thousand blacks could actually vote. The northern States pioneered viciously discriminatory black codes long before they existed in any Southern State. The Revised Code of Indiana stated in 1862 that “Negroes and mulattos are not allowed to come into the State”, forbade the consummation of legal contracts with the same, imposed a $500. fine on anyone who employed a black person, forbade interracial marriage and forbade blacks from testifying in court against a white person. In Illinois, the land of Lincoln, added almost identical restrictions in 1848 as did Oregon in 1857. Most northern States in the 1860’s did not permit immigration by blacks or, if they did, required them to post a $1000. bond that would be confiscated if they behaved improperly. State-sponsored school segregation was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 well before you lived there.
I was also in the Louisiana National Guard, and no, we were not used by the government to supress blacks. In fact, most of my unit were African Americans. In my four years there, the only civil disturbance we handled was looting after the hurricanes and labor issues at the port.
My point is you are mistaken to think race relations are a "southern problem" and not a northern, western or eastern one. The list of riots I provided would indicate my point, this is not a uniquely southern problem. As for today, look at the last census, African-Americans have been moving back to the South in increasing numbers in recent decades, a social movement commonly identified as ‘‘return migration’’. This demographic movement reverses the major trend of the 20th century: the massive exodus of African-Americans
from the South to other parts of the country, or what has been called the ‘‘Great Migration’’. Using samples of census data from the University of Minnesota Population Center’s ‘‘Integrated Public describes trends in African-American migration to the South across recent decades, and explores tthe concept of ‘‘return migration’’ to various demographic patterns.
As I said before, race ralations are a NATIONAL PROBLEM that need to continue to be addressed. You are also woefully deficient on the facts and that appears to have manifested in a genuine regional bias.