The father of Jim Crow

Now I consider myself an amateur historian. Although my preference is ancient African history, I consider myself astute in the history of America and the West Indies. I may have a limited knowledge of music videos, movies and entertainers, but I do feel I have a descent and particular grasp regarding information pertaining to the early colonies, presidential history, and slavery (inclusive of reconstruction and Jim Crow).

I have been thinking about what I am about to assert for a while. I know that it is rare when all of the aforementioned areas decussate such to pronounce a concise conclusion. Especially as it relates to the actual start of Jim Crow policies in the South (up south too). And being that this is the single month that is allocated to black folks, and the single month when black folks see to care about knowledge about themselves, I want to take this time to propose a new postulate on history relating to folks like me. Nope, I aint going to state no fact I can copy and past from wikapedia or some book about some person. That to me aint history.

Historians tend to define Jim Crow and/or the period of Jim Crow as a systematic practice of discriminating against and segregating Black people in the America from the end of Reconstruction to the mid-20th century. More specifically, they tend to focus on the South when it was nationwide.

Most or many historians like to start the period in the late 1890’s and like to over dramatize the importance of one man purchasing a single train ticket. In 1892, Homer Plessy bought a first-class railroad ticket. They say by doing such he broke the law since we were only allowed to ride only third class in his home state of Louisiana. You know, ye old separate railway accommodations for the races. To make a long story short, the Supreme Court heard, and rejected, Plessy’s challenge. This validated segregation in public facilities and engendered an atmosphere that promulgated even more restrictive Jim Crow laws.

I can get with this, but it is not where I start Jim Crow, I start it with the 19th President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes. Like George W. Bush, he was involved in a very contested election. The popular vote was 4,300,000 for Samuel J. Tilden to 4,036,000 for Hayes. Hayes's won via the electoral votes in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida. So close was the election that some historians suggest that it created a constitutional crisis and almost began another civil war.

Upon this, although Hayes pledged protection of the rights of blacks in the South, he also said he wanted to restore the south to the local governments of the region. So to do this, he did the main act in my eyes to start the distasteful legacy of Jim Crow; he withdrew all of the Union Troops in the South. He really wanted to provide some motivation for rich white businessmen in the South to join the Republican Party.

This single act ended the period of Reconstruction and abrogated the only protection that would preserve the rights of freed African-Americans. Historians have also suggested that Hayes made a deal to remove the Union troops to gather the votes from the electoral college (from South Carolina and Louisiana).

So In honor of Black history month, I just wanted to assert the aforementioned proposition: that it was not Plessy’s case in the Supreme Court that started the turmoil and savagery that many of our ancestors who were raised in the south experienced, but rather the act of removing the Union Troops as implemented by President Hayes, that started the “strange Career of Jim Crow” as C. Vann Woodward put it in his 1955 tractate with the same title.

Now, like I said, I have no formal training in History, but I can think. And as I said, history involves connecting the dots and is more than remembering some absurd fact like who made the firs traffic light. So please do le me know what you think, and remind your kids, the next time they mention Jones, I mean President Hayes name in class, tell them to say they know who he is, that he is the father of Jim Crow. Now back to our regular scheduled programming (what ever is on my mind and my granny's funeral).