Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los AngelesMain MenuResearch of the DecadesResearch1960s Illustration DevelopmentIllustration DevelopmentPlaylists of the DecadesPlaylistssparcinla.org185fc5b2219f38c7b63f42d87efaf997127ba4fcGreat Wall Institute - Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC)
What Jim Crow looks like in 2021
1media/Protestors Georgia State Capitol 2021_thumb.jpeg2022-04-04T22:48:37+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a4912Protesters gather outside of the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta to protest HB 531, which would place tougher restrictions on voting in Georgia, U.S. March 1, 2021. Protesters gather outside of the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta to protest HB 531, which would place tougher restrictions on voting in Georgia, U.S. March 1, 2021. Dustin Chamber/Reuters “It’s a redux of Jim Crow in a suit and tie.” That’s how Stacey Abrams, who spearheaded efforts to organize Black voters in Georgia for the 2020 election, recently described the deluge of new voter restriction laws proposed by Republicans in the Georgia state legislature in the wake of their defeat. Cliff Albright of the Black Voters Matter Fund echoed Abrams, saying the new restrictions, which include new ID requirements and limits on drop boxes, are just “putting a little makeup and cologne on Jim Crow.” Nicole Hemmer Nicole Hemmer The idea that these new voting restrictions are a more sanitized version of Jim Crow says a lot about popular understanding of that era of racism and discrimination (something Abrams and Albright clearly know, and are speaking to). Next to images of White protesters snarling at civil rights activists at sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960 or police officers siccing German Shepherds on Black schoolchildren in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1963, the image of legislators calmly enacting a series of discriminatory restrictions seems far more civilized. Yet, even at its violent peak, Jim Crow had another side, one that always wore a suit and tie, especially when it came to voter disenfranchisement. Required to navigate around the 15th Amendment, which explicitly prohibited barring Black men from voting, White Southern legislators innovated a kind of colorblind racism that would go on to become the right’s preferred tool for opposing civil rights advances in the post-Jim Crow era. Looked at through that lens, the current rush to restrict voting rights is less proof of the resuscitation of Jim Crow than evidence that it never really went away.plain2022-04-04T22:49:47+00:00March 1, 2021Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49