The Jim Crow Era Was Never “Happy Times” for Black People

Can someone hold my cappuccino for me, please?

To my white friends and colleagues, and maybe a few Black ones, we need to talk. Yes, I’m writing about race. Again. But you should take a few minutes to read this, lest someone lead you down some faulty garden path of disinformation. Seriously, if you know me or have Black friends or are even remotely concerned about the lives of Black people, you owe it to yourself, Black people in general, and every Black person you know to take a few minutes to sit with this.

Apparently, there are a few people on television touting various inaccuracies about “advantages” Black families held during the Jim Crow era. As a descendant of people who were once enslaved, let me be clear on this point: the period of Jim Crow was never nor can it ever be viewed as a period of benefit for Black families. 

Jim Crow laws were in effect in the southern United States shortly after the post-Civil War Reconstruction period through 1965. Jim Crow laws paved the way for segregation, “separate but equal” policies, laws that kept Black people from voting, and more.

To refer to the Jim Crow era’s rampant lynching of Black men (fathers and sons) were routinely lynched; the sexual assault of Black women (mothers and daughters); the razing of Black communities (homes, churches, farms, land), along with running Black inhabitants out town by white supremacists who received no consequence for their acts of terror-based racism with no justice rendered to the Black victims or their families as commonplace is not hyperbole but well-documented and historical fact.

Tell me how any of that constitutes an environment for fostering “healthy” families. Of any ethnicity.

It doesn’t. And to set any portion of that notion as true or accurate is trafficking malevolent deceit.

Below are a few articles related to events that occurred during the Jim Crow the lives of Black people and events that occurred during the Jim Crow Era. You owe it to yourself to know the difference between the historical truth and bald-faced lies.

Love one another.

Clay Rivers
OHF Weekly Editor in Chief

A Brief History of Race in American Politics

Racist rhetoric is nothing new in American politics.

OHF WEEKLY •Michael Greiner

A Lynching in Central Florida

The Ocoee Massacre is the bloodiest day in modern American political history.

OHF WEEKLY •Clay Rivers

Black Women’s Integral Role in the Women’s Suffrage Movement

There are many women who educated other women by using their talents of writing and speaking to make their opinions known.

OHF WEEKLY •Sabrina Bryant

Did Karma Ever Catch the Emmett Till Killers?

Carolyn Bryant, the last living of Emmett Till’s killers, dies.

OHF WEEKLY •Catherine L. Pugh, Esq.

Ending Public Education’s Separate and Unequal Policies

How Brown v. Board of Education challenged the system.

OHF WEEKLY •Sabrina Bryant

Groveland: Restoring its Historic Black Cemetery

There’s a fear across America that learning about Black history will divide people. Don’t tell the folks in Groveland.

OHF WEEKLY •Clay Rivers

The Groveland Four: Omitted from Florida’s Black History Guidelines

Much has been made about the new Florida’s State Academic Guidelines for Black history, for good reason: They ignore critical portions of Black history.

OHF WEEKLY •William Spivey

The Right to Vote in America

The fight for the right to vote continues. Here’s why.

OHF WEEKLY •William Spivey

When the Lid Blows on Racial Tensions (Part I)

In this two-part series, Peter Faur shares the effects of Jim Crow racism, the 1949 Fairground Park race riot, and other events that have defined the lives of St. Louisans.

OHF WEEKLY •Peter Faur

And . . .

What “Benefits” Accrued to Enslaved People?

Chances are that “freedom” wasn’t so free after all.

OHF WEEKLY •William Spivey