Posted on 10/27/2005 10:55:50 AM PDT by Shade2
Rosa Parks and history Oct 27, 2005 by Thomas Sowell
The death of Rosa Parks has reminded us of her place in history, as the black woman whose refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, in accordance with the Jim Crow laws of Alabama, became the spark that ignited the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Most people do not know the rest of the story, however. Why was there racially segregated seating on public transportation in the first place? "Racism" some will say -- and there was certainly plenty of racism in the South, going back for centuries. But racially segregated seating on streetcars and buses in the South did not go back for centuries.
Far from existing from time immemorial, as many have assumed, racially segregated seating in public transportation began in the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Those who see government as the solution to social problems may be surprised to learn that it was government which created this problem. Many, if not most, municipal transit systems were privately owned in the 19th century and the private owners of these systems had no incentive to segregate the races.
These owners may have been racists themselves but they were in business to make a profit -- and you don't make a profit by alienating a lot of your customers. There was not enough market demand for Jim Crow seating on municipal transit to bring it about.
It was politics that segregated the races because the incentives of the political process are different from the incentives of the economic process. Both blacks and whites spent money to ride the buses but, after the disenfranchisement of black voters in the late 19th and early 20th century, only whites counted in the political process.
It was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of the white voters to demand racial segregation. If some did and the others didn't care, that was sufficient politically, because what blacks wanted did not count politically after they lost the vote.
The incentives of the economic system and the incentives of the political system were not only different, they clashed. Private owners of streetcar, bus, and railroad companies in the South lobbied against the Jim Crow laws while these laws were being written, challenged them in the courts after the laws were passed, and then dragged their feet in enforcing those laws after they were upheld by the courts.
These tactics delayed the enforcement of Jim Crow seating laws for years in some places. Then company employees began to be arrested for not enforcing such laws and at least one president of a streetcar company was threatened with jail if he didn't comply.
None of this resistance was based on a desire for civil rights for blacks. It was based on a fear of losing money if racial segregation caused black customers to use public transportation less often than they would have in the absence of this affront.
Just as it was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of whites to demand racial segregation through the political system to bring it about, so it was not necessary for an overwhelming majority of blacks to stop riding the streetcars, buses and trains in order to provide incentives for the owners of these transportation systems to feel the loss of money if some blacks used public transportation less than they would have otherwise.
People who decry the fact that businesses are in business "just to make money" seldom understand the implications of what they are saying. You make money by doing what other people want, not what you want.
Black people's money was just as good as white people's money, even though that was not the case when it came to votes.
Initially, segregation meant that whites could not sit in the black section of a bus any more than blacks could sit in the white section. But whites who were forced to stand when there were still empty seats in the black section objected. That's when the rule was imposed that blacks had to give up their seats to whites.
Legal sophistries by judges "interpreted" the 14th Amendment's requirement of equal treatment out of existence. Judicial activism can go in any direction.
That's when Rosa Parks came in, after more than half a century of political chicanery and judicial fraud.
I think Jim Crow was actually worse than slavery in a way.
You win the melodramatic post of the day award.
Sounds like a set up to me.
Well, a "carefully managed, media-savvy campaign" sounds like a set-up to me. Not trying to argue, I just wanted to establish the facts. For that, I get called a crack smoker. Some people just want to talk sh*t.
"I think Jim Crow was actually worse than slavery in a way."
I suppose it could be argued Jim Crow was worse in this way: Under slavery, the slave owner had an interest in his slave, if only for the slave's economic value. Under Jim Crow, neither the white population nor the governments in the Southern States had any interest in the African American population whatsoever.
Well that's you opinion. It has never been proven and she has always held that she didn't get on that bus to get arrested.
She was set up by the communist party, and did not do it on the spur of the moment. Like Cindy planning to chain her self to a fence.
So what if it was a set-up? Seems to me like there was good reason for it, if that in fact is what it was.
Rosa Parks didn't trick anyone. She knew she would be fined for not moving, but she didn't want to move. As a result, the Birmingham police did what they did routinely - followed the law and ticketed her.
She didn't trick the cops into doing something illegal.
Damn communists. Without them, blacks would still have to give up their seats to whites. And maybe we could have our own lunch counters, bathrooms, water fountains, universities...
/major pi$$ed off sarc
Good point.
Thank you for your post.
Great article.
I disagree with you that it was a "set up" by the Communist party. I think the event was pre-orchastrated for effect- but not by the Communists. I disagree that Civil rights groups of the 1960s were based in Communism. Today many of them are-but not in the 1960's.IMO-No matter- things in this country needed to be changed.
The bus incident happened on December 1, 1955. She was not arrested for non-appearance and booked until mid-February 1956.
Also, she did not sit down in a "white seat." The bus she was on only had a moveable card that the bus driver would move from row to row - blacks were supposed to sit behind the card, wherever it happened to be placed.
When she got on the bus that day she sat behind the card, just as she was expected to do. What the bus driver did was move the card behind her, signalling that the white section had expanded and that she would have to get up and move to another seat.
If there had been one less random white passenger that day, she would have spent her entire bus ride in full compliance with Jim Crow.
The incentives of the economic system and the incentives of the political system were not only different, they clashed. Private owners of streetcar, bus, and railroad companies in the South lobbied against the Jim Crow laws while these laws were being written, challenged them in the courts after the laws were passed, and then dragged their feet in enforcing those laws after they were upheld by the courts.These tactics delayed the enforcement of Jim Crow seating laws for years in some places. Then company employees began to be arrested for not enforcing such laws and at least one president of a streetcar company was threatened with jail if he didn't comply.
And it continues to fight it by devising new schemes restoring racial preferences in public universities.
People who smoke are allowed on buses and are treated no differently than anyone else.
Well, at least the blacks got to ride when the smoke had cleared; today's disenfranchised, cigarette smokers, got kicked clear off the bus. :>)
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