Posted on 02/28/2021 5:55:31 AM PST by Kaslin
I am just old enough to remember a racist south. It is where I was born. The place where I lived was transforming around me as I grew up. We got “woke” before it was a thing. I was too immature to see it at the time and only came to understand what happened after many years of reflection on those events.
Some of the last vestiges of the Jim Crow south remained in my small community. Schools were still segregated when I started school. Only Whites were allowed to sit in the lower level of the movie theater. African-Americans had to use the balcony. Lunch counters were mostly White-only. It seemed normal but, even in my preteen thinking, it felt wrong.
At the same time, the Civil Rights Movement was growing. Mixed with the news from Vietnam were the stories from closer to home, places we had visited, such as Atlanta, Birmingham, and Memphis. It seemed unreal. Southern people were at the point of the spear and many could not understand. Southerners mostly thought that the remnants of retained racism were acceptable. It was as it always had been. There was denial.
An amazing thing began to happen. Southern people began to look at themselves and examine their attitudes. It was not something that could be seen from the outside. It was an intensely personal self-evaluation. Over a period of several years, many southerners had looked into themselves and they saw something they did not like. They decided to change but it was a long slow process.
Our churches were at the center of this change. My father was a deacon in his Baptist church, and he participated in public discussions seeking insights into what God would want. I saw my father spend many hours seeking answers.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I skimmed this excerpt. In my opinion, such an article only has value if it mentions Democrats in every sentence. Racist South? Segregation? Democrats, Democrats. Say it. Name the guilty party. Otherwise, much of the public WILL be thinking, “Boy, those Republicans really were horrible, weren’t they?”
Democrats are racists. Always have been. Say it.
They spout that they were always for civil rights and marched with Dr King while they fought hard to stop it in congress
This article is an example of reporting that I can’t stand. For one thing, discrimination, Southern style, is extrapolated to the whole country. My Dad was born in Pa. in 1931. He played sand lot baseball and ran around with kids of all colors back then. His high school was fully integrated before he graduated and yet all I hear are stories about segregation, separate lunch counters, etc. I’m sick of the Left getting away with extrapolating southern states practices upon the whole country.
Yes, he should’ve named the guilty party. And another thing never mentioned...this is probably why the south is now heavily Republican. The line the left uses about how racists left the Dems to join the Republicans is absurd. People ‘self-examined’ & left the racist party & became Republicans.
My high school was newly constructed in 1955 and was fully integrated. I suspect the city didn’t want the cost of two high schools in their budget. More likely though, this was at the time of the Arkansas integrations and they saw the future. This was in a border state.
I grew up in Texas around the same time this article speaks about. My elementary school integrated when I was in the 4th grade. It happened without incident. Back then, every elected official was a Democrat.
I’d say, the surge to become Republican started with Nixon and his promise to end the Vietnam War, and accelerated with Jesse Jackson ran for President as a Democrat and when Ronald Reagan ran as a Republican.
By the same token, Southerners like me have gotten tired of being slandered as the sole historical racists in this country. Race relations were just peachy keen, all was harmony and good will, and full civil rights existed everywhere in this country except the evil South. Not true.
Interesting. My Dad graduated in 1949. I just looked at his yearbook and saw his graduating class, a good number of whom were black.
Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s I saw more evidence -- significantly more evidence of racism in the big cities of the northeast than in the deep South.
I know, I’ve often defended Southerners against racists who claim that they all owned slaves, when less than 12% of the South’s population actually did. Leftists are retarded and don’t realize that slaves cost a lot of money.
The most racist place I have ever lived as New Jersey, just outside of NYC. And I am from Alabama.
We all know: “Things go better with Woke!”
When I get “woke” I get pissed because I was sleeping.
It’s not that simple.
I was born in 1959 and I remember whites burning school buses in Po tiac, Michigan and S. Boston in ‘71,’72 in response to forced busing.
The junior/senior high I went to in LA, Eagle Rock, was nearly all white, with a sprinkling of Asians and Mexicans in ‘73.
Meanwhile, Mainland Jr. High in Daytona Beach was fully no integrated in ‘72 when I went there.
Blacks and whites got along better in the South the 50 years to the present in my experience than in the North.
So no, race issues were not confined to the South.
Apologies, I misread your post as claiming Northern moral superiority.
After posting I realized my mistake.
Need more coffee and proof reading.
School was always integrated at every level. Even in the 1940s, my mom's HS days in that same town, the yearbook shows blacks in the usual class photos. We were just north of the OK state line where I later moved to as a senior in HS and found the situation/history was different. Some discrimination also applied to the large Native American/Indian population, particularly in the laws regarding alcohol.
Damn Straight!
I live in California. As far back as I can remember there was absolutely no segregation. Then when I was 18 I moved to Atlanta. Lived not too far off of Peachtree and there was a park with a swimming pool we frequented. The lifeguard was black. A really nice guy and we got friendly with him. Then one day we stayed too late and realized we’d be walking home in the dark so we asked him to see us home. He said he couldn’t, that it really wasn’t allowed, and it was better for us if he didn’t. We didn’t understand at all until he explained to us that in the South it just....still wasn’t done.
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