Signs and signals of Jim Crow

The Artdog Image(s) of Interest 

All too many Americans can remember a time--not so long ago, and not so far away as to give us any comfort--when signs like these were posted to keep them out.

When public spaces like these were all too common.

When people accepted this as "normal." Even as "right."

Photo by Dorothea Lange, taken June, 1937 in Leland, Mississippi.

We live today in an era of rising white supremacy groups. They would tear down the all-too-fragile gains we've made for equity, civil rights, and justice for all.

We must be vigilant. We must call out hate and bigotry wherever we see it. We must not let this kind of intolerance rise again.

IMAGES: Many thanks to Tes Blendspace for the composite of segregationist signs; to Georgetown Law's article "The Jim Crow South," for both the Imperial Laundry sign and the photo of "white" and "black" water fountains; and to DayOnePatch for the "No Spanish or Mexicans" sign. I also appreciate WGCU (Ft. Myers, FL PBS & NPR) for the photo of the segregated Ft. Myers bus,  as well as an interesting interview with one of the Americans mentioned above, whose memories of the Jim Crow era are all too fresh; and the Wikimedia Commons for the 1937 Dorothea Lange photo of the Rex Theatre for Colored People in Leland, MS. For more such photos, visit the Library of Congress page on photos of signs enforcing racial discrimination.

Interpretations of greatness

The Artdog Quote(s) of the Week

One of the recurring themes in white supremacist rhetoric (of which we've heard far too much since the start of the Trump Administration) is that white people are somehow "superior" to other races.

Presumably, that would extend to the depth of their thoughts. I wondered if it might be interesting to compare observations written by leaders of the Confederate States of America with the thoughts of people who had experience on the "receiving end" of slavery.*

I'll leave it to you, to determine whose thoughts resonate with the greater depth.

IMAGES: The "In their own words" graphic is my own design. I found the quote in a Huffington Post article, "The Civil War was about Slavery." Many thanks to AZ Quotes, for the quote-image from Marcus Garvey.

*Please note that Marcus Garvey, who was born in 1887 in Jamaica, did not directly experience slavery. However, he dealt with its after-effects in the Jim Crow South and throughout his life's work--as do all too many people still today.