The Jan. 16 celebration of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day has created many memories, views and thoughts for me.
Having grown up in the South during Jim Crow and leaving just as the area was being forced to integrate, it’s a time that brings back memories. As does living in a segregated North in which there were no signs or laws. Even though there were no Jim Crow laws, the North was almost as segregated as the South.
First the South: Segregation was the law, so we took it for granted. But, in actuality, most of us Black people were dirt poor back then, so we could care less about eating in White restaurants, or any other White only place, for that matter. We pretty much kept to ourselves and the White folk left us alone.
Oddly enough, most of the hatred came from poor Whites because well-to-do Whites understood that they needed Blacks to work their large farms, especially cotton ones. But there were also other crops, such as strawberries, potatoes, soybeans, corn, sugar, tobacco and others.
Blacks went to all Black schools mostly housed in a church, and Whites went to schools built by tax dollars.
As far as employment, all the good paying jobs were set aside for White men with a few positions for White women.
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