Jim Crow laws

After the Civil War, there's an influx of money spent on creating schools for Black students in the South.

Over the decades, Jim Crow laws slowly eat at that system.

Across America, schools were resourced very differently depending on where they were.

Affluent communities fared well.

So nearly a decade later, in the summer of 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act into law.

I want to take this occasion to talk to you about what that law means to every American.

Now, the United States would legally end state-sanctioned Jim Crow segregation.

With Johnson's signature, the federal government was tackling racial inequality head-on.

When I did turn to politics, I did not have too much to learn.

My feeling is that a number of the players you describe, obviously a figure like Jackie Robinson, who is a figure of the highest historical significance, maybe the person of greatest significance in the history of American sports, who signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946 and made his debut in 1947, onward to the period of Jim Crow when the game was officially integrated.

but many of the minor league teams were still playing in the South under a system of racial terror and became politicized in many instances because of that experience and because of their experience growing up in their own communities.

I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that, about some of the players who feature prominently.

No, no, no, no. It's a good tangent.

And it's something that I think about a lot because I think about how like white women behaved during Jim Crow.

I do think in that era, Like a lot of women, because of their own racism, genuinely believed that if a black man made eye contact with them, that they were endangered.

Look how the hysterics of white people as the era of apartheid South Africa came to an end.

but then how that was taken away.

And then we came with all of the Jim Crow and just all of the other components that happened after that.

So that, again...

Can you take us through, so our audience can understand, the age of 19, 20, and you're seeing the Muhammad Ali's throwing their gold medal into rivers and standing for...

When I did turn to politics, I did not have too much to learn.

My feeling is that a number of the players you describe, obviously a figure like Jackie Robinson, who is a figure of the highest historical significance, maybe the person of greatest significance in the history of American sports, who signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946 and made his debut in 1947, onward to the period of Jim Crow when the game was officially integrated.

but many of the minor league teams were still playing in the South under a system of racial terror and became politicized in many instances because of that experience and because of their experience growing up in their own communities.

I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that, about some of the players who feature prominently.

And James says, "Cricket had plunged me into politics long before I was aware of it.

When I did turn to politics, I did not have too much to learn." My feeling is that a number of the players you describe, um, obviously a figure like Jackie Robinson, who is a figure of the highest historical significance, maybe, maybe the, the person of greatest significance in the history of American sports, who signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946 and made his debut in 1947, onward to the period of Jim Crow when the game was, um, officially integrated, but many of the minor league teams, uh, were still playing in the South, uh, under a system of racial terror, um, and became politicized in many instances because of that experience and because of their experience growing up in their own communities.

I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that, um, about some of the players who feature prominently.

You mentioned Cleon Jones and Tommy Agee, who I think grew up as neighbors in Mobile, Alabama, and, um, much later Dominic Smith.

So I think, yeah, I think the...

I can see why the condo board would need to be discriminating, not in the way of Jim Crow South discriminating, but to protect the financial continuity of the business.

And since that business, since that building is the collateral, they need to make sure that they protect the collateral amount.

And if they have 30% of people defaulting on their loans, that's really gonna start taxing the value of that collateral, right? So they need to be discriminating in that manner, just like a bank is discriminating on who they will lend to.

all of it matters.

brothers and sisters and I was born in the Jim Crow South and all of us are successful.

Why? Because my father and my mother demanded it.

He had books in the house when I was four or five years old I

I mean, even doing slavery, they said black women were happier doing slavery than they are.

You were happier doing Jim Crow than you are now.

I mean, that's got to be rough.

Working in the cotton field with no running water, no air conditioning, no television, you were happier than you are now.