The Jim Crow Era | A Stain on America's Past

Thank you for this concise doc. As a 54 yr old white Texan, it should come as no surprise that none of this was covered in my Texas or World History classes in the ‘80s. Sadly, 35 years later there is still a fight to keep this history out of our public school curriculum .

This is the type of stuff Ron DeSantis doesn’t want taught in our schools here in Florida. I wonder why

“History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.” - Sydney J Harris

Best explanation of Jim Crow laws and segregation I’ve ever seen. Should be a lesson in every middle school in America.

In 1943, when my Dad was in the Army Air Force, his life was saved by his army buddies by whisking him off a Biloxi Mississippi bus. He had offered his seat to a pregnant black woman. His buddies educated him on southern prejudice, surprising and saddening him deeply. The why I'll never understand. I'm thankful as an American veteran that we can look through history and learn of Frederick Douglass, Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, and Homer Plessy, The 7th regiment, Dr. King. So many, so great, so terribly overlooked and underappreciated. There were and still are so many to look up to. Inventors, Statesmen, doctors, and, basically, our every field of life have been enriched with powerful, meaningful brothers and sisters. I'm also proud of the abolutiomist of the past and to those who continue to stand shoulder to shoulder in concert to end the stuggle of each fighting Americans who suffer(ed) tragically at the hands of those who violently oppose(ed) equality. May prejudice finally die a tired and deserved death never to be reborn.

This is deeper than ANY black history I ever learned throughout Jr and high school.. Thanks for the TRUE education.

One can't help but feel rage that these acts were allowed to happen. 😢

I remember the story of our grandfather being free here. When he found out he wasn't free while going to the bar he went to after work every evening, his hair turned white. He caused a ruckus and his hair turned white. In Washington State here on the west coast. Black ,Japanese and Philippino folks had land, were teachers, book keepers, towns leaders and all kinds of wonderful jobs and not so, but freedom was here ad suddenly it wasn't. So They did it back then and they're wanting racial division now. They cannot stand the equaity and intelligence of a person of color. They rob us of our ideas, and spit in our faces by not allowing people of color to be among "them". America wake-up. Great video. I'm Sharing

And the great thing about teaching accurate history is that it helps us ALL become better people. We learn so much from transgressions of the past. It should help us to move in a much more equitable manner in present & future.

Such well researched information should receive far more likes. I think the issue is that not everyone is willing to deal with the truth.

Beautifully spoken Sir, I am from Australia and this deep look into American history is truly educational. This video should be called “How America legalised Slavery”.

Watching these segments about the true history of America, makes me cry. The harsh injustice my ancestors, and even grandparents, great grandparents, etc. etc. have put other humans threw is inexcusable.

This must be taught in schools everywhere. Some of their decendants are in power today.

Great condensed history of racial discrimination in the U.S. Unfortunately, many of the Confederate states would make it illegal for teachers to show their students this video.

Prof. Hasan Kwame Jeffries is deeply Knowledgeable and more passionate about the subject than anyone I've come across!

I found this to be interesting. I grew up in a suburb of Houston, TX in the 1940's and 50's. This was before the Civil Rights act of 1964. The school district that I was in was segregated as were all the neighborhoods in the area. As a result I was 10 years old before I ever even saw a black person. I was in high school from 1958 - 1961. This was a period when the seeds of racial unrest had begun to stir. The school district thought it was important to show us that they were providing equal or better education to the black community that was in the district so they bussed to a new high school that they had built for the black students. That was a very effective move as we were convinced that the black students were treated very well. After graduation I joined the navy and served on a nuclear ballistic missile submarine. We had a crew of between 90 to 125 and in that crew there was one black sailor, a chief petty officer with nuclear power training. After the Navy I got married and worked for a few years at an oil refinery as an operator in various units. There no black operators that I was aware of. The only jobs that back men had were labor jobs of cleaning and filling tank cars and trucks. I started college in 1969 at the University of Texas at Austin. I do not remember ever seeing a black student at that college, Darryl Royal was the football coach and they would not let him recruit any black players until some years later. Since this was still a time of change in race relations I was fortunate that the English department made us read a number of books about race topics in the literature classes. Some of the ones that I remember were several of James Baldwin's short stories and articles, These works and others opened my eyes to some aspects of what it was like to be black in the US. After college I got a job as an electrical engineer a large computer manufacturer. In addition to my engineering assignment I was tasked to mentor a new black engineer to help him learn how to deal with everyday interactions with the mostly white members of the engineering department. I was a new engineer but I was older and had experience in working in industry and the military and that is why I was given that assignment, I relate this because it ties in with the story about Homer Plessy. Even in the 1970's the education including higher education opportunities available to persons of color were not really equal to that available to blacks. I would have been really helpful if our school district had put some of the works I read in college in 1969. Instead of teaching us how and why the education system was failing black people they chose to teach us that there was not really a problem. That was a disservice to their students. It became clear to me that just building a new school building did not do anything to address the real issues of lack of job opportunities due to lingering discrimination and the lack of motivation caused by that for the students and teachers. Fifty years later some progress has been made but I fear that Trump and his MAGA movement will set that back 50 years or more.

Fantastic documentary with excellent research. It’s a side of American history that I never heard in school as a white kid who grew up in the country. This information and more like it need to see the light of day with all Americans.

Excellent documentary. There are so many parallels to our current time. We, as a nation, are still embroiled with these same problems. This documentary is a "must see" for everyone, as it is informative for those who don't know our past history and a reminder to those who do know.

When one reads Justice Harlan's eloquent dissent in Plessy,one can almost HEAR him thunder ,,"NO ONE is fooled by what we do here today.the Constitution does not permit the extension of the badge of slavery by other means."As the narrator notes,the man had owned slaves before the war.

I, as an Englishman, am very grateful to have seen this video. I had no idea that so much of the terrible segregation started in the northern states.