Jim Crow + Black Americans

Tale Of Two Truths: How Black Families Fared During Jim Crow

The recent debate over the condition of Black families during one of the most racially segregated periods in history presents valid points on both sides.

This Tuesday, during an event in Philadelphia, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a Republican who is seen as a potential running mate for Donald Trump, strongly suggested that Black families were “together” during the Jim Crow era of racial segregation.

“You see, during Jim Crow, the Black family was together,” Donalds said at the Tuesday event, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

“During Jim Crow, more Black people were not just conservative — because Black people have always been conservative-minded — but more Black people voted conservatively,” he said.

Donalds suggested that this trend in Black families ended due to a culture of dependence fostered by the federal welfare system starting in the 1950s, which included the establishment of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now the Department of Health and Human Services) and the civil rights efforts that followed under President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s.