No Blacks, Jews, Gays, or Transgender

Jim Crow’s spirit is back, championed by white Christians and Republicans

“At the bus station in Durham, North Carolina.” May 1940. By Jack Delano — United States Library of Congress, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.

For many Americans, ‘Separate but Equal’ is back in play

Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in US constitutional law that once permitted racist segregation known as Jim Crow. Under the doctrine, as long as services provided to each race were ‘equal,’ then state and local governments could mandate or allow segregation by race in public accommodations, housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation.

The doctrine was overturned by a series of Supreme Court decisions, starting with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Ending racist segregation, however, took decades, in a struggle that lasted through the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, involving federal legislation (especially the Civil Rights Act of 1964), and many court cases.

For many Americans, the Civil Rights era spawned generations of heroes

Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Thurgood Marshall, and the Little Rock Nine spring immediately to mind. They fought for freedom and human dignity in an era when racism and white supremacy ruled in both law and common practice.