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James Baldwin debates the ‘American dream’

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David Horsey American Dream game black white

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H.E.R. - I Can't Breathe (Official Video)

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COLORED CHILD AT CARNIVAL

Where is the Jim Crow section
On this merry-go-round,
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from
White and colored
Can't sit side by side.
Down South on the train
There's a Jim Crow car.
On the bus we're put in the back-
But there ain't no back
To a merry-go-round!
Where's the horse
For a kid that's black?

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COLORED CHILD AT CARNIVAL Where is the Jim Crow section On this merry-go-round, Mister, cause I want to ride? Down South where I come from White and colored Can't sit side by side. Down South on the train There's a Jim Crow car.

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The Renaissance Is Black: Celebrating the Power of Black Art

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A special project, created in partnership with Ibram X. Kendi, that celebrates the power of Black art

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Editor's note: We are re-sharing some of the best moments and most important stories of 2020. Although it was a difficult year for nearly all of us, there were also shining moments of light and signs of hope. This was one of them.
As a young girl of color, it was pretty difficult to grow up without role models who looked like me. On TV, everyone was white and skinny. It was the same in books and in movies. Even when I got to pick out a new toy for my birthday, not once did I see a doll that looked like me. It seemed as if the entire world had been centered around someone else, someone decidedly not me. I was, without realizing it, "other." It was only when I got older that I started seeing strong brown women owning their identities. Thankfully, young girls of color these days will have it better than I did. In a never-before-seen move, Barbie has introduced a new line of black dolls in honor of Black History Month, The New York Post reports. The dolls, they hope, will help inspire girls to be and love themselves as they are.

Mattel, Barbie's parent company, collaborated with costume designer Shiona Turini in order to create a line of dolls in 10 different hairstyles, skin tones, and body types. The Barbie dolls feature dark skin tones and diverse African hairstyles. There are even "curvy" Barbie dolls in this collection to promote body acceptance and positivity. In an Instagram post, Turini announced the collaboration and celebrated the monumental line. She wrote, "Thank you, Barbie - for collaborating with me to create Barbies with braids, finger waves and everything in between. Chicks by the layers, all different flavors. And even a curvy doll, in a crop top, with waist-length twists. Baby Shiona is PROUD."

As of late, topics of African style and blackness have made it to front and center, with many discussing what it means to be of African heritage and embody that culture. For instance, several students have been suspended from school for wearing traditionally African hairstyles such as dreadlocks (though they were compliant with dress code). However, when a white individual wears the same hairdo, they are considered fashionable or trendy. Therefore, to honor black style on black bodies - even if they do just belong to Barbie dolls - is a significant win. The Barbies and their outfits were inspired by three color themes: monochromatic, snakeskin mixed with black and white, and sherbet colors.

Turini, explaining her inspiration behind each collection, shared, "My vision was to style diverse dolls in bold looks with themes seen throughout my work, like contrasting snakeskin and leopard, challenging traditional uniformity." Like me (and many others, I assume), the costume designer struggled to see herself while she was growing up. Thus, this was an important opportunity to help little girls like her feel represented. "I grew up obsessed with Barbie," she stated. "And while she was one of my first fashion icons, I clearly remember searching shelves for a doll that looked like me and coming up empty-handed."

To design her collection, she also looked to the first-ever black Barbie doll for inspiration. Introduced in 1980, this doll wore a sparkling red dress and had an afro. Speaking of the three collections she designed, Turini said, "Thank you, Barbie, for making my childhood dreams come true, customizing these... snakeskin boots and bodysuits, going through the painstaking process of giving Barbie twists and allowing me the freedom to create something special so that my community can see themselves represented in such an iconic brand... I hope other young children, and adult Barbie lovers, are as excited to see themselves reflected in these dolls as I am." For a little girl looking up at a shelf in a toy store, there's probably no better way to celebrate Black History Month.

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Barbie just released a powerful new line of dolls in honor of Black History Month

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Editor's note: We are re-sharing some of the best moments and most important stories of 2020. Although it was a difficult year for nearly all of us, there were also shining moments of light and signs of hope. This was one of them.

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Ruby Bridges Reacts to Kamala Harris' Win and Discusses New Book "This Is Your Time" | The View

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MLA - Michals, Debra. "Ruby Bridges." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2015. Date accessed.

Chicago - Michals, Debra. "Ruby Bridges." National Women's History Museum." 2015. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ruby-bridges.

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Trailblazer Ruby Bridges was only six when she advanced the cause of civil rights in November 1960 when she became the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South. Learn more about her on womenshistory.org.

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Two generations of trailblazing women come together in an image that went viral over the weekend. The artwork shows Vice President-elect Kamala Harris dressed in dark suit and heels, carrying a black bag and striding purposefully ahead past a wall. But when you look again, you see the shadow Harris casts on the wall isn't her own, but that of Ruby Bridges, who was just 6 years old in 1960 when she integrated the previously all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans.

The message is immediately clear: Harris didn't get to the White House alone. Her path to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was carved over decades by those, like Bridges, who fought for civil rights. And San Francisco artist Bria Goeller says she is "floored by the sensation (the image) has become."

The shadow of little Bridges, with her distinctive braid and elegant dress, is so recognizable because it's mimicking how iconic artist Norman Rockwell painted her in his 1964 Look magazine illustration, The Problem We All Live With. That image shows four US marshals escorting Bridges to school past a wall that's scrawled with a racial slur and drips with a thrown tomato. Bridges' mother, Lucille, 86, who walked with the marshals and her daughter to the school every day, died on Tuesday.

"The design symbolizes two powerful women in history who overcame the odds and stood with strength against everyone who didn't want to see them to succeed," Goeller said in an email.

Goeller created the image along with the owner of Good Trubble, a Black-owned Bay Area business that creates political satirical designs. (The business owner, Gordon, did not want to share his last name.) It's available on shirts sold at the company's site and may eventually be sold as a print. Goeller says a good portion of the proceeds will also be donated to charity, although details are still being worked out.

"We tag-teamed the idea, and the inspiration is as much (Gordon's) as it is mine," Goeller said. "Gordon describes Ruby Bridges and Kamala Harris as inspirations. He's lived long enough to see this type of history unfold firsthand. We hoped it would inspire young women, young activists -- and hopefully make people smile."

The two seem to have created plenty of inspiration and smiles. The design was first shared in October, but really took off after Harris and President-Elect Joe Biden's victory was announced on Saturday.

Ruby Bridges herself, now 66 and an activist and author, shared Goeller's image on her own Instagram account on Saturday, and praised Goeller and Good Trubble.

"I am honored to be a part of this path and grateful to stand alongside you, together with our fellow Americans, as we step into this next chapter of American history," Bridges wrote, tagging Harris and Biden.

Goeller, who herself grew up in Louisiana, and was "in awe" of Bridges as a child, was touched by the acknowledgement.

"I'm more than honored to be a tiny part of this beautiful historic moment, and that Ruby Bridges herself thanked us," she said. "This particular design is about social change -- way bigger than me."

Lucille Bridges' death came just a few days after the election results was officially called for Biden and Harris.

"Today our country lost a hero," Ruby Bridges wrote on Instagram of her mother. "Brave, progressive, a champion for change. She helped alter the course of so many lives by setting me out on my path as a 6-year-old little girl. Our nation lost a mother of the civil rights movement today. And I lost my mom. I love you and am grateful for you. May you rest in peace."

New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell wrote on Facebook that it was Lucille Bridges who was the guiding force in Ruby's integration of the school, "seeing the action as an opportunity to help all Black children."

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The artist behind that inspiring viral image of Kamala Harris and Ruby Bridges shares its backstory

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Two generations of trailblazing women come together in an image that went viral over the weekend. The artwork shows Vice President-elect Kamala Harris dressed in dark suit and heels, carrying a black bag and striding purposefully ahead past a wall.

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Recently New Orleans celebrated the 60th anniversary of desegregation in its public schools. The occasion was marked throughout the city, nowhere more poignantly than at Akili Academy, the school that occupies the William Frantz Building. Half a century ago, Ruby Bridges entered her first integrated classroom despite resentment so bitter white students withdrew from the school rather than learn in her presence.

Students at Akili Academy staged a "Ruby walk" in honor of Bridges, Leona Tate, Tessie Prevost and Gail Etienne, the four female students who braved their first day of school amidst heated protest. Bearing handwritten posters stating, "because of Ruby we can learn anywhere!" "Black girl magic," and "Ruby was so brave," the Akili students showcased pride and accomplishment, the success of 60 years of integration.

Among the smiles and cheers, another image was also visible, which has taken on increased significance in the last weeks. That image, created by Bria Goeller for Gordon Jones's t-shirt company Good Trubble, shows a 56-year-old Kamala Harris Kamala Harris ISIS-K attack upends Kabul evacuation Harris drops plan to campaign with Newsom after Kabul attack Hawley, Blackburn call for Biden to resign MORE striding in the shadow of a 6-year-old Ruby Bridges. The depiction of Bridges is taken from the Norman Rockwell painting "The Problem We All Live With," while Harris's photo could be from any number of images in which Harris charges ahead of her peers in pantsuit and stilettos, eyes on the horizon.

"That little girl was me," the salient critique of now president-elect Joe Biden Joe Biden Father of slain Marine: 'Biden turned his back on him' US conducts military strike against ISIS-K planner Pentagon official holds first talks with Chinese military under Biden: report MORE launched by Harris during the Democratic debate in August, could be a caption for the image. An early participant in district-wide busing in Berkeley, California, where she attended public school in the 1970s, Harris rebuked Biden for his anti-busing stance in the 1960s. And she chided him for supporting some of his most stalwartly anti-integration colleagues in the Senate, notably James O. Eastman and Hermann Talmadge.

Now that Harris will join Biden in the White House as Vice President in January, her critique of him has receded. Instead, the success of state-mandated integration as a direct line to political success has emerged in its place. The Good Trubble image tells us that little Ruby could have been little Kamala. As one of the Akili signs proclaimed, "Ruby walked so Kamala could run after her." What's not to celebrate?

In New Orleans more broadly, however, Ruby and Kamala's mash-up also reveals a more troubling reflection.

According to the Louisiana Department of Education's 2020 enrollments, about 49,000 students enrolled in New Orleans public schools. Of those students, 91 percent are students of color. Following Katrina, New Orleans overhaul ed public education in the city. Charter schools took over almost the entire Orleans school district. Of the district's 86 schools, eight are selective in their enrollment, meaning students must meet set criteria, including test scores, to be accepted. The remaining schools are open-enrollment.

While you might expect the selective schools to be racially mixed, following the federal mandates of equal opportunity and access, 65 percent of the district's astonishingly small number of white students attend one of the selective schools, in comparison with 7 percent of Black students. According to the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, white and middle-class students benefitted more from the post-Katrina school changes than Black and low-income students.

At my children's selective school, the ratio of white students to Black students is nearly 2:1, while a few blocks down the street at an open-enrollment school, the ratio is 1:300. Our school board has been unresponsive to grassroots efforts to support BIPOC students, including a petition signed by thousands to change the school's name, which honors the aggressively anti-integrationist and former Confederate Robert Mills Lusher.

The sobering fact is that despite Ruby's triumph, systemic segregation in New Orleans public schools persists. Good intentions, gifted educators, and copious research have transformed public education and youth success in the city. Yet, at Akili Academy, in the space integrated by Ruby Bridges, the student body is 98 percent Black and 2 percent Hispanic; The student population has grown at the same rate that the number of teachers has been reduced (12 percent), and Akili places in the bottom 50 percent of Louisiana schools in test scores. None of these facts reflect the success augured by Ruby Bridges's brave march into the Upper Ninth Ward school in November 1960. While we have learned that integration does not mean a perfect balance in racial numbers, it does mean equal access to resources.

New Orleans public schools are reeling from the pandemic pressures, heightened social precarity, widespread housing and food insecurity, hurricane disruptions, and the mandate to teach and reach all students despite limited resources and longstanding inequities. Inadequate funding, zero-tolerance policies, and police in schools create environments where Black students have less chance of success than their white peers. A decades-old school-to-prison pipeline remains. More than 14,000 New Orleans youth between 14 and 24 are neither working nor in school, and the suspension rate is 14 percent. How do these facts square with the image of Kamala Harris, who, as California's attorney general, promoted elementary schoolchildren's truancy cases?

Ruby Bridges's experience of racist vitriol was appalling and her trailblazing journey deserves to be celebrated. But it will take a lot more than cheering to change the enduring trends of segregation in New Orleans and throughout the country. If public education's serious challenges are not addressed, Kamala will keep running, but Ruby will be left behind.
Kate A. Baldwin is a professor of English and communication at Tulane University. Her most recent book is "The Racial Imaginary of the Cold War Kitchen." Follow her on Twitter @katebldwn

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Did Ruby Bridges walk so Kamala Harris could run after her?

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Recently New Orleans celebrated the 60th anniversary of desegregation in its public schools. The occasion was marked throughout the city, nowhere more poignantly than at Akili Academy, the school that occupies the William Frantz Building. Half a century ago, Ruby Bridges entered her first integrated classroom despite resentment so bitter white students withdrew from the school rather than learn in her presence.

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Prolific artist Janelle Monáe recently described the real meaning behind her new song, "Turntables." The singer-songwriter explained that the record could help energize today's revolution.

Janelle Monáe | Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Janelle Monáe's 'Turntables' is on a new movie soundtrack

"We kickin' out the old regime," sings Janelle Monáe in "Turntables." During the hook, she declares, "The table 'bout to turn." The performer's latest single, which dropped on Sept. 8, appears on the soundtrack for the Amazon original film, All In: The Fight for Democracy.

According to the official synopsis, "The documentary takes a look at the history, and current activism against voter suppression; barriers to voting that most people don't even know is a threat to their basic rights as citizens of the United States." Fans can stream the documentary on Prime Video beginning Sept. 18.

Janelle Monáe explained how 'Turntables' captures the revolution

RELATED: Gloria Steinem Asked Janelle Monáe to Play a Key Role in Her Biopic, 'The Glorias'

In an Apple Music video, Monáe dropped knowledge about the meaning of "Turntables." She explained, "This song is capturing the revolution. And when you think about a record, when you think about a record spinning, when you think about the revolutions per minute, it's all connected. And that is what this song means. This song doesn't mean that I'm the leader, that I'm here to tell you what to do [or] how to fix things."

Monáe went on to explain the significance of the song in today's social climate as citizens protest against racism, inequality, and oppression. The entertainer expressed a desire to shine a light on those in the trenches of the social revolution.

"I'm simply watching, examining, and wanting to highlight all of the people who are on the frontlines fighting for our democracy, fighting against racial inequalities, fighting against white supremacy, fighting against systemic racism, and systemic oppression. So, this song is to keep us motivated. This song is to uplift us and keep us galvanized when we're fatigued. And this song is really for the people."

'Turntables' could become the next great protest anthem
RELATED: 5 True Stories About Racism and Revolution, and Where to Stream Them
"Turntables" could join the ranks of some of the great protest songs, such as "Get Up Stand Up" by Bob Marley and "Fight the Power" by Public Enemy. And based on what Monáe said in an interview with Good Morning America, her song would ideally boost the energy for people who are fighting for equality.

"We are in the middle of a revolution right now," said Monáe to GMA. "I know you can feel it. And I think that energy is going to be important and giving each other energy. Because there's a lot of emotional fatigue as people march, as people are online, as people are fighting for Black lives and marginalized voices. And so, this song was just my way of giving energy to the revolutionaries and to the revolution that we're in."
RELATED: Janelle Monáe Says 'You May Not Like What You See' in 'Antebellum,' Which Is a Good Reason to Watch It

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Janelle Monáe Revealed the Real Meaning Behind Her New Song, 'Turntables'

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Prolific artist Janelle Monáe recently described the real meaning behind her new song, "Turntables." The singer-songwriter explained that the record could help energize today's revolution. "We kickin' out the old regime," sings Janelle Monáe in "Turntables." During the hook, she declares, "The table 'bout to turn." The performer's latest single, which dropped on Sept.

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Janelle Monáe - Turntables [Emotion Picture]

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The sculpture of a Black Lives Matter protester that replaced a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol has been removed just 24 hours after it went up.

Contractors were pictured using ropes and a crane to secure the statue of Jen Reid, who had been photographed standing on the plinth with a raised fist on the day the figure of Colston was removed, at about 5.20am on Thursday morning.

A witness said that the workmen carefully secured the strap before moving the Marc Quinn sculpture, with one saying "don't break her dress". It was then lifted into a recycling and skip hire lorry and driven away.

Video: The moment the statue of Jen Reid was lifted from the plinth at 5.30 this morning, by workmen on behalf of the council. pic.twitter.com/E8Cz72wSb6
- Anthony Ward (@Anth0ny_Ward) July 16, 2020

A Bristol city council spokeswoman said: "This morning we removed the sculpture. It will be held at our museum for the artist to collect or donate to our collection."

BBC Bristol reported that Quinn would be charged with the cost of the removal and that the council said it had received complaints of fly-tipping.

Reid and Quinn have said that any proceeds from the sale of the work will go to two charities chosen by Reid that are devoted to improving the teaching of black history in British schools.

The black resin and steel statue, entitled A Surge of Power (Jen Reid) 2020, was put up without the council's knowledge shortly before 5am on Wednesday by a team under the direction of Quinn. He had said it was not intended to be in place permanently.

Contractors secure the statue. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

Marvin Rees, the mayor of Bristol, told BBC Radio 5 Live that the city was going through an "incredibly delicate time".

"This is not about taking down a statue of Jen, who is a very impressive woman," Rees said.

A Surge of Power is removed from the plinth and loaded onto a lorry. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

"This is about taking down a statue of a London-based artist who came and put it up without permission."

Rees said when he spoke to Quinn, the artist was unaware that after the toppling of the Colston statue the grave of Scipio Africanus - a memorial to an enslaved African man - had been vandalised. A message left in chalk near the site read: "Put Colston's statue back or things will really heat up."

"If you're going to do something, you need to do it with awareness and a full knowledge of the context in which you're doing it," Rees said.

The statue is driven away. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

The statue of Colston had stood for more than a century, prompting some social media users to say that the council should have allowed the statue of Reid to remain in place for longer before bringing it down.

Tim Burns, a charity worker, said: "Some days I wake up a feel proud to live in Bristol. Other days I feel like we missed the point? The Jen Reid statue didn't need to be permanent but after procrastinating for years over whether to take down Colston removing this after 24 hours feels unnecessary."

The author Bernardine Evaristo tweeted: "Now it has to find a public spot. If Bristol doesn't have the guts, I nominate Brixton."

Police said on Thursday that no offence had been committed and the statue's future was a matter for the council. Most passersby in Bristol appeared to approve of the addition to the plinth, with many taking selfies raising a fist in front of it.

There was some tension last night when a group arrived to say the statue should come down, prompting others on the scene to take a knee.

Before the statue came down, Reid and Quinn both said that they viewed its future as being a matter for others to decide. "Whether it's there for a day or a week or a month, it's been there," Reid said.

Quinn said that "once you make an artwork, you have no control over it any more".

This article was amended on 16 July 2020 to correct a statement about damage to the grave of Scipio Africanus and to correct a misspelling of Bernardine Evaristo's first name.

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Black Lives Matter sculpture of Jen Reid removed from Colston plinth

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The sculpture of a Black Lives Matter protester that replaced a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol has been removed just 24 hours after it went up. Contractors were pictured using ropes and a crane to secure the statue of Jen Reid, who had been photographed standing on the plinth with a raised fist on the day the figure of Colston was removed, at about 5.20am on Thursday morning.

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A sculpture of a Black Lives Matter protester, placed on the plinth where a slave trader's statue was toppled, will be removed, Bristol's mayor has said.

The sculpture of Jen Reid was erected early on Wednesday at the spot in the city where an Edward Colston statue was pulled down during protests last month.

Ms Reid had been photographed standing on the empty plinth.

Mayor Marvin Rees said it was up to the people of Bristol to decide what would replace the Colston statue.

Artist Marc Quinn said his black resin statue, called A Surge of Power, was meant to be a temporary installation to continue the conversation about racism.

He said he was inspired to create it after seeing an image of Ms Reid standing on the plinth with her fist raised during the Black Lives Matter protest on 7 June.

Mr Quinn then contacted Ms Reid through social media and they worked together on the statue, which was erected shortly before 04:30 BST.

BBC producer Alex Littlewood said people had been gathering around the Jen Reid statue for most of Wednesday, with many coming to take a knee.

"Most people have been supportive of the statue, but for a short time this afternoon a small amount of people arrived calling for the statue to be removed, saying it was an act of vandalism," he added.

Mr Rees, the city's elected mayor, said removing the new statue was "critical to building a city that is home to those who are elated at the [Colston] statue being pulled down, those who sympathise with its removal... and those who feel that in its removal, they've lost a piece of the Bristol they know".

He added the sculpture was the work and decision of a London-based artist, "was not requested and permission was not given for it to be installed".

I understand people want expression, but the statue has been put up without permission.

Anything put on the plinth outside of the process we've put in place will have to be removed.

The people of Bristol will decide its future. https://t.co/dEsZF9kNRt
- Marvin Rees (@MarvinJRees) July 15, 2020

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. View original tweet on Twitter

Councillor Cleo Lake said while she welcomed the arrival of the statue, she agreed the long term future of the plinth should be decided by the people of Bristol.

She said: "I expect the statue will be a temporary intervention and it is great to hear that should the statue be sold then the money raised will in part go towards the Cargo education project set to be rolled out in Bristol secondary schools this September."

Ms Reid said: "I think it's something the people of Bristol really appreciate seeing.

"My husband took the photo on the day of the protests and put it on his social media. He was contacted by Marc Quinn who then contacted myself.

"I was in his studio by the Friday after the protest with 201 cameras surrounding me, taking pictures of me from every conceivable angle. That went into a 3D print and a mould was made."

Ms Reid said the sculpture was important because it helped "keep the journey towards racial justice and equality moving".

She said she had felt an "overwhelming impulse" to climb on to the plinth during last month's protest.

"When I was stood there on the plinth, and raised my arm in a Black Power salute, it was totally spontaneous," she said.

"I didn't even think about it. It was like an electrical charge of power was running through me.

"This sculpture is about making a stand for my mother, for my daughter, for black people like me."

Mr Quinn said: "I saw pictures of Jen on the plinth and she spontaneously made this gesture and I thought 'this is amazing'.

"She's made an extraordinary artwork just by doing that and it needs to be crystallised into an object and put back on to the plinth.

"It had to be in that public realm and I wanted to put it in that charged spot where Edward Colston had been before."

On 7 June, protesters used ropes to pull down the Colston statue, which had been at the Bristol city centre site since 1895.

It was then dragged to the harbourside where it was thrown into the water at Pero's Bridge - named in honour of enslaved man Pero Jones who lived and died in the city.

Bristol City Council later retrieved the statue, which will be displayed in a museum along with placards from the Black Lives Matter protest.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

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Jen Reid: Black Lives Matter statue to go from Colston plinth

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A sculpture of a Black Lives Matter protester, placed on the plinth where a slave trader's statue was toppled, will be removed, Bristol's mayor has said. The sculpture of Jen Reid was erected early on Wednesday at the spot in the city where an Edward Colston statue was pulled down during protests last month.

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Toppled statue replaced with BLM protester

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Toppled statue replaced with BLM protester

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Newsday - Toppled statue replaced by Black Lives Matter protester - BBC Sounds

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Catch up on your favourite BBC radio show from your favourite DJ right here, whenever you like. Listen without limits with BBC Sounds.

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[Intro]
Ah

[Verse 1]
I'm goin' back to the South
I'm goin' back, back, back, back
Where my roots ain't watered down
Growin', growin' like a Baobab tree
Of life on fertile ground, my ancestors put me on game
Ankh charm on gold chains, with my Oshun energy, oh
Drip all on me, woo, Ankara Dashiki print
Hol' up, don't I smell like such a nag champa incense?
Yeah, pure ice (Ice), ice (Ice), buss down
Uh, flooded (Flooded), flooded (Flooded), on my wrist, out
Ooh, goin' up, goin' up, motherland, motherland drip on me
Ooh, melanin, melanin, my drip is skin deep, like
Ooh, motherland, motherland, motherland, motherland drip on me
Ooh, yeah, I can't forget my history is her-story, yeah
Being black, maybe that's the reason why
They always mad, yeah, they always mad, yeah
Been past 'em, I know that's the reason why
They all big mad and they always have been

[Chorus]
Honey, come around my way, around my hive
Whenever mama say so, mama say
Here I come on my throne, sittin' high
Follow my parade, oh, my parade
Talkin' slick to my folk (My folk), nip that lip like lipo (Lipo)
You hear them swarmin', right? Bees is known to bite
Now here we come on our thrones, sittin' high
Follow my parade, oh, my parade

[Verse 2]
Yeah, yeah, I'm for us, all black
All chrome (Yeah), black-owned (Yeah)
Black tints (Yeah), matte black (Yeah, yeah)
Roll by, my window down, let 'em see who in it
Crack a big smile (Ding)
Go figure, me and Jigga, fifty 'leven children
They like, "Chick, how?"
I charge my crystals in a full moon
You could send them missiles, I'ma send my goons
Baby sister reppin' Yemaya (Yemaya)
Trust me, they gon' need an army (Ah)
Rubber bullets bouncin' off me (Ah)
Made a picket sign off your picket fence (Ah)
Take it as a warning (Ah, ah)
Waist beads from Yoruba (Woo)
Four hunnid billi', Mansa Musa (Woo)
Stroll line to the barbeque
Put us any-damn-where, we gon' make it look cute
Pandemic fly on the runway, in my hazmat
Children' runnin' through the house to my art, all black
Ancestors on the wall, let the ghosts chit-chat
(Ancestors on the wall, let the ghosts chit-chat)
Hold my hands, we gon' pray together
Lay down, face down in the gravel
Woo, wearin' all attire white to the funeral
Black love, we gon' stay together
Curtis Mayfield on the speaker (Woo)
Lil' Malcolm, Martin mixed with mama Tina (Woo)
Need another march, lemme call Tamika (Woo)
Need peace and reparation for my people (Woo)
Fuck these laid edges, I'ma let it shrivel up (Shrivel up)
Fuck this fade and waves, I'ma let it dread all up (Dread all up)
Put your fist up in the air, show black love (Show black love)
Motherland drip on me, motherland, motherland drip on me

[Chorus]
Honey, come around my way, around my hive
Whenever mama say so, mama say
Here I come on my throne, sittin' high
Follow my parade, oh, my parade
Talkin' slick to my folk (My folk), nip that lip like lipo (Lipo)
Hear 'em swarmin', right? (Zz) Bees is known to bite (Zz, zz)
Now here we come on our thrones, sittin' high
Follow my parade, oh, my parade

[Bridge]
We got rhythm (We got rhythm), we got pride (We got pride)
We birth kings (We birth kings), we birth tribes (We birth tribes)
Holy river (Holy river), holy tongue (Holy tongue)
Speak the glory (Speak the glory), feel the love (Feel the love)
Motherland, motherland drip on me, hey, hey, hey
Motherland, motherland drip on me, hey, hey, hey
I can't forget my history, it's her-story
Motherland drip on me, motherland, motherland drip on me

[Chorus]
Honey, come around my way, around my hive (My)
Whenever mama say so (Hey), mama say (Hey, hey)
Here I come on my throne, sittin' high (High)
Follow my parade, oh, my parade (Hey, hey, hey)
Talkin' slick to my folk (My folk), nip that lip like lipo (Lipo)
Hear 'em swarmin', right? (Zz) Bees is known to bite (Zz, zz)
Now here we come on our thrones, sittin' high
Follow my parade, oh, black parade

"BLACK PARADE" is a song celebrating blackness. It was released in the final hours of Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States.

On the track, Beyoncé proudly sings about her heritage, hometown, womanhood, and complexion. She also talks about returning to her African roots.

According to her official website, the proceeds of "BLACK PARADE" will go to the BeyGOOD Black Business Impact Fund. The fund is administered by the National Urban League and will be used to support black-owned small businesses in need.

This is Beyoncé's second release of 2020, after she featured on Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage Remix" in April.

Ask us a question about this song

What have the artists said about the song?

Happy Juneteenth Weekend! I hope we continue to share joy and celebrate each other, even in the midst of struggle. Please continue to remember our beauty, strength, and power.

"BLACK PARADE" celebrates you, your voice, and your joy and will benefit Black-owned small businesses.

- Beyoncé, via Instagram

How did this song perform on the charts?

"BLACK PARADE" debuted at #37 on the Billboard Hot 100 during the chart week of July 4, 2020.

The song is Bey's fortieth Top 40 hit on the chart.

When did Beyoncé release this song?

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A closeup examination of the artist's latest cover, in which the murder of George Floyd embodies the history of violence inflicted upon black people in America.

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African Americans across the US are celebrating Juneteenth, the day on 19 June 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, received the news that slavery had been abolished and that they were free. It comes at a time when nationwide protests over police brutality and the deaths of George Floyd and other African Americans have led to a renewed interest in the day that celebrates freedom. We spoke to Kierra Henderson, a young African American mother of four boys, about the importance of the day.

Picture: Marchers take part in a Juneteenth Awareness Walk
Credit: REUTERS/Brian Snyder

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BBC World Service - Newsday, African Americans across the US celebrate Juneteenth

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African Americans across the US are celebrating Juneteenth, the day on 19 June 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, received the news that slavery had been abolished and that they were free. It comes at a time when nationwide protests over police brutality and the deaths of George Floyd and other African Americans have led to a renewed interest in the day that celebrates freedom.

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BBC World Service - The Cultural Frontline

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Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas in the United States were also affected by formal and informal policies of segregation, but many states outside the South had adopted laws, beginning in the late nineteenth century, that variously banned discrimination in public accommodations and voting. Southern laws were enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by white Southern Democrat-dominated state legislatures to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by black people during the Reconstruction period. Jim Crow laws were enforced until 1965.

In practice, Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America and in some others, beginning in the 1870s. Jim Crow laws were upheld in 1896 in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, in which the U.S. Supreme Court laid out its " separate but equal" legal doctrine for facilities for African Americans. Moreover, public education had essentially been segregated since its establishment in most of the South after the Civil War in 1861-65.

The legal principle of "separate but equal" racial segregation was extended to public facilities and transportation, including the coaches of interstate trains and buses. Facilities for African Americans were consistently inferior and underfunded compared to facilities for white Americans; sometimes, there were no facilities for the black community at all. As a body of law, Jim Crow institutionalized economic, educational, and social disadvantages for many African Americans living in the United States.

Jim Crow laws and Jim Crow state constitutional provisions mandated the segregation of public schools, public places, and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains between white and black people. The U.S. military was already segregated. President Woodrow Wilson initiated the segregation of federal workplaces in 1913.

In 1954, segregation of public schools (state-sponsored) was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education. In some states, it took many years to implement this decision, while the Warren Court continued to rule against the Jim Crow laws in other cases such as Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964). Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws were overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The phrase "Jim Crow Law" can be found as early as 1884 in a newspaper article summarizing congressional debate. The term appears in 1892 in the title of a New York Times article about Louisiana requiring segregated railroad cars. The origin of the phrase "Jim Crow" has often been attributed to " Jump Jim Crow", a song-and-dance caricature of black people performed by white actor Thomas D. Rice in blackface, which first surfaced in 1828 and was used to satirize Andrew Jackson's populist policies. As a result of Rice's fame, " Jim Crow" by 1838 had become a pejorative expression meaning "Negro". When southern legislatures passed laws of racial segregation directed against black people at the end of the 19th century, these statutes became known as Jim Crow laws.

In January 1865, an amendment to the Constitution to abolish slavery in the United States was proposed by Congress, and on December 18, 1865, it was ratified as the Thirteenth Amendment formally abolishing slavery.

During the Reconstruction period of 1865-1877, federal laws provided civil rights protections in the U.S. South for freedmen, African Americans who had formerly been slaves, and the minority of black people who had been free before the war. In the 1870s, Democrats gradually regained power in the Southern legislatures, after having used insurgent paramilitary groups, such as the White League and the Red Shirts, to disrupt Republican organizing, run Republican officeholders out of town, and intimidate black people to suppress their voting. Extensive voter fraud was also used. In one instance, an outright coup or insurrection in coastal North Carolina led to the violent removal of democratically elected non-Democratic party executive and representative officials, who were either hunted down or hounded out. Gubernatorial elections were close and had been disputed in Louisiana for years, with increasing violence against black people during campaigns from 1868 onward.

In 1877, a compromise to gain Southern support in the presidential election (a corrupt bargain) resulted in the government's withdrawing the last of the federal troops from the South. White Democrats had regained political power in every Southern state. These Southern, white, Democratic Redeemer governments legislated Jim Crow laws, officially segregating black people from the white population. Jim Crow laws were a manifestation of authoritarian rule specifically directed at one racial group.

Blacks were still elected to local offices throughout the 1880s in local areas with large black populations, but their voting was suppressed for state and national elections. Democrats passed laws to make voter registration and electoral rules more restrictive, with the result that political participation by most black people and many poor white people began to decrease. Between 1890 and 1910, ten of the eleven former Confederate states, starting with Mississippi, passed new constitutions or amendments that effectively disenfranchised most black people and tens of thousands of poor white people through a combination of poll taxes, literacy and comprehension tests, and residency and record-keeping requirements. Grandfather clauses temporarily permitted some illiterate white people to vote but gave no relief to most black people.

Voter turnout dropped drastically through the South as a result of such measures. In Louisiana, by 1900, black voters were reduced to 5,320 on the rolls, although they comprised the majority of the state's population. By 1910, only 730 black people were registered, less than 0.5% of eligible black men. "In 27 of the state's 60 parishes, not a single black voter was registered any longer; in 9 more parishes, only one black voter was." The cumulative effect in North Carolina meant that black voters were completely eliminated from voter rolls during the period from 1896 to 1904. The growth of their thriving middle class was slowed. In North Carolina and other Southern states, black people suffered from being made invisible in the political system: "[W]ithin a decade of disfranchisement, the white supremacy campaign had erased the image of the black middle class from the minds of white North Carolinians." In Alabama tens of thousands of poor whites were also disenfranchised, although initially legislators had promised them they would not be affected adversely by the new restrictions.

Those who could not vote were not eligible to serve on juries and could not run for local offices. They effectively disappeared from political life, as they could not influence the state legislatures, and their interests were overlooked. While public schools had been established by Reconstruction legislatures for the first time in most Southern states, those for black children were consistently underfunded compared to schools for white children, even when considered within the strained finances of the postwar South where the decreasing price of cotton kept the agricultural economy at a low.

Like schools, public libraries for black people were underfunded, if they existed at all, and they were often stocked with secondhand books and other resources. These facilities were not introduced for African Americans in the South until the first decade of the 20th century. Throughout the Jim Crow era, libraries were only available sporadically. Prior to the 20th century, most libraries established for African Americans were school-library combinations. Many public libraries for both European-American and African-American patrons in this period were founded as the result of middle-class activism aided by matching grants from the Carnegie Foundation.

In some cases, progressive measures intended to reduce election fraud, such as the Eight Box Law in South Carolina, acted against black and white voters who were illiterate, as they could not follow the directions. While the separation of African Americans from the white general population was becoming legalized and formalized during the Progressive Era (1890s-1920s), it was also becoming customary. For instance, even in cases in which Jim Crow laws did not expressly forbid black people to participate in sports or recreation, a segregated culture had become common.

In the Jim Crow context, the presidential election of 1912 was steeply slanted against the interests of African Americans. Most black people still lived in the South, where they had been effectively disfranchised, so they could not vote at all. While poll taxes and literacy requirements banned many poor or illiterate Americans from voting, these stipulations frequently had loopholes that exempted European Americans from meeting the requirements. In Oklahoma, for instance, anyone qualified to vote before 1866, or related to someone qualified to vote before 1866 (a kind of " grandfather clause"), was exempted from the literacy requirement; but the only persons who had the franchise before that year were white, or European-American males. European Americans were effectively exempted from the literacy testing, whereas black Americans were effectively singled out by the law.

Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat elected from New Jersey, but he was born and raised in the South, and was the first Southern-born president of the post- Civil War period. He appointed Southerners to his Cabinet. Some quickly began to press for segregated workplaces, although the city of Washington, D.C., and federal offices had been integrated since after the Civil War. In 1913, for instance, Secretary of the Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo - an appointee of the President - was heard to express his opinion of black and white women working together in one government office: "I feel sure that this must go against the grain of the white women. Is there any reason why the white women should not have only white women working across from them on the machines?"

The Wilson administration introduced segregation in federal offices, despite much protest from African-American leaders and white progressive groups in the north and midwest. He appointed segregationist Southern politicians because of his own firm belief that racial segregation was in the best interest of black and European Americans alike. At the Great Reunion of 1913 at Gettysburg, Wilson addressed the crowd on July 4, the semi-centennial of Abraham Lincoln's declaration that " all men are created equal":

How complete the union has become and how dear to all of us, how unquestioned, how benign and majestic, as state after state has been added to this, our great family of free men!

In sharp contrast to Wilson, a Washington Bee editorial wondered if the "reunion" of 1913 was a reunion of those who fought for "the extinction of slavery" or a reunion of those who fought to "perpetuate slavery and who are now employing every artifice and argument known to deceit" to present emancipation as a failed venture. Historian David W. Blight notes that the "Peace Jubilee" at which Wilson presided at Gettysburg in 1913 "was a Jim Crow reunion, and white supremacy might be said to have been the silent, invisible master of ceremonies".

In Texas, several towns adopted residential segregation laws between 1910 and the 1920s. Legal strictures called for segregated water fountains and restrooms. The exclusion of African Americans also found support in the Republican lily-white movement.

Historical development

Early attempts to break Jim Crow

The Civil Rights Act of 1875, introduced by Charles Sumner and Benjamin F. Butler, stipulated a guarantee that everyone, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, was entitled to the same treatment in public accommodations, such as inns, public transportation, theaters, and other places of recreation. This Act had little effect in practice. An 1883 Supreme Court decision ruled that the act was unconstitutional in some respects, saying Congress was not afforded control over private persons or corporations. With white southern Democrats forming a solid voting bloc in Congress, due to having outsize power from keeping seats apportioned for the total population in the South (although hundreds of thousands had been disenfranchised), Congress did not pass another civil rights law until 1957.

In 1890, Louisiana passed a law requiring separate accommodations for colored and white passengers on railroads. Louisiana law distinguished between "white", "black" and "colored" (that is, people of mixed European and African ancestry). The law had already specified that black people could not ride with white people, but colored people could ride with white people before 1890. A group of concerned black, colored and white citizens in New Orleans formed an association dedicated to rescinding the law. The group persuaded Homer Plessy to test it; he was a man of color who was of fair complexion and one-eighth "Negro" in ancestry.

In 1892, Plessy bought a first-class ticket from New Orleans on the East Louisiana Railway. Once he had boarded the train, he informed the train conductor of his racial lineage and took a seat in the whites-only car. He was directed to leave that car and sit instead in the "coloreds only" car. Plessy refused and was immediately arrested. The Citizens Committee of New Orleans fought the case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. They lost in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), in which the Court ruled that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional. The finding contributed to 58 more years of legalized discrimination against black and colored people in the United States.

In 1908 Congress defeated an attempt to introduce segregated streetcars into the capital.

Racism in the United States and defenses of Jim Crow

One rationale for the systematic exclusion of African Americans from southern public society was that it was for their own protection. An early 20th-century scholar suggested that allowing black people to attend white schools would mean "constantly subjecting them to adverse feeling and opinion", which might lead to "a morbid race consciousness". This perspective took anti-black sentiment for granted, because bigotry was widespread in the South after slavery became a racial caste system.

World War II and post-war era

In 1944, Associate Justice Frank Murphy introduced the word "racism" into the lexicon of U.S. Supreme Court opinions in Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944). In his dissenting opinion, Murphy stated that by upholding the forced relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II, the Court was sinking into "the ugly abyss of racism". This was the first time that "racism" was used in Supreme Court opinion (Murphy used it twice in a concurring opinion in Steele v Louisville & Nashville Railway Co 323 192 (1944) issued that day). Murphy used the word in five separate opinions, but after he left the court, "racism" was not used again in an opinion for two decades. It next appeared in the landmark decision of Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).

After World War II, people of color increasingly challenged segregation, as they believed they had more than earned the right to be treated as full citizens because of their military service and sacrifices. The Civil Rights Movement was energized by a number of flashpoints, including the 1946 police beating and blinding of World War II veteran Isaac Woodard while he was in U.S. Army uniform. In 1948 President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981, desegregating the armed services.

As the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum and used federal courts to attack Jim Crow statutes, the white-dominated governments of many of the southern states countered by passing alternative forms of restrictions.[citation needed ]

Decline and removal

Historian William Chafe has explored the defensive techniques developed inside the African-American community to avoid the worst features of Jim Crow as expressed in the legal system, unbalanced economic power, and intimidation and psychological pressure. Chafe says "protective socialization by black people themselves" was created inside the community in order to accommodate white-imposed sanctions while subtly encouraging challenges to those sanctions. Known as "walking the tightrope," such efforts at bringing about change were only slightly effective before the 1920s.

However, this did build the foundation for later generations to advance racial equality and de-segregation. Chafe argued that the places essential for change to begin were institutions, particularly black churches, which functioned as centers for community-building and discussion of politics. Additionally, some all-black communities, such as Mound Bayou, Mississippi and Ruthville, Virginia served as sources of pride and inspiration for black society as a whole. Over time, pushback and open defiance of the oppressive existing laws grew, until it reached a boiling point in the aggressive, large-scale activism of the 1950s civil rights movement.

Brown v. Board of Education

The NAACP Legal Defense Committee (a group that became independent of the NAACP) - and its lawyer, Thurgood Marshall - brought the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) before the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren. In its pivotal 1954 decision, the Warren Court unanimously (9-0) overturned the 1896 Plessy decision. The Supreme Court found that legally mandated () public school segregation was unconstitutional. The decision had far-reaching social ramifications.

Integrating collegiate sports

Racial integration of all-white collegiate sports teams was high on the Southern agenda in the 1950s and 1960s. Involved were issues of equality, racism, and the alumni demand for the top players needed to win high-profile games. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) of flagship state universities in the Southeast took the lead. First they started to schedule integrated teams from the North. Finally, ACC schools - typically under pressure from boosters and civil rights groups - integrated their teams. With an alumni base that dominated local and state politics, society and business, the ACC schools were successful in their endeavor - as Pamela Grundy argues, they had learned how to win:

The widespread admiration that athletic ability inspired would help transform athletic fields from grounds of symbolic play to forces for social change, places where a wide range of citizens could publicly and at times effectively challenge the assumptions that cast them as unworthy of full participation in U.S. society. While athletic successes would not rid society of prejudice or stereotype - black athletes would continue to confront racial slurs...[minority star players demonstrated] the discipline, intelligence, and poise to contend for position or influence in every arena of national life.

Public arena

In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. This was not the first time this happened - for example, Parks was inspired by 15-year-old Claudette Colvin doing the same thing nine months earlier - but the Parks act of civil disobedience was chosen, symbolically, as an important catalyst in the growth of the Civil Rights Movement; activists built the Montgomery bus boycott around it, which lasted more than a year and resulted in desegregation of the privately run buses in the city. Civil rights protests and actions, together with legal challenges, resulted in a series of legislative and court decisions which contributed to undermining the Jim Crow system.

End of legal segregation

The decisive action ending segregation came when Congress in bipartisan fashion overcame Southern filibusters to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A complex interaction of factors came together unexpectedly in the period 1954-1965 to make the momentous changes possible. The Supreme Court had taken the first initiative in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) making segregation of public schools unconstitutional. Enforcement was rapid in the North and border states, but was deliberately stopped in the South by the movement called Massive Resistance, sponsored by rural segregationists who largely controlled the state legislatures. Southern liberals, who counseled moderation, were shouted down by both sides and had limited impact. Much more significant was the Civil Rights Movement, especially the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) headed by Martin Luther King, Jr.. It largely displaced the old, much more moderate NAACP in taking leadership roles. King organized massive demonstrations, that seized massive media attention in an era when network television news was an innovative and universally watched phenomenon.

SCLC, student activists and smaller local organizations staged demonstrations across the South. National attention focused on Birmingham, Alabama, where protesters deliberately provoked Bull Connor and his police forces by using young teenagers as demonstrators - and Connor arrested 900 on one day alone. The next day Connor unleashed billy clubs, police dogs, and high-pressure water hoses to disperse and punish the young demonstrators with a brutality that horrified the nation. It was very bad for business, and for the image of a modernizing progressive urban South. President John F. Kennedy, who had been calling for moderation, threatened to use federal troops to restore order in Birmingham. The result in Birmingham was compromise by which the new mayor opened the library, golf courses, and other city facilities to both races, against the backdrop of church bombings and assassinations.

In summer 1963, there were 800 demonstrations in 200 southern cities and towns, with over 100,000 participants, and 15,000 arrests. In Alabama in June 1963 Governor George Wallace escalated the crisis by defying court orders to admit the first two black students to the University of Alabama. Kennedy responded by sending Congress a comprehensive civil rights bill, and ordered Attorney General Robert Kennedy to file federal lawsuits against segregated schools, and to deny funds for discriminatory programs. Doctor King launched a massive march on Washington in August 1963, bringing out 200,000 demonstrators in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the largest political assembly in the nation's history. The Kennedy administration now gave full-fledged support to the civil rights movement, but powerful southern congressmen blocked any legislation.

After Kennedy was assassinated President Lyndon Johnson called for immediate passage of Kennedy civil rights legislation as a memorial to the martyred president. Johnson formed a coalition with Northern Republicans that led to passage in the House, and with the help of Republican Senate leader Everett Dirksen with passage in the Senate early in 1964. For the first time in history, the southern filibuster was broken and The Senate finally passed its version on June 19 by vote of 73 to 27.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most powerful affirmation of equal rights ever made by Congress. It guaranteed access to public accommodations such as restaurants and places of amusement, authorized the Justice Department to bring suits to desegregate facilities in schools, gave new powers to the Civil Rights Commission; and allowed federal funds to be cut off in cases of discrimination. Furthermore, racial, religious and gender discrimination was outlawed for businesses with 25 or more employees, as well as apartment houses. The South resisted until the last moment, but as soon as the new law was signed by President Johnson on July 2, 1964, it was widely accepted across the nation. There was only a scattering of diehard opposition, typified by restaurant owner Lester Maddox in Georgia.

In January 1964, President Lyndon Johnson met with civil rights leaders. On January 8, during his first State of the Union address, Johnson asked Congress to "let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined." On June 21, civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney disappeared in Neshoba County, Mississippi, where they were volunteering in the registration of African-American voters as part of the Freedom Summer project. The disappearance of the three activists captured national attention and the ensuing outrage was used by Johnson and civil rights activists to build a coalition of northern and western Democrats and Republicans and push Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

On July 2, 1964, Johnson signed the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964. It invoked the Commerce Clause to outlaw discrimination in public accommodations (privately owned restaurants, hotels, and stores, and in private schools and workplaces). This use of the Commerce Clause was upheld by the Warren Court in the landmark case Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States 379 US 241 (1964).

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended legally sanctioned state barriers to voting for all federal, state and local elections. It also provided for federal oversight and monitoring of counties with historically low minority voter turnout. Years of enforcement have been needed to overcome resistance, and additional legal challenges have been made in the courts to ensure the ability of voters to elect candidates of their choice. For instance, many cities and counties introduced at-large election of council members, which resulted in many cases of diluting minority votes and preventing election of minority-supported candidates.

In 2013, the Roberts Court removed the requirement established by the Voting Rights Act that Southern states needed Federal approval for changes in voting policies. Several states immediately made changes in their laws restricting voting access.

Influence and aftermath

African-American life

The Jim Crow laws and the high rate of lynchings in the South were major factors that led to the Great Migration during the first half of the 20th century. Because opportunities were so limited in the South, African Americans moved in great numbers to cities in Northeastern, Midwestern, and Western states to seek better lives.

Despite the hardship and prejudice of the Jim Crow era, several black entertainers and literary figures gained broad popularity with white audiences in the early 20th century. They included influential tap dancers Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and the Nicholas Brothers, jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, and the actress Hattie McDaniel. In 1939 McDaniel was the first black person to receive an Academy Award when she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as Mammy in Gone with the Wind.

African-American athletes faced much discrimination during the Jim Crow period. White opposition led to their exclusion from most organized sporting competitions. The boxers Jack Johnson and Joe Louis (both of whom became world heavyweight boxing champions) and track and field athlete Jesse Owens (who won four gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin) earned fame during this era. In baseball, a color line instituted in the 1880s had informally barred black people from playing in the major leagues, leading to the development of the Negro leagues, which featured many fine players. A major breakthrough occurred in 1947, when Jackie Robinson was hired as the first African American to play in Major League Baseball; he permanently broke the color bar. Baseball teams continued to integrate in the following years, leading to the full participation of black baseball players in the Major Leagues in the 1960s.[citation needed ]

Interracial marriage

Although sometimes counted among "Jim Crow laws" of the South, statutes such as anti-miscegenation laws were also passed by other states. Anti-miscegenation laws were not repealed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but were declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court (the Warren Court) in a unanimous ruling Loving v. Virginia (1967). Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the court opinion that "the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State."

Jury trials

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution grants criminal defendants the right to a trial by a jury of their peers. While federal law required that convictions could only be granted by a unanimous jury for federal crimes, states were free to set their own jury requirements. All but two states, Oregon and Louisiana, opted for unanimous juries for conviction. Oregon and Louisiana, however, allowed juries of at least 10-2 to decide a criminal conviction. Louisiana's law was amended in 2018 to require a unanimous jury for criminal convictions, effective in 2019. Prior to that amendment, the law had been seen as a remnant of Jim Crow laws, because it allowed minority voices on a jury to be marginalized. In 2020, the Supreme Court found, in Ramos v. Louisiana, that unanimous jury votes are required for criminal convictions at state levels, thereby nullifying Oregon's remaining law, and overturning previous cases in Louisiana.

Later court cases

In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court (the Burger Court), in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upheld desegregation busing of students to achieve integration.

Interpretation of the Constitution and its application to minority rights continues to be controversial as Court membership changes. Observers such as Ian F. Lopez believe that in the 2000s, the Supreme Court has become more protective of the status quo.

International

There is evidence that the government of Nazi Germany took inspiration from the Jim Crow laws when writing the Nuremberg Laws.

Remembrance

Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, houses the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, an extensive collection of everyday items that promoted racial segregation or presented racial stereotypes of African Americans, for the purpose of academic research and education about their cultural influence.

Bubar, Joe. (March 9, 2020). ^ The Jim Crow North - Upfront Magazine - Scholastic, =Retrieved June 7, 2021.

^ Wolfley, Jeanette (1990). "Jim Crow, Indian Style: The Disenfranchisement of Native Americans" (PDF). Indian Law Review. 16 (1): 167-202. doi:10.2307/20068694. hdl:. JSTOR 20068694. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 12, 2019.

^ "Louisiana's 'Jim Crow' Law Valid". The New York Times. New York. December 21, 1892. p. 1. ISSN 0362-4331. New Orleans, Dec 20. - The Supreme Court yesterday declared constitutional the law passed two years ago and known as the 'Jim Crow' law, making it compulsory on railroads to provide separate cars for black people.

^ Parker, Christopher Sebastian; Towler, Christopher C. (May 11, 2019). "Race and Authoritarianism in American Politics". Annual Review of Political Science. 22 (1): 503-519. doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-050317-064519. ISSN 1094-2939.

Michael Perman.Struggle for Mastery: Disfranchisement in the South, 1888-1908. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001, Introduction.

J. Morgan Kousser.The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974.

Richard H. Pildes, "Democracy, Anti-Democracy, and the Canon", 2000, pp. 12, 27. Retrieved March 10, 2008.

^ Blight, David W. Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. pp. 9-11

^ Heersink, Boris; Jenkins, Jeffery A. (January 6, 2020). "Whiteness and the Emergence of the Republican Party in the Early Twentieth-Century South". Studies in American Political Development. 34 (1): 71-90. doi:10.1017/S0898588X19000208. ISSN 0898-588X.

Congress rejected by a majority of 140 to 59 a transport bill amendment proposed by ^ James Thomas Heflin (Ala.) to introduce racially segregated streetcars to the capital's transport system. The New York Times, 23 February 1908: '"JIM CROW CARS" DENIED BY CONGRESS'

^ John McCutheon. The Mysterious Stranger and Other Cartoons by John T. McCutcheon, New York, McClure, Phillips & Co. 1905.

^ Gates, Henry Louis and Appiah, Anthony. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. 1999, p. 1211.

^ Sheryll Cashin. Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy. 2017 Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0807058275.

Graham Allison, ^ Framing the South: Hollywood, television, and race during the Civil Rights Struggle (2001).

^ "Civil Rights Act of 1964 - CRA - Title VII - Equal Employment Opportunities - 42 US Code Chapter 21". Archived from the original on December 29, 2011.

^ "LBJ for Kids - Civil rights during the Johnson Administration". University of Texas. Archived from the original on July 20, 2012.

^ "Introduction To Federal Voting Rights Laws" Archived March 4, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. United States Department of Justice.

^ Sollers, Werner (2000). Interracialism black-white intermarriage in American history, literature, and law. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 26-34. ISBN 1-280-65507-0.

Lopez, Ian F. Haney (February 1, 2007), ^ "A nation of minorities: race, ethnicity, and reactionary colorblindness", Stanford Law Review

^ "RELICS OF RACISM: BIG RAPIDS MUSEUM LETS ITS MEMORABILIA TELL THE UGLY STORY OF JIM CROW IN AMERICA". Archived from the original on December 24, 2007.

Further reading

Ayers, Edward L. The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-1950-3756-1

Bartley, Numan V. The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South during the 1950s. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1969.

Bond, Horace Mann. "The Extent and Character of Separate Schools in the United States." Journal of Negro Education vol. 4 (July 1935), pp. 321-327.

Chin, Gabriel, and Karthikeyan, Hrishi. Preserving Racial Identity: Population Patterns and the Application of Anti-Miscegenation Statutes to Asians, 1910 to 1950, 9 Asian L.J. 1 (2002)

Fairclough, Adam. "'Being in the Field of Education and Also Being a Negro ... Seems ... Tragic': Black Teachers in the Jim Crow South." The Journal of American History vol. 87 (June 2000), pp. 65-91.

Foner, Eric. Reconstruction, America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. ISBN 0-0601-5851-4

Gaston, Paul M. The New South Creed: A Study in Southern Mythmaking. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow. New York: Penguin Press, 2019. ISBN 0-5255-5953-1

Griffin, John Howard. Black Like Me. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961.

Haws, Robert, ed. The Age of Segregation: Race Relations in the South, 1890-1945 University Press of Mississippi, 1978.

Hackney, Sheldon. Populism to Progressivism in Alabama. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969.

Johnson, Charles S. Patterns of Negro Segregation. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1943.

Klarman, Michael J. From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-1951-2903-2

Litwack, Leon F. Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. ISBN 0-3945-2778-X

Lopez, Ian F. Haney. "A nation of minorities": race, ethnicity, and reactionary colorblindness. Stanford Law Review, February 1, 2007.

Kantrowitz, Stephen. Ben Tillman & the Reconstruction of White Supremacy (2000)

McMillen, Neil R. Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1989.

Medley, Keith Weldon. We As Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson. Pelican. March, 2003.

Myrdal, Gunnar. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. New York: Harper and Row, 1944.

Newby, I.A. Jim Crow's Defense: Anti-Negro Thought in America, 1900-1930. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1965.

Percy, William Alexander. Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son. 1941. Reprint, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1993.

Pye, David Kenneth. "Complex Relations: An African-American Attorney Navigates Jim Crow Atlanta". Georgia Historical Quarterly, Winter 2007, vol. 91, issue 4, 453-477.

Rabinowitz, Howard N. Race Relations in the Urban South, 1856-1890 (1978)

Smith, J. Douglas. Managing: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Smith, J. Douglas. "The Campaign for Racial Purity and the Erosion of Paternalism in Virginia, 1922-1930: "Nominally White, Biologically Mixed, and Legally Negro." Journal of Southern History vol. 68 (February 2002), pp. 65-106.

Smith, J. Douglas. "Patrolling the Boundaries of Race: Motion Picture Censorship and Jim Crow in Virginia, 1922-1932." Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television 21 (August 2001): 273-91.

Sterner, Richard. The Negro's Share (1943) detailed statistics

Toth, Casey (December 26, 2017). "Churches once abandoned by Jim Crow are being rediscovered". News & Observer.

Wood, Amy Louise and Natalie J. Ring (eds.), Crime and Punishment in the Jim Crow South. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2019.

Woodward, C. Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow: A Brief Account of Segregation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1955.

Woodward, C. Vann. The Origins of the New South: 1877-1913. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1951.

Blackman, Dexter Lee (2016). ""The Negro Athlete and Victory": Athletics and Athletes as Advancement Strategies in Black America, 1890s-1930s". Sport History Review. Human Kinetics. 47 (1): 46-68. doi:10.1123/shr.2015-0006. ISSN 1087-1659.

Demas, Lane. "Beyond Jackie Robinson: Racial Integration in American College Football and New Directions in Sport History." History Compass 5.2 (2007): 675-90.

Essington, Amy. The Integration of the Pacific Coast League: Race and Baseball on the West Coast (U of Nebraska Press, 2018).

Hawkins, Billy. The new plantation: Black athletes, college sports, and predominantly white NCAA institutions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

Clement, Rufus E. "Racial integration in the field of sports." Journal of Negro Education 23.3 (1954): 222- online

Fitzpatrick, Frank. And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Basketball Game That Changed American Sports (2000)

Hutchison, Phillip. "The legend of Texas Western: journalism and the epic sports spectacle that wasn't." Critical Studies in Media Communication 33.2 (2016): 154-67.

Lopez, Katherine. Cougars of Any Color: The Integration of University of Houston Athletics, 1964-1968 (McFarland, 2008).

Martin, Charles H. "Jim Crow in the gymnasium: the integration of college basketball in the American South." International Journal of the History of Sport 10.1 (1993): 68-86.

Miller, Patrick B. "Slouching toward a new expediency: College football and the color line during the depression decade." American Studies 40.3 (1999): 5-30. online

Pennington, Richard. Breaking the Ice: The Racial Integration of Southwest Conference Football (McFarland, 1987).

Romero, Francine Sanders. "'There are only white champions': The rise and demise of segregated boxing in Texas." Southwestern Historical Quarterly 108.1 (2004): 26-41. online

Sacks, Marcy S. Joe Louis: Sports and Race in Twentieth-Century America (Routledge, 2018).

Spivey, Donald. "The black athlete in big-time intercollegiate sports, 1941-1968." Phylon 44.2 (1983): 116-25. online

White, Derrick E. "From desegregation to integration: Race, football, and" Dixie" at the University of Florida." Florida Historical Quarterly 88.4 (2010): 469-96. online

External links

The History of Jim Crow, Ronald L. F. Davis - A series of essays on the history of Jim Crow. Archive index at the Wayback Machine

"You Don't Have to Ride Jim Crow!" PBS documentary on first Freedom Ride, in 1947.

List of laws enacted in various states

Ferris University page about Jim Crow

Voices on Antisemitism Interview with David Pilgrim, founder of Jim Crow Museum from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Jim Crow Era, History in the Key of Jazz, Gerald Early, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri (esp. see section "Jim Crow is Born")

"Jim Crow Laws". National Park Service. Examples of Jim Crow laws

Jim Crow Signs at A History of Central Florida Podcast

Black Justice - American Civil Liberties Union, 1931

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Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas in the United States were also affected by formal and informal policies of segregation, but many states outside the South had adopted laws, beginning in the late nineteenth century, that variously banned discrimination in public accommodations and voting.

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Colin Kaepernik Knee Down Protest , 2016

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Colin Kaepernik Knee Down Protest , 2016

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The journalist and photographer Eric Etheridge provides visual and oral histories of the courageous men and women known as the Freedom Riders in the 1960s.

Gloria Bouknight, at 20 years old, and at 74 in 2015. While living in New York City, she discovered the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE, on a visit to Harlem, and became an active member. Since then, she started a business representing European designers in the United States, and she now works as a wardrobe consultant for executive women. Credit... Courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History; Eric Etheridge

For seven months in 1961, hundreds of black and white volunteers descended on Southern bus and train stations. These Freedom Riders, as they were called, occupied segregated waiting areas, lunch counters, and restrooms in an attempt to compel the federal government to do what local authorities would not: enforce a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared discrimination in interstate public transportation illegal.

During their first incursion into the Deep South, as they rode buses through Alabama, the Freedom Riders were met by angry mobs of white people. Many were savagely beaten. Later that month, in Jackson, Miss., hundreds of protesters were arrested and hastily convicted of breach of peace. Most endured six weeks of imprisonment in sweltering, filthy and vermin infested cells.

Among the important artifacts of this historic campaign are more than 300 mug shots taken of the Freedom Riders in Jackson, now the subject of"Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders" (Vanderbilt University Press). In it, the journalist and photographer Eric Etheridge provides visual and oral histories of these courageous men and women, juxtaposing vintage mug shots with short biographies, interviews and contemporary portraits. Originally published in 2008, this expanded edition, with updated profiles and additional portraits, includes essays by the writer Diane McWhorter and Roger Wilkins, the journalist and official in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who died last year.

Mr. Etheridge, who grew up in Mississippi, first saw the mug shots after the state's Department of Archives and History published them online. "I was captivated by these images and wanted to bring them to a wider audience," he recalled. "I wanted to find the Riders today, to look into their faces, to make new portraits to set against the earlier photographs." Since he began working on the project in 2005, Mr. Etheridge has tracked down nearly a hundred Riders, visiting them in their homes, conducting interviews and making new portraits.

If these mug shots inadvertently captured the humanity and special qualities of their principled subjects, as Mr. Etheridge observed, their intention was nefarious: to publicly impugn and humiliate people whose only crime was to advocate equality through peaceful protest. No matter their purpose, mug shots inevitably imply aberrance or delinquency, whether or not the people they depict are eventually found to be guilty. With this in mind, the current mayor of Jackson, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, issued an executive order in February prohibiting their release in cases involving people killed by the police.

"Mug shots and sensationalized news narratives create lasting impressions that adversely impact communities and widen the historical divides between police and community," stated Mr. Lumumba's directive. "A mug shot is just one snapshot in time, and cannot be presumed to represent the sum total of any individual's existence."

By pairing mug shots with contemporary portraits - and providing stories about individual Freedom Riders - Mr. Etheridge undoes some of the psychic and social damage perpetrated by these symbols of police malfeasance. "Breach of Peace" corrects the historical record, representing its subjects not as dehumanized icons of criminality but as exemplary citizens and complex human beings.

The Freedom Riders were a diverse group. Largely college students at the time, they came from 39 states, were of different races and economic classes, and went on to varied careers: Hank Thomas, then a sophomore at Howard University, now owns fast food and hotel franchises; Peter Stoner, who studied at the University of Chicago, earned a Ph.D. in chemistry and later worked as an auto mechanic; Margaret Leonard, who attended Newcomb College, became a journalist; Hezekiah Watkins, who was a ninth-grade student in Jackson, ran a small grocery store; and Helen O'Neal McCray, a sophomore at Jackson State University, taught elementary school and later writing and literature at Wilberforce University, a historically black institution in Ohio.

The diversity of the Freedom Riders affirms the importance of allies in the struggle for racial equality and justice, acknowledging that the support of some in the white majority was necessary to achieve legal and political rights. In the early 1960s, these demonstrators motivated and inspired Americans of all races. "The courage and tenacity of the Riders electrified large segments of the American public and drew them into the midcentury civil rights movement as no activity had done before," Mr. Wilkins wrote. "People began asking themselves: 'What can I do?'"

The solidarity of these activists stands in contrast to the complacency and social and cultural divisions that impede progress today. The period between the initial publication of "Breach of Peace" in 2008 and its reissue in 2018 attests to the volatile and continually shifting fortunes of the struggle for racial equality and justice. A decade ago, the nation made history as a coalition of voters of all colors elected the nation's first black president. Today, an administration routinely exploits racial anxiety and resentment.

There is much to learn from the unity, courage and passion of the Freedom Riders, whose efforts resulted in federal regulations prohibiting segregation in interstate transit terminals. During the 50th anniversary of their demonstrations, many came forward to tell their stories, work that continues to the present day.

"They did not waste their golden anniversary press," Mr. Etheridge wrote. "The good news is that since 2011 the Riders have become much more frequent speakers in classrooms, libraries and auditoriums across the country. Once more they are putting their bodies on the road, this time to share their histories, to tell how they resisted, to spread the practice of 'good trouble,' as John Lewis calls it. ... The good news is that the Freedom Riders are still overreaching."

Race Stories is a continuing exploration of the relationship between race and photographic depictions of race by Maurice Berger. He is a research professor and chief curator at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

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50 Years After Their Mug Shots, Portraits of Mississippi's Freedom Riders (Published 2018)

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The journalist and photographer Eric Etheridge provides visual and oral histories of the courageous men and women known as the Freedom Riders in the 1960s. For seven months in 1961, hundreds of black and white volunteers descended on Southern bus and train stations.

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Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history. Also known as African American History Month, the event grew out of "Negro History Week," the brainchild of noted historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating Black history.

Origins of Black History Month

The story of Black History Month begins in 1915, half a century after the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States.

That September, the Harvard-trained historian Carter G. Woodson and the prominent minister Jesse E. Moorland founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), an organization dedicated to researching and promoting achievements by Black Americans and other peoples of African descent.
READ MORE: The Man Behind Black History Month
Known today as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the group sponsored a national Negro History week in 1926, choosing the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The event inspired schools and communities nationwide to organize local celebrations, establish history clubs and host performances and lectures.

Did you know? The NAACP was founded on February 12, 1909, the centennial anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.

In the decades that followed, mayors of cities across the country began issuing yearly proclamations recognizing Negro History Week. By the late 1960s, thanks in part to the civil rights movement and a growing awareness of Black identity, Negro History Week had evolved into Black History Month on many college campuses.

President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in 1976, calling upon the public to "seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history."
WATCH: 10 Things You Don't Know About: Civil Rights on HISTORY Vault
Black History Month 2021 Theme

Since 1976, every American president has designated February as Black History Month and endorsed a specific theme.

The Black History Month 2021 theme, "Black Family: Representation, Identity and Diversity" explores the African diaspora, and the spread of Black families across the United States.
READ MORE: Black History Milestones
Photo Galleries

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Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history. Also known as African American History Month, the event grew out of "Negro History Week," the brainchild of noted historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans.

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The Event: How Racist Are You? with Jane Elliott (Channel 4) (FULL)

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