I know, I know. Many people think Jim Crow never died. He just hid deep inside the intractably inbred stagnant back waters of what has now evolved into our current version of White Supremacy. They are probably right, but what we have today is a far cry from the Jim Crow of the mid 20th century.
Current manifestations of Racism today are more insidious, and systemically embedded than ever before. It is harder to root out than the worse chauvinistic and racist attitudes paraded around during the so called "Good Ole Days" of Jim Crow.
July 26, 1948 was the date. I was born four years later into a career military family. I knew nothing of segregation as my first years on the planet were desegregated years.I was rudely awakened in the years immediately following my father's retirement in 1960. Yeah, 1960 is probably when I began realizing the "Leave it to Beaver" world I thought would continue as before was over. The perfect life I had enjoyed as a wee one was done. I would have to get used to the harsher realities of the civilian world going forward. Those next four years in Florida ensured I would be brought up to speed about some of the worst ugliness that existed in everyday civilian life here in the USA.
I remember a conversation with my father, "the General", when I was twenty something and he was an old fart like I am today. We shared most of a bottle of Old Grand Dad and talked. It was one of more than a few alcohol infused conversations I had with him in his last years.
We talked of many things. One topic we shared were recollections of our time living in Florida.
I admitted to him I had defied his and Mom's order to not go anywhere near an upcoming civil rights demonstration and march. I went anyway and was witness to just how ugly the fight for civil rights could be.
On a back street near the Capitol in Tallahassee, blacks were prepping to join the demonstration. I watched, as a group of white thugs swarmed around them and beat them with bats and big sticks. Meanwhile on the same street white cops turned their backs, leaned on their cruisers, sucked on toothpicks and had genial conversations with each other like nothing odd was going on further down the street.
My father admitted he had dropped the ball when it came to preparing me for some of the realities that would be part of my life going forward. But he did not apologize. He told me that there really is no good way to prepare anyone for Mankind's ability to be evil. Talking about it means nothing compared to witnessing it first hand.
What pisses me off about all this is we should have moved on from the divisive bullshit of Racism many, many years ago. Many of us white people thought it was. I was one of them for a long time.
I began to realize 30 years ago Racism was still there like a nagging headache that would not go away. I also began to realize that the autocratic, capitalist enclave that really has us by our short hairs do not want to lose Racism. The divisiveness it creates keeps us off our game and thus easier to control. Keeping us at each other's throat is an easy old school, been around forever tool by which to control the drooling masses. Give them someone to hate and they won't hate you.
Anyway, Happy First Desegregation Day.
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I immediately considered Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind" as my musical choice.
There must be fifty million ga-gillion covers of "Blowing in the Wind" by fifty ga-gillion musicians since Bob first recorded this tune in the early 1960's. It was a song that set the tone for many protest songs that came after. In my opinion, this song may be the greatest protest song of all time.
I made the mistake of listening to too many covers and could not decide which one I liked other than Bob's original recording. So here is a short list of some of the versions I listened to:
- Neil Young
- Johnny Cash on David Letterman
- New Christy Minstrels
- Peter, Paul & Mary
- Marlene Dietrich
Enjoy!
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