What Jim Crow Really Means – A Yankee Mom’s Memo From Montgomery

There seems to be some confusion about the meaning of the words "Jim Crow" these days. Many of the same people who would reduce our country's history almost entirely to its racial sins, and particularly its historic mistreatment of blacks, seem not to appreciate what "Jim Crow" was.  As a Massachusetts Yankee who makes her home in the South, I can assure you that the term Jim Crow is inappropriate when applied to contemporary policy disputes. Although I am a Yankee girl through-and-

There seems to be some confusion about the meaning of the words "Jim Crow" these days. Many of the same people who would reduce our country's history almost entirely to its racial sins, and particularly its historic mistreatment of blacks, seem not to appreciate what "Jim Crow" was.  As a Massachusetts Yankee who makes her home in the South, I can assure you that the term Jim Crow is inappropriate when applied to contemporary policy disputes. Although I am a Yankee girl through-and-through who…