Jim Crow

Not Again!

by ladypbwiggins

No matter how hard you try, we will not be erased. We will not be eradicated. We are like ants. We are resilient. We are industrious. Regardless of the industry, good or bad. We ARE industrious. The skills our ancestors possessed on the plantation they brought with them from Africa. Our ancestors had societal structures:government, commerce, agriculture, and construction. What was learned from slavery was how to avoid the whip. How to live with rape. How to swallow pride for the sake of survival. I won’t talk about methodology. We might need to use them again.

Mr. DeSantis and those of like mind, all the whitewash in the world will not hide the atrocities done to our ancestors. We will always BLEED through. The TRUTH will always come through. Your children will discover that you lied to them.

We, as a people, survived slavery. We survived Jim Crow. We will survive the “Jim Crow” you are trying to create. You say slavery taught us skills we needed. You are correct. You taught us how to survive people and attitudes like you. We can navigate the ploys you implement. Our ancestors passed those lessons down. We may have forgotten that we needed them, but we did not forget them.

So, I implore my people teach those lessons to our kids and grandkids. Teach them our history, good and bad. Teach them self-sufficiency. Fraternal organizations and churches increase your community activities that include teaching our people. Use the tools you’ve learned in business and law to strengthen us. We are strong because of our ancestors. We are stronger because of what we’ve personally experienced. We will become stronger still.

Let’s learn from those who HAD to teach our kids our history at home and through those aforementioned organizations. They did not depend on others to teach US about US.

Let’s Get Busy

Economically Foolish!

by ladypbwiggins

It’s been a few days since I posted about Jim Crow. A thought crossed my mind that deserved more attention. I am black and grew up in the south under that system and at the height of it’s destruction, some what. I had never given thought to how it affected any other group that was not white. Did they experience the same things I did? Did New Mexico and Arizona have Mexican only water faucets and bathrooms? Were there separate waiting rooms for them at the bus station or doctor’s office? Did they ride in the back of the bus? How were the Native Americans fare? Or the Asians?

Originally, I was looking at the economic impact this system had on the country. south in particular. It cost so much more to operate your business if you had to have double everything. Does that make sense? It is one more example of the stupidity hatred creates. Think about this. For many of those business owners it was a black woman caring for their child or cooking their food. She was in their homes all day. They weren’t afraid of contamination there. They weren’t afraid of her blackness rubbing off on them when she cleaned their toilets and washed clothes? Then why couldn’t she sit next to them at a lunch counter or in a theater or a doctor’s office. They would have saved so much money.

Just a thought.

Who Is Jim Crow?

by ladypbwiggins

Most of my young life I lived under the Jim Crow laws. But who exactly is Jim Crow? All this time I assumed he was someone politically influential during the Civil War or the Reconstruction. I finally looked him up only to discover he is a character in a minstrel show. An actor named Rice created a black-faced character for his show. It is said he was not the only but he was the most successful.  His character satisfied his audiences fascination with Black life, culture. It also provided the opportunity to create and perpetuate negative stereotypes. No one knows how this character became associated with the laws.

If we are not careful we might just allow another or other actors create and perpetuate negative stereotypes.  It has already led to increased public deaths: the new lynchings. Don’t let them take the vote. Even if you think nothing will change for us vote anyway. Don’t give your voice, your power away.

Great-grandmother: Strong Woman

by ladypbwiggins

I’ve been told that this woman was very mean but it is not something I experienced in my young life. She and my great grandfather  lived in what we called the country. When I went to visit them I was in her direct care. With him rules were more likely to be relaxed 😊.

So many memories include her kitchen and her front porch. My great-grandmother was an awesome cook. She raised the chickens and eggs we ate. She churned the butter from a neighbor’s milk. The jams, jellies and vegetables she made and canned in the summer fed us all winter. The fruit and vegetables came from their very large garden. I remember climbing the pear and apple trees to gather the fruit. I was in heaven. The next closest to heaven feelings were her feather mattresses and pillows she made from the chicken feathers. Unfortunately I never desired to learn these skills. I wish I had. She also taught me how to feed the chickens, clean the yard and empty what they called the  slop jar. Jobs I hated. It was not pig slop as you might imagine. It was human waste from the night 😖. It was a while before they got indoor plumbing. Going to the outhouse at night was not wise. Visits from snakes and such. Back to the yard. I had to sweep the dirt to clean up chicken poop and to minimize the dust blown into the house.  Can you get ready for that?😀. She was an immaculate homemaker and that included the yard.

The women on the hill were early risers so after lunch the porch sitting began. The women nearest my great-grandmother’s house gathered on her porch. It was large and you could see almost every other home from her vantage point. All the latest news and gossip was shared until it was time to prepare dinner.

This woman was strong. I didn’t realize how strong. When she died I discovered she was born just as slavery ended. I can’t remember if she was the last baby born under slavery or the first born after it ended. Nevertheless,  she grew up under Jim Crow laws. She never got to vote. She had to play the role of societal submissive for survival sake. This strong woman was humiliated so her family could live. She never talked about her childhood or even my grandmother’s. I guess that was just how they were. To move forward they let go the pain of the past and dealt with the conditions or realities of the present.

I miss the innocence that I was allowed to experience during visits to a rural place during unsafe times because of her.

Thank you to her and others like her.