Remembering Jim Crow | American RadioWorks

November 2001
Remembering Jim Crow

By Stephen Smith, Kate Ellis, and Sasha Aslanian


	For much of the 20th Century, African Americans in the South were barred from the voting booth, sent to the back of the bus, and walled off from many of the rights they deserved as American citizens. Until well into the 1960s, segregation was legal. The system was called Jim Crow. In this documentary, Americans—black and white—remember life in the Jim Crow times.

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AUDIO
Download this documentary.

Read personal histories of segregation.

RELATED DOCUMENTARY
Radio Fights Jim Crow
The story of African Americans using the popular new medium to combat racism during World War Two.

ALSO HEARD ON
NPR's Morning Edition, Part I
Part II

Remembering Jim Crow is produced in cooperation with the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and its Behind the Veil oral history project.

Bitter Times
Jim Crow laws robbed African Americans of basic rights.

Danger, Violence, Exploitation
Blacks in the Jim Crow South faced lynchings, insults and thievery at the hands of whites.

Communities "Behind the Veil"
African Americans built vital social institutions to fight segregation and uplift the race.

Keeping the Past
Black families used oral storytelling and photography to pass along their memories of slavery and Reconstruction.

Resistance
Many African Americans found subtle ways to combat the humiliation and economic hardship imposed by Jim Crow.

Whites Remember Jim Crow
In the southwestern Louisiana town of New Iberia, older whites say race relations were more peaceful during Jim Crow than they are now.

Jim Crow Laws
A sampling of repressive Jim Crow laws.

Resources
Informants, documentary audio and transcript, links, and books.

Credits

Funding for Remembering Jim Crow was provided, in part, by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Major funding for American RadioWorks comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Photo: Bettmann/CORBIS