We Deserve Monuments

Jim Crow laws refer to a series of local and state laws in the US South that enforced racial segregation in public areas. These laws were gradually enacted in the late 19th century, following abolition, and became more widespread after the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case. This case established the “separate but equal” doctrine, maintaining that segregation was legal so long as facilities for white and Black people were equal. Despite this legal consideration, facilities for Black people, including schools, were notably inferior, leading to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case, which determined that so-called “separate but equal” facilities were actually “inherently unequal.” Various other Jim Crow laws were reversed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The era in which Jim Crow laws were enacted is broadly described as the “Jim Crow era,” a time when the discriminatory intent of the laws that enforced segregation led to a broader social life based on anti-Black racism and white supremacy. This prejudice was more starkly visible in the locales where these laws were in effect. The prevalence of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization, grew across this period; scholars estimate there were between 4 and 6 million active Klan members in 1925 (Bullard, Sara. The Ku Klux Klan: A History of Racism and Violence. DIANE Publishing Company, 1998). Klan members, like the Oliver family in We Are Monuments, were often in positions of power within Southern communities, and their membership in the organization was an “open secret” that allowed them to commit violence with impunity while maintaining plausible deniability about their participation in the secret organization. Black people faced economic discrimination, as well; the term “Jim Crow economy” broadly refers to the widespread economic violence committed against Black people due to their race despite supposedly race-neutral economic laws. Historians frequently cite 1965 as the end of the Jim Crow era.