Previous
War on Gangs
Jim Crow was a period in U.S. history from the 1870s through 1965 when “Jim Crow laws” upheld racial segregation in the South. These laws often physically limited where Black people were allowed to go, such as requiring them to sit in the back of buses or use segregated bathrooms and drinking fountains. Southern churches and public schools were also racially segregated at this time. The laws were formally overturned in the 1950s and 60s with major decisions like Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Jim Crow Quotes in When They Call You a Terrorist
The When They Call You a Terrorist quotes below are all either spoken by Jim Crow or refer to Jim Crow. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 7
Quotes
I try continually to talk to my father about structural realities, policies and decisions as being even more decisive in the outcomes of his life than any choice he personally made. I talk about the politics of personal responsibility, how it’s mostly a lie meant to keep us from challenging real-world legislative decisions that chart people’s paths, that undo people’s lives.
It was easy to understand that when race was a blatant factor, a friend says to me in a political discussion one afternoon. Jim Crow left no questions or confusion. But now that race isn’t written into the law, she says, look for the codes. Look for the coded language everywhere, she says. They rewrote the laws, but they didn’t rewrite white supremacy. They kept that shit intact, she says.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire When They Call You a Terrorist LitChart as a printable PDF.
Jim Crow Term Timeline in When They Call You a Terrorist
The timeline below shows where the term Jim Crow appears in When They Call You a Terrorist. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2: Twelve
...as gifted. Her fourth-grade teacher gave a book about a Black girl traveling through the Jim Crow South and allowed Patrisse to teach the class about the book. Patrisse related to the...
(full context)
Chapter 7: All the Bones We Could Find
...she doesn’t convince him. Now that racism is no longer written into law (like during Jim Crow ), it’s hard to point to. Still, “they rewrote the laws, but they didn’t rewrite...
(full context)
Chapter 13: A Call, a Response
After Jim Crow ended, politicians found other ways to weave anti-Black racism into legislation. And Black people did...
(full context)
Chapter 16: When They Call You a Terrorist
...leaders, and human rights. It was organizers who pulled Black people out of slavery and Jim Crow , and it will be organizers who will pull them out of deadly policing practices.
(full context)
