History of racism at the heart of the beast
BY THE beginning of the 20th century the South’s rulers had denied blacks the right to vote and had re-established legal segregation. This system of apartheid was known as the “Jim Crow” laws. There were 181,000 blacks in Alabama eligible to vote in 1900. Two years later there were just 3000. All-pervasive racism encouraged poor whites to identify with the system and laws banned them from meeting blacks. The period in which the US eclipsed Britain as the world’s biggest economic power also saw the imposition of officially sponsored racism across the US. Two of the most famous films from […]