A’ Louisiana justice of the peace apparently didn’t get the memo that said the civil rights movement won.
Justice Keith Bardwell recently denied a marriage license to a couple consisting of a white woman, Beth Humphrey, and Terence McKay, a black man. Citing his opinion that whites and blacks would not accept their children, Bardwell defended his regressive decision as compassionate.
Jim Crow laws in the United States were a federally protected group of statutes that persisted from 1876 to 1965, mostly throughout the South. An extension of bigotry toward non-whites, the laws’ details varied from state to state with one common denominator: the concept of ‘separate but equal.’ This concept that whites and blacks could exist in a state of segregation that would simultaneously not infringe on the civil rights of the minority group was even upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In reality, because blacks had not been allowed to receive education on a large scale, had received substandard federal funding for their communities and were victimized by the terrorist actions of groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, blacks during the time of Jim Crow faced a life that was very different from ‘separate but equal,’ and could have been considered closer to slavery. Jim Crow laws included poll taxes to suppress the black vote, public and state-supported segregation and miscegenation laws to prevent marriage between whites and blacks.
The members of the civil rights movement fought valiantly to end this mistreatment of the American descendents of African slaves. Mr. Crow, however, did not go quietly.
Politicians such as Bull Connor and George Wallace, along with the police departments in many Southern states willingly participated in and endorsed Klan terrorism, and fought to keep Jim Crow laws alive. During the battle for the rights of minorities, great men like Martin Luther King Jr. gave their lives to ensure that the words of the Declaration of Independence ‘- ‘All men are created equal’ ‘- were taken literally.
In 1964, Crow was finally put on life support during the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He later perished with the signing of the National Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Finally, America’s promise had been realized.
Despite his motives, Bardwell’s actions are racist. As such, he should be immediately removed from office, prosecuted by the law if possible and have any state-funded pension plan dissolved. Jim Crow must not be allowed to rise from the grave to terrorize citizens of the U.S. again, even if it is concerning something as trivial as a marriage license.
Timothy Mathis is a history junior and may be reached at [email protected]
