- December 26, 2024
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Propaganda during the Jim Crow era used racist imagery, including "Mammy" caricatures, to degrade, demonize and demoralize Blacks, Jaye said. Courtesy photo
Photo by Alexis Miller
Randy Jaye. Photo by Alexis Miller
Randy Jaye's 11th book
A postcard from the South during the Jim Crow era
by: Alexis Miller
Contributing Writer
Today, salt and pepper shakers are sometimes made to look like characters from books or TV shows. In the Jim Crow era, some shakers were made to look like happy slaves, an example of racism explored by historian Randy Jaye at an Ormond Beach Historical Society event on April 24, at the Anderson-Price Memorial building.
Jaye displayed several items that in some ways appeared harmless: wooden signs, hand fans, framed pictures, old toys, and glass figurines. But he said, “The artifacts were used out there to suppress and oppress people, and they actually used some of this stuff to legitimize the violence.”
Jaye’s April 24 presentation covered the years 1877, which marked the end of Reconstruction, to 1968, in the Civil Rights movement.
“Jim Crow laws were a series of state and local statutes that effectively legalized racial segregation,” according to Jaye. “These laws relegated blacks (and other people of color) to second-class citizenship. These people were denied the right to vote and hold public offices and had very limited educational and employment opportunities.”
A member of the OBHS Board of Directors, Jaye has written 11 books, which are available on Amazon, including his most recent: “Jim Crow Era Propaganda, Artifacts, and Upheavals in Florida.”
