During the Reconstruction period of 1865–1877, federal law provided civil rights protection in the U.S. South for freedmen – the African Americans who had formerly been slaves. In the 1870s, White Democrats gradually regained political power in every Southern state. Subsequently these conservative white Democratic Redeemer Governments passed Jim Crow laws, segregating black people from the white population.
The essence of Jim Crow was the presence of an elaborate system of control that involves disenfranchisement and legalized discrimination and they were able to forestall economic and other reforms for blacks.
Most recently a white Democratic council chairman in St. Louis County introduced and passed a Jim Crow law. Council Chairman Mike O’Mara’s bill 289 restricts a certain class of construction contractors from participating in St. Louis County-sponsored construction projects. If you are a contractor and do not belong to a union and do not have active registered apprentices, you cannot bid on St. Louis County construction projects.
Chairman O’Mara and the unions are well aware of the consequences of the language in bill 289 and the impact it will have on minority contractors; the debate with African Americans on this issue is not new. O’Mara and County Executive Charlie A. Dooley (who is black) both professed that minority goals in County contracts won’t be impacted, that’s impossible under the County’s new Jim Crow law.
After the vote, County Executive Dooley acknowledged that bill 289 need fixing. My response is the origin of the phrase “Jim Crow” is best attributed to “Jump Jim Crow,” a song-and-dance caricature of blacks performed by white actor Thomas D. Rice in blackface, which first surfaced in 1832.
The bill restricts non-union contractors from bidding on County projects, thus prohibiting any minority-owned general or prime contractor from County construction work. The bill restricts contractors who don’t have active apprentices. The strange thing about this is that most unions will profess that they are not accepting apprentices due to the downturn in the economy and have “too many boys sitting on the bench.” And the number of minority apprentices active in their programs is dismal.
Additionally, the bill forbids independent contractors from County construction worksites, specifically those who are self-employed. Most African-American truckers who own their own trucks operate as “independent contractors” and thus are forbidden from working on County worksites.
When a large percentage of black contractors are blocked from County construction projects due to “non-union” affiliation under bill 289, this subjects them to legalized discrimination. And by legal and practical extensions, people around them, such as their workers and family members, are affected by legalized discrimination as well, which puts in this category a huge segment, in a sense the totality of low-income communities of color.
Such “race-neutral” devices were eliminated through legal and legislative action after the collapse of Jim Crow, but have since resurfaced in the Hazelwood School District and now in St. Louis County government. Locally controlled Democratic governments were the founders of Jim Crow laws, and St. Louis County government has taken a step back to the 1870s.
Under the historical systems of slavery and Jim Crow, it was rare for white persons to be in some way victimized by the racial caste system intended to favor and protect them. But under St. Louis County’s new Jim Crow law, non-union white contractors are simply collateral damage.
