Aux origines de Jim Crow dans le nord

Quand on pense au personnage de Jim Crow ou encore aux lois Jim Crow ce sont d'abord des images du sud et de la ségrégation qui nous viennent à l'esprit. Comme je l'explique parfois en classe à mes étudiants, la situation des Noirs dans le nord du pays n'est pas toujours forcément plus facile et on constate beaucoup de discrimination même si le mouvement abolitionniste y trouve ses origines. Ce récit de Steve Luxenberg dans le Washington Post de ce matin est particulièrement intéressant et jette un éclairage nouveau sur la question.

 "When the conductor ordered them to separate, Douglass stayed put. The conductor laid down the usual ultimatum: the Jim Crow car or ejection. Collins demanded to know the basis for the conductor’s directive. The conductor ripped down a posted placard from the car’s entrance and thrust it toward them. Collins treated the placard’s words as one more debating point, arguing that the rule violated the state constitution’s guarantee of equal rights. But he and Douglass proved no match for the half-dozen men who seized Douglass and dragged him out of the car.

Then, a complicating sequence of events for the exasperated conductor: Another abolitionist on the train, George Foster, announced his intention to join Douglass in his exile from the whites-only car. The conductor stood firm against this unexpected challenge, telling Foster that he “was not black enough to sit there.” Foster fumed, but retreated.

The next day at the meeting in New Hampshire, Collins and Douglass ignited the assembled with their account. Soon, the abolitionists had more than another outrage to discuss. Thanks to Ruggles and Douglass, they now had a rallying cry and a new cause: Ban the “dirt car,” as it was also known. Send Jim Crow, they demanded, to the “receptacle of forgotten barbarisms.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/magazine/wp/2019/02/20/feature/the-forgotten-northern-pre-civil-war-origins-of-jim-crow/?utm_term=.0a84cd8889e9