Segregation Alive & Well in the South?

It is strange that an article about segregation in the South came out just now, barely a week after my short visit to northern Kentucky (really, just the suburbs of Cincinnati, which some friends assured me is not the "real south"), which was only the second former Confederate state that I ever visited. I would be lying if i did not admit that the peculiar history regarding racism was not on my mind for at least some of the time during my visit there.

I wrote some time ago, earlier this year in fact, about similar instances of exactly this kind of segregation that, evidently, still exists in pockets of the South. It is just so shocking that this type of thing happens in the year 2012, nearly half a century after the end of legally sanctioned, Jim Crow segregation in the South, and nearly two decades since the official end of apartheid in South Africa.

Below is a link for a 40 year high school reunion, after an attempt was apparently agreed to towards ending the practice of separate class reunions. Yet, the invitations advertise that "All Graduates" are invited to the official reception and the homecoming game, but a party afterwards is for "White Graduates Only". I wonder how the blacks living there must feel. So much time has elapsed, an the days of official segregation are gone, yet there are these constant little reminders like this, which simply does not allow history to remain strictly in the past in regards to this issue.

The town is St. Martinville, Louisiana. Yes, evidently Hurricane Isaac is not the only problem that exists in Louisiana. In fact, Louisiana has a peculiar history when it comes to racial segregation, which perhaps should not be all that surprising. You see, despite the fact that it can boast New Orleans, the rest of the state is predominately rural, and can easily be classified as part of the Deep South, which has traditionally been the most extremist in mindset of the Old South and it's racist tendencies.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It was in Louisiana that a law was passed by legislature there in the spirit of segregation in 1965. If that date does not strike you as odd, it was the year following the passage of the Civil Rights Act. In other words, they were trying to fan the flames and keep segregation alive.

In New Orleans, there still exists the monument to the Battle of Liberty Place, which is often considered a monument to white supremacy, as it honors a white insurrection against the Reconstruction government, following the Civil War. Perhaps this might not have seemed bad in and of itself, were it not for the inscription, which, in part, reads:

United States troops took over the state government and reinstated the usurpers but the election of November 1876 recognized white supremacy in the South and gave us our state.

The city of New Orleans, in 1974, added a marker next to this one that declared these sentiments in favor of white supremacy as "contrary to the philosophy and beliefs of present-day New Orleans."

Still, the monument generated plenty of controversy over the years, and remains highly controversial to this day. Just this year, in March, the monument was defaced by an anonymous group calling itself "Wendell Allen", a man who was shot to death by police officers in New Orleans. The group claimed "The system that celebrates slave owners and racist lynch mobs is the same system that exonerates killer cops and racist vigilantes."

It should be noted that it was also in Louisiana where former Ku Klux Klan headman David Duke won the majority of the white vote during the governor's race back in 1991. In 2004, Duke tried to stage a pro-white rally at the monument.

Louisiana is not alone with it's racist history, of course. It borders another "Deep South" state in Mississippi, which has an extensive past in regards to racism as well, as does it's neighbor, Alabama. It is in Selma, Alabama, that another highly controversial monument stands, honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest. Who was Nathan Bedford Forrest? He was a Confederate general who, after the war, started the Ku Klux Klan. The monument to honor him stands today, and also remains a source of controversy and tensions.

Article on the "Whites Only" Class Reunion Party:

http://news.yahoo.com/class-reunion-letter-lists-white-graduates-only-party-223601169--abc-news-topstories.html

Articles on the White Supremacy monument in Selma, Alabama:

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20120825/NEWS02/308250044/Forrest-monument-dispute-feels-like-d-j-vu

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2192334/Outrage-monument-Confederate-general-KKK-leader-Nathan-Bedford-Forrest.html