A look back (but not that far back) by Reggie Jackson:
In a post in January I wrote:
With ratification of the Constitution in 1789, the founders launched our American democracy. It did not satisfy the ideal of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal," but it set the course for our country. For about a decade, following the Civil War and passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the Reconstruction era brought us nearer to a multiracial democracy (at least for men; women gained the right to vote with passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920). Reconstruction was short-lived, coming to an end by 1877, replaced in fits and starts by nearly a century of Jim Crow in the Southern states (and restricted rights for black residents of the North as well).
With passage of the Civil Rights Act (in 1964) and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the United States approached nearer the ideal of a multiracial democracy. These were bipartisan achievements. The Republican Party, founded in the mid-19th century to oppose slavery (and a Democratic Party committed to white supremacy), endorsed this expansion of democracy.
Reggie Jackson's anecdote brings home the reality of Jim Crow. Notice also that Jackson played for the Birmingham A's at Rickwood Field in 1967 in the Double-A Southern League, before joining the Kansas City Athletics that summer for the MLB season.
Jim Crow 2.0
Jim Crow didn't die all at once. And, if we look at the Supreme Court's decades-long assault on the Voting Rights Act and undermining of the Fourteenth Amendment led by Chief Justice John Roberts, we can see that the crusade against equal rights continues to this day. The anti-democratic rulings of the Roberts Court have served as an invitation to Republicans across the country. In statehouse after statehouse, Republican lawmakers have joined the crusade to implement Jim Crow 2.0 with voting restrictions and gerrymanders to ensure minority rule.
In June 2024, the Republican Party has gone all-in with Trump's lie that he won the 2020 presidential election and with his celebration of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Today's Grand Old Party opposes the Declaration's ideal of equality. The party is in a furious fight against a diverse America, where we can respectfully disagree with each other while holding fast to small-d democratic principles. Free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power be damned. The Republican Party is committed to the MAGA party line, rather than to our Constitution and the rule of law. The Republican Party is following an authoritarian playbook, which threatens the democracy that the Constitution imperfectly gave birth to.
Americans face a stark choice as we approach November 4.