Hello and welcome to this day, a history show from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

We are back with part two of our 50 Weeks that shaped America series on Plessy v. Ferguson,

the landmark Supreme Court case that really codified and gave

a permission structure for the idea of separate but equal. This is week 18, part two. This episode

is really our chance to look at the Jim Crow era in the United States, the years and decades

after Plessy v. Ferguson, which was 1896, and really describe what life was like in the South, both on the ground and in terms of the many, many Jim Crow laws, segregationist laws that got implemented.

So here to discuss, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there.

Hello, Jody.

Hey there.

You all know where the phrase Jim Crow comes from? I mean, you're talking to two his stories.

Talk to me. I do. Jump and Jim Crow. It was a minstrel show from the early 19th century. Kelly probably can talk much more about it.

But I just remember seeing the images on the front of the sheet music as these two crows.

But it's deeply tied to blackface and minstrelies. Yes.

And minstrelsy, which has a long history.

Raylan Barnes just has a great new book, Darkology, about the history of minstrelsy, and which has a long history. Raylan Barnes just has a great new book, Darkology, about the history of minstrelsy in this country.

It was the most popular and biggest form of entertainment in the country.

I mean, nothing compared to minstrelsy.

And when everyone was expecting to be entertained in any form, the darn your requirement was that you would have blackface or some sort of minstrelsy attached to even an opera performance, a singing performance, a comedy performance.

There was always minstrelsy there.

I think there was an understanding, certainly among black people and among white abolitionists,

that there was something degrading about these menstrual performances.

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