Jim Crow's job was not only to separate the races but to keep blacks poor. Together, the whole system of racial segregation was known as "Jim Crow." The races were segregated by a dense, carefully woven web of laws, signs, partitions, arrows, ordinances, unequal opportunities, rules, insults, threats, and customs-often backed up by violence. Black and white babies were born in separate hospitals, lived their adult lives apart from one another, and were buried in separate cemeteries. If, like Claudette Colvin, you grew up black in central Alabama during the 1940s and 1950s, Jim Crow controlled your life from womb to tomb. She said, "Don't you know you're not supposed to touch them?" The white boy's mother nodded at my mom and said, "That's right, Mary." That's how I learned I should never touch another white person again. Then my mom came straight across the room, raised her hand, and gave me a backhand slap across my face. My mother saw us, and she saw that the boy's mother was watching. I held my hands up, palms out, and he put his hands up against my hands. The little white boy said, "Let me see, let me see, too." For some reason they all wanted to see my hands. I turned around to see what they were laughing at.
Then some older white kids came in through the door and started laughing. I was standing in line at the general store when this little white boy cut in front of me. Jane Addams Children's Book Award Honor BookĬlaudette Colvin: I was about four years old the first time I ever saw what happened when you acted up to whites.
YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction FinalistĬPL: Chicago Public Library Best of the Best YALSA Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners Tennessee Intermediate Volunteer State Book Award Master List New Jersey Garden State Teen Book Award Master List Publishers Weekly Best Children's Books of the Year Vermont Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award Master List
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