The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow
Written, Produced and Directed by Bill Jersey | 2002 | 56min
The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow offers the first comprehensive look at race relations in America between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. This definitive four-part series documents a brutal and oppressive era rooted in the growing refusal of many Southern states to grant slaves freed in the Civil War equal rights with whites. A life of crushing limitation for Southern Blacks, defined by legal segregation known as “Jim Crow” – after a minstrel routine in which whites painted their faces black – shaped the social, political and legal history of the period. In 1954, with the Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, the Jim Crow laws and way of life began to fall.
RISE AND FALL OF JIM CROW “TERROR AND TRIUMPH,” | Written, Produced and Directed by Bill Jersey | 2002 | 56min
The final episode, “Terror and Triumph,” examines the surge of black activism that took place after World War II. Prolonged legal battles led to Supreme Court decisions that opened doors and restored voting rights for blacks. The battle for freedom, dignity, and opportunity throughout America continued through the ’50s and ’60s — and in many respects, continues today.
Red Summer/Winter Blues– a screening of the work in progress by Middle Passage Productions
Red Summer/Winter Blues is the untold story of black resistance and uprising for seven months in 1919. The bloody attacks prompted James Weldon Johnson, then the NAACP’s field secretary, to call it the “Red Summer.” The movement born from the Red Summer laid the groundwork for the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement and today’s Black Lives Matter movement.