The Jim Crow legislation might be seen as a partial attempt by white male southerners to regain some of their lost dignity. But the pernicious effects it had upon subject blacks (and potential white friends) was a horrible injustice. Science was invoked to justify white supremacy. A range of Darwinian half-truths were paraded out, and whites were flattered with the constant refrain of their own racial superiority.

     Scientific racism was essentially the intellectual offspring of benign Darwinism, the more pernicious varieties of which -- such as Eugenics, Rassenbiologie, socalled skull science, and a host of others -- vociferously promoted a virulent anti-black (and anti-Semitic) racism. Even the relatively humane Darwin predicted that the inferior races, in a short time span, would decline and disappear before the advance of civilized (superior) races.

     In Descent of Man, Darwin said, "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races."

     Then vice-president of the United States of America, Calvin Coolidge also believed that biological laws told us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. Eugenicists efforts focused on new legal definitions of who could qualify to recieve a marriage license as a "white" person.

     During the 20's there were laws passed regarding racial integrity.  The Racial Integrity Act of 1924 was passed.  This act defined who would qualify as members of the "white" race.  It emphasized the "scientific" basis of race assesment, and the "dysgenic" dangers of race mixing.

     So embedded has racial prejudice been in the public mind that the attitudes of an entire nation have been infected. The greater the physical separation, the more ignorance could grow -- and fear. People's imaginations became inflamed, and the racial bugaboo was used for political purposes. Ironically, the perpetrators themselves wound up hurting their own interests. The economic pauperization of a whole class of potential contributors, potential consumers, virtually ensured postponement of prosperity for the middle class as well.

     But how far have we really come?