Georgia Legislature Moves to Take Jim Crow Laws Off the Books

Democrats and Republicans united Wednesday behind legislation to take segregationist "Jim Crow" laws off the books in Georgia. The laws, which were passed in defiance of a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that led to public school integration, are unenforceable but remain on the books in Georgia and some other Southern states. State Rep. Tyrone Brooks (D-Atlanta), president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, told colleagues in a speech Wednesday that the laws are a reminder of "one of the darkest eras in our history when our state was working hard to maintain an apartheid system, a separate society." Brooks is joined as a co-sponsor of the bill by Republican Rep. Mike Coan of Lawrenceville. "This isn't a partisan issue, it's an issue of right and wrong," said Coan. The Georgia Code retains at least four laws passed in response to the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which overturned segregation in schools. Georgia's laws, among other things, give the governor the power to close a public school likely to "cause violence or public disorder . . . to preserve the good order, peace and dignity of the state." They also allow the governor to suspend compulsory education laws when integration threatens. Most legislators were unaware that the laws remained on the books until publicity surrounding a University of Arizona study on the topic last year. The study found that Georgia and at least seven other states --- Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia --- still had Jim Crow laws. Missouri and Louisiana subsequently removed their Jim Crow statutes. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution January 27, 2005