On August 29 at 10am, the Silver City Museum is offering a free webinar by historian Dr. Stephen Fox entitled “Jaime Crow in New Mexico: Mexicans and Whites in Grant County since 1870.” This photo from the Silver City Museum collection is of a segregated 1920 class at the Lincoln School.On August 29 at 10am, the Silver City Museum is offering a free webinar by historian Stephen Fox entitled “Jaime Crow in New Mexico: Mexicans and Whites in Grant County since 1870.” It explores the regime of Anglo-Hispanic segregation in Southwest New Mexico, known as “Jaime Crow” and based on systems of white supremacy imported from the Jim Crow South.
Register for the Zoom Webinar at silvercitymuseum.org, https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_i46WHC_KT8-vjPuN28qx8Q, or download the Zoom app ahead of time and enter Meeting ID 883 1967 5010.
According to Dr. Fox, one of the untold stories in Grant County history, indeed in the entire history of New Mexico, is the segregations and discriminations that Anglos imposed on Hispanics during the twentieth century.
In Silver City, the relative equality and fairness of its pioneer days yielded after 1900 to novel separations and mistreatments. Complete Jaime Crow conditions came to Grant County from the outsiders who ran the mining towns of Santa Rita and Hurley, notably one who had spent a decade in the South and installed many of its segregationist practices.
These spread throughout the county. In 1915 Silver City opened its first segregated school in Chihuahua Hill. The mines of Grant County were also segregated, with Hispanics generally shut out of jobs above the level of laborers. They were also paid less than Anglos for the same jobs.
By the 1950s, a restaurant in Silver City had a sign: “No Mexicans or Dogs Allowed.” A popular after-school hangout admitted no Mexican students. At the Hurley company store, Hispanics waited at the back of the line until all the Anglos were served first. At the Silco movie theater, Hispanics sat upstairs on hard wooden seats while Anglos sat downstairs on comfortable padded chairs.
In response to such conditions, the late twentieth century brought two major episodes of Chicano protest. The Brown Berets came to town in 1971. And in 1985 two local men started a bilingual newspaper, El Reportero, which publicized and protested against unfair conditions.
Stephen Fox was born in Boston and attended college in western Massachusetts, and grad school in Rhode Island. He graduated from Williams College in 1966 and earned his PhD in US history at Brown University in 1971. A freelance historian, he published seven books between 1970 and 2007. Steve and his wife, Alexandra Todd, moved to Silver City in 2008. Of late he has delved into the history of segregation and discrimination against Hispanics in Grant County. His article on that subject ran in the Spring 2019 issue of the New Mexico Historical Review.
The Silver City Museum creates opportunities for residents and visitors to explore, understand, and celebrate the rich and diverse cultural heritage of southwestern New Mexico by collecting, preserving, researching, and interpreting the region's unique history. It is nationally recognized through its accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums.
For more information, please contact the museum at (575) 538-5921 education@silvercitymuseum.org , or visit the museum's website: www.silvercitymuseum.org