Ahead of a historic U.S. election, Black Americans remember the painful Jim Crow era

It’s almost at the edge of living memory: U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act in July 1964, urging Americans to “close the springs of racial poison.” The legislation prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin at places serving the public – such as swimming pools and restaurants – as well as in education, hiring, promotion and firing and voting. And it gave the federal government powers to enforce those guarantees. It was the beginning of the end of Jim Crow, the often brutally enforced web of racist laws and practices born in the South to subjugate Black Americans. Members of the last generation to live under unabashed Jim Crow are among voters in a historic presidential election that has been roiled by racial and other divisions. Both candidates have been touched by the legislation in their earlier lives. Democratic candidate Kamala Harris was bused to school as a young girl in California, as part of efforts across the country to bring children from largely Black areas to schools in largely white neighbourhoods and vice versa. In 1973, the federal government sued Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s family-owned Trump Management Co. for...