Ray Sprigle was a bulldog of an investigative reporter. A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, He lived and experienced the injustice for himself and then wrote about it. Reminds me quite of bit of Nellie Bly and her investigative reporting on New York’s asylum on Blackwell Island in the 19th century. Disguising himself as a Black man (using mothing more than a tan) and travelling with an NAACP provided “guide” J.W. Dobbs (who was a highly respected man in the contemporary Southern Black community), Sprigle toured the late 1940’s South and experienced “Jim Crow” racism at its finest. He got a face full, firsthand. How proud those Southerners must have been about successfully dehumanizing their ex-slaves…as if the 200 years in bondage was not enough…they had to add another 100. To think…within my parent’s lifetime…this abomination of separate and “unequal” continued to exist…
In 1948, I Was a Negro in the South for 30 Days was published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but was syndicated out to newspapers throughout the country…except in the South…because Heaven forbid we condone exposure of all those dirty secrets…
While his expose didn’t win Sprigle another Pulitzer, he did turn into book. After the news story had run its course, In the Land of Jim Crow was published. The book wasn’t all that popular and It’s a pretty rare book today, so unless you want to buy a copy (which are few and far between), you probably won’t be reading this text. However, the entire newspaper expose is online, readable and completely free. The whole basis for the book is right here…so who needs the book…
but just in case...
