Born in 1962: Why Jim Crow and Racial Injustice Still Matter Today

 Born in 1962: Why Jim Crow and Racial Injustice Still Matter Today

In 1962, Montgomery, Alabama, was still deeply segregated. Rosa Parks had refused to give up her seat only seven years prior, igniting a movement that would shake the world. Ruby Bridges, a young Black girl, had braved angry mobs to integrate a white school just two years before I was born. Martin Luther King Jr. was fighting tirelessly against oppression, and across the U.S., Black and Latino people were still being denied basic rights. The Jim Crow era may seem like a distant past, but its legacy lingers in ways many still fail to acknowledge.

That same year, I was born—not in the U.S., but in Canada, a country with its own complex history of discrimination. Here, Japanese families were still rebuilding their lives after being forced into internment camps during WWII. Indigenous children were still being taken from their families and placed in residential schools. Segregation wasn't just an American issue—Canada, too, has its own history of exclusion, racism, and injustice.

A Family Woven Through History

My own family history is a story of migration, resilience, and survival. On my mother’s side, my great-great-grandfather came from the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago, and married a Songhees woman. Their son, my great-grandfather, would go on to marry the granddaughter of a woman known as the Grandmother of the West, or the Grandmother of the Pacific Coast. Before the 49th parallel divided the land, before the concept of Canada and the United States even existed as we know them today, my ancestors traveled, traded, and built lives in the Pacific Northwest, connected by waterways rather than borders.

They were part of a world that existed before colonial lines were drawn—a world where Indigenous nations, French voyageurs, and European immigrants coexisted in complex and evolving ways. But as history unfolded, laws and policies created new divisions, restricting movement, segregating communities, and marginalizing entire groups of people.

Why This History Still Matters Today

Many young people today might look at the Jim Crow era and think of it as ancient history, something that happened in another country, far removed from their lives. But racism, segregation, and systemic discrimination didn’t end with the Civil Rights Movement. The effects of Jim Crow still shape the racial wealth gap in the U.S., just as Canada’s history of Indigenous dispossession, internment camps, and immigration restrictions continue to impact communities today.

In the U.S., mass incarceration disproportionately targets Black and Latino communities, much like segregation once did. In Canada, Indigenous people are overrepresented in prisons, face systemic discrimination in the child welfare system, and continue to fight for land rights and self-governance. These struggles aren’t relics of the past—they are ongoing battles for justice.

What Can We Learn?

History is not just a collection of dates and events—it is a living force that shapes our present and our future. Understanding what happened in Montgomery in 1962 helps us recognize patterns of oppression that still exist today. Learning about Canada’s own injustices helps dismantle the myth of a racism-free society. And knowing our own family histories—how our ancestors moved, struggled, and survived—reminds us that we are all connected by these larger stories.

So, what can we do? We can educate ourselves and others. We can listen to the voices of those still fighting for equality. We can challenge injustice where we see it. And most importantly, we can refuse to let history be forgotten, ensuring that the struggles of the past fuel the fight for a more just future.

As someone born in 1962, I’ve seen how much has changed—and how much hasn’t. The question is: What will we do with the lessons history has given us?