Rand's little white slip

“The danger to majority rule – to him sort of thinking, well, the majority voted for me, now I’m the majority, I can do whatever I want, and that there are no rules that restrain me – that’s what gave us Jim Crow,” Paul said. “That’s what gave us the internment of the Japanese – that the majority said you don’t have individual rights, and individual rights don’t come from your creator, and they’re not guaranteed by the Constitution. It’s just whatever the majority wants.”

Paul might have a point with Japanese internment, which was authorized by executive order. But the reference to Jim Crow—which he’s made before—is just nonsense. The thing about Jim Crow, after all, is that it’s emergence was profoundly undemocratic and distinctly anti-majoritarian. Throughout the South, pluralities of the electorate—and in the case of Mississippi and Louisiana, outright majorities—were disenfranchised through violence and terrorism. Republican lawmakers (black and white) were driven from office, black voters were barred from the polls (or sometimes, just murdered), and paramilitary groups suppressed black political life.

From the 1880s into the 1960s, a majority of American states enforced segregation through "Jim Crow" laws (so called after a black character in minstrel shows). From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated. Here is a sampling of laws from various states.

Nurses: No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed.

Buses: All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation
company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races.

Railroads: The conductor of each passenger train is authorized and required to assign each passenger to the car or the division of the car, when it is divided by a partition, designated for the race to which such passenger belongs.

Restaurants: It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment.

Pool and Billiard Rooms: It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in company with each other at any game of pool or billiards.

Toilet Facilities, Male: Every employer of white or negro males shall provide for such white or negro males reasonably accessible and separate toilet facilities.