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Notes -
The retellings of elders who lived under Jim Crow which I have heard are that actually enforcing these laws was a task that almost no one was enthusiastic about unless it was perceived as some kind of a threat to white women, and given what we know about long prison sentences(that is, they’re meaningless if you get away with the crime 99 times out of 100), it wouldn’t have done anything to make using the wrong bathroom a serious crime.
Long prison sentences are meaningless against career criminals if you get away with the crime 99 times out of 100. They'll work fine against activists. You won't get a nice black lady like Rosa Parks to deliberately refuse to move if she's courting hard time by doing so. So either you don't get your test case or you get a case of opportunity, who is going to be a LOT less sympathetic (because he -- and it'll likely be a "he" -- is the hardass type who is willing to risk hard time rather than sit where he's told). Martin Luther King might be writing letters from the Birmingham jail, but let's see how much influence he has if he's given 5 years in Georgia State Prison (where he was once sent but quickly released). Hell, never mind Jim Crow; if Scopes had been facing a felony rather than a fine, evolution still wouldn't be being taught in Tennessee.
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