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Title: The Strange Career of Jim Crow by Comer Vann Woodward ISBN: 0-19-501805-2 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: September, 1989 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Still influential today
Comment: C. Vann Woodward's "The Strange Career of Jim Crow" was the first major effort to analyze the segregation system in the American South. Appearing in 1955, the author's treatment of this institution refuted contemporary statements made by several public figures who argued that racial separation was an ancient phenomenon that would last indefinitely. Not so, argued Woodward, as he proceeded to prove that the South experienced a time after the Civil War when the two races often intermingled without widespread hostility on the part of southern whites. Woodward's book expresses the heartfelt belief that since segregation was a recent development, the possibility existed for the South to reject its separatist doctrine and eventually embrace integrationist principles. The first chapters deal with the period during and after Reconstruction, what Woodward refers to as the First Reconstruction, when the South grudgingly accepted conditions forced upon it by the North. The author argues that blacks in southern urban areas often lived side by side with white citizens, as well as rode in the same streetcars and dined in many of the same restaurants. There were exceptions to these incidents, but overall monolithic, legalized segregation measures simply did not exist.
One of the reasons for this lack of overarching segregation policies concerned southern politics in the post-Civil War South. The author outlines three political philosophies during the 1880s and 1890s that worked to capitalize upon black support. Southern liberalism went nowhere with its arguments that all citizens must have equal rights in all social spheres. Conservative southerners took a position between liberals and radical racists, arguing that in every society there existed superior and inferior elements. Obviously, conservatives claimed, blacks occupied an inferior position to whites. This did not mean that blacks should be treated harshly or denied privileges. The conservatives were paternalists and used the goodwill they earned from blacks to capture elective offices from the Redeemers. The conservative political philosophy collapsed when widespread corruption swept its proponents from office. The Populists, the last southern political structure Woodward discusses, also attempted an alliance with blacks. The movement was short lived, and with external pressures of the 1880s and 1890s such as economic depression and northern indifference to blacks, southerners blamed blacks for their social ills. Moreover, southern politicians weary of the years of malicious infighting decided to seek a measure of unification, and they achieved this fusion by blaming black voters for economic and political discord. It is at this time, writes the author, when segregation laws blossomed across the South.
The second section of the book deals with the emergence and consequences of what Woodward calls the Second Reconstruction. Starting during the Second World War and emerging fully during the 1950s and 1960s, this era of race relations saw increasing waves of attacks directed against Jim Crow in the South. The first maneuvers came from the White House, with Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman launching several initiatives aimed at integrating defense jobs and the armed services. The second wave came with a series of Supreme Court actions seeking to integrate the school systems. With action came reaction as the segregationists finally launched an offensive against Brown vs. The Board of Education when lower court judges in the South upheld the higher court's ruling. The resulting attempts to undercut the judgment by southern state governments coupled with periodic outbreaks of violence led to even more civil rights initiatives from the federal government. Kennedy proposed and Johnson pushed through Congress measures aimed at accelerating integration and restoring the black vote in the South. The Second Reconstruction ended after the riots of the 1960s in northern cities caused civil rights organizations to shift from a role of non-violence to militant black nationalism. Woodward's book concludes on a rather pessimistic note when he observes that black-white relations seem to be reverting to a new form of racial separation.
It is difficult to find problems with "The Strange Career of Jim Crow." The book was the first work to sum up the civil rights movement in the United States. Moreover, the author wrote a book broad enough to give historians plenty of material for further research, something scholars always appreciate. Even the form of the book, with its lack of footnotes and energetic style, is more of a plus than a minus. By writing a friendly, accessible treatment of the issue, Woodward managed to reach beyond the walls of academia and find a wide public audience. It is not difficult to imagine that many of the young people registering black voters or going on freedom rides could cite this book as a major influence in their decision to make a stand against segregation. As the afterword shows, even Martin Luther King, Jr read and quoted Woodward on occasion. Finally, the fact that this book has never gone out of print underscores its seminal influence on the country at large.
No book is immune to criticism, however. Woodward often fails to incorporate into his narrative what actions blacks took in response to segregation. This critique is not always valid: the author does cite a black newspaperman who toured the South in the late 1800s, along with several members of the Black Panther Party. But in several places the book needs some description of black agency, especially the chapter concerning southern politics. Woodward presents the black population in the 1880s and 1890s as a passive force palmed off from one white political faction to another. Are we to assume that black voters simply bowed their heads and acted the role of dupes to savvy white politicians? Perhaps many did due to a lack of education and a lingering submissiveness from the days of slavery, but there were people who attempted to participate in the system in order to earn their rights.
Rating: 5
Summary: Fascinating book on a sad aspect of US history and politics
Comment: I have the 1957 edition of the book, and so can't comment on the new chapter.
This is a fascinating book which should be read by anyone interested in racial issues, US history, or US politics.
The major surprise to me is Woodward's description, complete with many contemporary quotes, of a time in the late 1800's post-Reconstruction South where African Americans were treated largely equally with regard to public accomodations and voting. Segregation, then, was considered to be a "lower-class white attitude."
It wasn't until approximately 1900 that a very segregationist attitude came about in the South, largely as the result of the interplay of Republican, Democratic, and Progressive politics.
This is course gives the lie to assertion through much of the 1900's that de jure racial segregation was a time-honored part of Southern life, and there was no possible alternative.
Woodward then goes on to describe the depths to which Jim Crow legislation sank, describing the effect of African American migration within the country, World War II, how our segregationist policies hurt the US image abroad, and on to the beginnings of the civil rights movement, ending shortly after _Brown v. Board of Education_, well before the major civil rights events and legislation.
Fairly quick read, and a great book!
Rating: 4
Summary: Race in America
Comment: The most fascinating thing about this book is not just the particular events in history, or the misconceptions and myths that Woodward discusses, but rather how truly complex the issue of race is in America. Since emancipation, there has always been a struggle between and among whites and blacks to figure out how to understand each other and themselves, and how to occupy the same place. This history is indeed strange, and to have an idea of why race is still such an issue today, it helps to know how racism, segregation, and civil rights changed over time.
Woodward's book cautions us against taking simplified views that the South was always racist, and the North was not, and he begins by describing various accounts of life in the South right after the Civil War. According to Woodward, the venomous prejudice that sustained the Jim Crow laws decades later wasn't foreseeable at that time. Much of his explanation of the racist sentiment that so desired segregation is framed in the context of politics, and he tries to analyze many of the events he discusses in terms of political and economic pressures, as well as in terms of reactions to preceding actions.
If the Civil War is to be seen as a war for racial equality (and there are many other ways of seeing it), then it can easily be argued that it continues to this day. It is often most comforting to think of the wiping out of Native Americans, and then the enslavement of Africans as hideous scars that America carries in the past, while believing that America today is a different, tolerant place. But Jim Crow laws were a product of the twentieth century, and the racial tensions still exist in a very real way. Woodward's book, first published in 1955, and last revised in 1974, is still immensely relevant today, and reading it can only enhance your sense of American history.
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Title: Origins of the New South, 1877-1913, by Comer Vann, Woodward ISBN: 0807100196 Publisher: Louisiana State University Press Pub. Date: January, 1972 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Mind of the South by W.J. CASH ISBN: 0679736476 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 10 September, 1991 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: A Short History of Reconstruction by Eric Foner ISBN: 0060964316 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 10 January, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 by Eric Foner ISBN: 0060937165 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: The Negro in the Making of America by Benjamin Quarles, V. P. Franklin ISBN: 0684818884 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: February, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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