History 4305
Dr. Jonathan Chism
October 9, 2017
The Strange Career of Jim Crow
The Strange Career of Jim Crow is a book written by Comer Vann Woodward in 1955. The Strange Career of Jim Crow has been hailed by many including the Southern Historical Association who claimed his book was on the the best depictions of the New South. Its a book which shaped many views of the history of the Civil Rights Movement and of the American South. Martin Luther King, Jr. described the book as “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement” because of the way it illustrates the history of Jim Crow laws, segregation, and the division between blacks and whites. The publication discusses and asserts that Jim Crow laws were relatively …show more content…
These laws restricted where African Americans, Native Americans and Asian citizens could associate with whites in nearly every aspect of life including housing, employment, restaurants, schools, and hospitals. The laws also included sundown town where African Americans were not allowed within the town overnight, and prohibiting race mixing between white Americans and non white Americans. Woodward asserts that Jim Crow laws were an unsystematic creation devised by white southerners towards the end of the 1800s, and not a natural creation caused by the Civil War, Reconstruction, or even the Redemption movement. He states “One of the strangest things about the career of Jim Crow was that the system was born in the North and reached an advanced age before moving South in force”. He states that Jim Crow would have been an inconvenience during slavery. “Segregation would have been an inconvenience and an obstruction to the functioning of the system. The very nature of the institution made separation of the races for the most part impracticable." Woodward also believed that neither conservatism, radicalism, or liberalism were not the causes of …show more content…
“Jim Crow Laws.” Jim Crow Laws: Facts, List and Examples ***, www.american-historama.org/1866-1881-reconstruction-era/jim-crow-laws.htm.
Romeyn, Kathryn. “L.A.'s Ugly Jim Crow History: When Beaches Were Segregated.” The Hollywood Reporter, 5 Aug. 2016, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/los-angeles-history-jim-crow-916441.
Orals Reading Notes: The Strange Career of Jim Crow, C. Vann Woodward, www.kevincmurphy.com/woodward.html.
Phibbs, Cheryl Fisher. “The Montgomery Bus Boycott: a History and Reference Guide.” The Montgomery Bus Boycott: a History and Reference Guide, Greenwood, 2009, pp.