American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow |
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American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow
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by Jerrold M. Packard and Jerrold Packard
Sales Rank: 328278
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List Price: $15.95
$12.44
At Amazon
on 6-21-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 304 pages
Published by: St. Martin's Griffin July 21, 2003
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 031230241X
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0312302412
Book Dimensions:
9.2 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
Weighs: 11.7 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
This is a clear, concise, historical narrative of a draconian reality: how U.S. legal statutes were partially generated by, and in turn bolstered, racist social conditions and entrenched customs. Writing simply and with passion, Packard (Victoria's Daughters) begins with the surprising fact that African-Americans, as well as whites, were first brought to America as indentured servants. But by 1670, laws were in place that consigned African-Americans to slavery. While not offering any new or startling analysis, the strength of the book is its accumulation of detail. Packard's background on Homer Plessy, whose case generated the Supreme Court's 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision legally codifying "separate but equal," is moving. Teddy Roosevelt's landmark White House dinner with Booker T. Washington is shown to have been a casual invitation, not a planned political move. A 1969 study showed that less than 1% of African-Americans worshiped with their white counterparts. One of the nine high school students needing the assistance of Federal troops in 1957 to attend the newly integrated school in Little Rock, Ark., was later expelled for responding to racist taunts. Packard carefully places these facts in a firm historical context. Even when the material is familiar, he weaves it into a sturdy and often shocking American tapestry.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Packard, whose recent works have included books on the British royalty (Victoria's Daughters) and World War II (Neither Friend Nor Foe), here chronicles the history of Jim Crow from its biblical origins in the story of Ham to the heroic efforts of civil rights activists in the 1960s. The book details how Jim Crow laws pervaded all aspects of Southern social life including schools, churches, restaurants, libraries, and even cemeteries (a 1900 Mississippi law allowed black corpses to be dug up from "white" cemeteries). The book also focuses on Jim Crow's being almost as widespread in the North, especially as African Americans moved northward for better-paying jobs during the early to mid-20th century when European immigration dwindled. The book is essentially a summation of important people, events, and court cases that led to the end of legalized Jim Crow. Packard's casual style reads easily, but the book suffers from its use of mostly secondary sources. Recommended for libraries seeking a readable overview of the Jim Crow era. [Readers interested in primary-source material on the Jim Crow era should refer to Remembering Jim Crow, LJ 10/1/01.] Robert K. Flatley, Frostburg State Univ., M.
- Robert K. Flatley, Frostburg State Univ., MD
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow (Hardcover)
_American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow_ (St. Martin's) by Jerrold Packard is in many ways a difficult book to read, for while the picayune and artificial rules by which blacks were kept in their place in the South are now so obviously stupid, they were for years maintained by whites and endured by blacks. As Packard says, this is a history of the worst of America, an examination of how poorly it had lived up to the ideals for which it really stands. There is also inspiration here, in the courage of black Americans who were able to achieve basic justice out of oppression. There is also some need for congratulation; we have not achieved harmony between the races, but the egregious practices described here will never come back. There was hardly a part of society that the Jim Crow laws or customs did not control. Naturally, the rules were different in different places (leading to confusion for black people who traveled anywhere), but the examples given in the book will remind Southerners who are old enough just how strange the system was. There might be two lines for movie tickets, if blacks were allowed in the theater, and if they were, they had to sit upstairs. In North Carolina and Florida, officials insisted that schoolbooks used by blacks had to be stored in different spaces than those used by whites. Sometimes a town library might have a room for black users, but often they were barred from the library altogether. A 1900 Mississippi law allowed black corpses to be dug up from white cemeteries and sent to black ones. Whereas slaves could have gone to white churches, within a specified section, free blacks were barred from white congregations, who were told that such discrimination was decreed by God himself. Streetcar and bus conductors were given police power to enforce seating regulations; in some places, the front of a streetcar was regarded as the place for inferiors, prompting a white person to remark on the variant: "It isn't important which end of the car is given to a nigger. The main point is that he must sit where he is told." Of course Jim Crow ruled on housing, schooling, and voting. Eventually, Packard demonstrates, the economic and social forces from World War II, and the glare of international embarrassment, provided important reasons for the nation to make changes. Whatever forms of racism remain, Jim Crow is dead, killed by hundreds of heroic acts large and small. Thus Packard's final chapters are inspiring, showing Rosa Parks refusing to surrender a bus seat to a white passenger in 1955, and the resultant Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott. A preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr., was launched into leadership by the boycott, which grew into a movement of freedom riding, lunch counter sit-ins, and voting registration drives. It was no easy victory; though the blacks were constantly accused of violence, they were the victims, not the culprits, of church bombings, lynchings, and police dog attacks. Equal treatment should not have been so long denied, and this battle never should have had to happen, but it is in the end a victorious tale. Packard reflects upon the ambiguous lesson that many young people in the south now have no idea what Jim Crow means, and are astounded to learn how ubiquitous it was. His book is a useful and compelling history of the institution, a reminder that understanding the past will help us confront the current challenges of race relations.
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American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow
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