The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle outside of the South

Did American racism originate in the liberal North? An inquiry into the system of institutionalized racism created by Northern Jim Crow

Jim Crow was not a regional sickness, it was a national cancer. Even at the high point of twentieth century liberalism in the North, Jim Crow racism hid in plain sight. Perpetuated by colorblind arguments about “cultures of poverty,” policies focused more on black criminality than black equality. Procedures that diverted resources in education, housing, and jobs away from poor black people turned ghettos and prisons into social pandemics. Americans in the North made this history. They tried to unmake it, too.

Liberalism, rather than lighting the way to vanquish the darkness of the Jim Crow North gave racism new and complex places to hide. The twelve original essays in this anthology unveil Jim Crow’s many strange careers in the North. They accomplish two goals: first, they show how the Jim Crow North worked as a system to maintain social, economic, and political inequality in the nation’s most liberal places; and second, they chronicle how activists worked to undo the legal, economic, and social inequities born of Northern Jim Crow policies, practices, and ideas.

The book ultimately dispels the myth that the South was the birthplace of American racism, and presents a compelling argument that American racism actually originated in the North.

1129722359
The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle outside of the South

Did American racism originate in the liberal North? An inquiry into the system of institutionalized racism created by Northern Jim Crow

Jim Crow was not a regional sickness, it was a national cancer. Even at the high point of twentieth century liberalism in the North, Jim Crow racism hid in plain sight. Perpetuated by colorblind arguments about “cultures of poverty,” policies focused more on black criminality than black equality. Procedures that diverted resources in education, housing, and jobs away from poor black people turned ghettos and prisons into social pandemics. Americans in the North made this history. They tried to unmake it, too.

Liberalism, rather than lighting the way to vanquish the darkness of the Jim Crow North gave racism new and complex places to hide. The twelve original essays in this anthology unveil Jim Crow’s many strange careers in the North. They accomplish two goals: first, they show how the Jim Crow North worked as a system to maintain social, economic, and political inequality in the nation’s most liberal places; and second, they chronicle how activists worked to undo the legal, economic, and social inequities born of Northern Jim Crow policies, practices, and ideas.

The book ultimately dispels the myth that the South was the birthplace of American racism, and presents a compelling argument that American racism actually originated in the North.

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The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle outside of the South

The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle outside of the South

The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle outside of the South

The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle outside of the South

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Overview

Did American racism originate in the liberal North? An inquiry into the system of institutionalized racism created by Northern Jim Crow

Jim Crow was not a regional sickness, it was a national cancer. Even at the high point of twentieth century liberalism in the North, Jim Crow racism hid in plain sight. Perpetuated by colorblind arguments about “cultures of poverty,” policies focused more on black criminality than black equality. Procedures that diverted resources in education, housing, and jobs away from poor black people turned ghettos and prisons into social pandemics. Americans in the North made this history. They tried to unmake it, too.

Liberalism, rather than lighting the way to vanquish the darkness of the Jim Crow North gave racism new and complex places to hide. The twelve original essays in this anthology unveil Jim Crow’s many strange careers in the North. They accomplish two goals: first, they show how the Jim Crow North worked as a system to maintain social, economic, and political inequality in the nation’s most liberal places; and second, they chronicle how activists worked to undo the legal, economic, and social inequities born of Northern Jim Crow policies, practices, and ideas.

The book ultimately dispels the myth that the South was the birthplace of American racism, and presents a compelling argument that American racism actually originated in the North.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781479881192
Publisher: New York University Press
Publication date: 04/23/2019
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 352
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Brian Purnell (Editor)
Brian Purnell is Geoffrey Canada Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History at Bowdoin College. He is the editor of The Strange Careers of the Jim Crown North (NYU Press 2019) and author of Fighting Jim Crow in the County of Kings (University Press of Kentucky, 2013).

Jeanne Theoharis (Editor)
Jeanne Theoharis is distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of CUNY. She is the author of numerous books and articles on the black freedom struggle, including the award-winning The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (Beacon Press, 2013) and most recently A More Beautiful and Terrible History (Beacon Press, 2018).


Jeanne Theoharis is distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of CUNY. She is the co-editor of The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle outside of the South (NYU Press, 2019), A More Beautiful and Terrible History (Beacon Press, 2018), The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (Beacon Press, 2013), Want to Start A Revolution?: Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle (NYU Press 2009), Our Schools Suck: Students Talk Back to a Segregated Nation on the Failures of Urban Education (NYU Press 2009), and Not Working: Latina Immigrants, Low-Wage Jobs, and the Failure of Welfare Reform (NYU Press 2006).
Komozi Woodard is Professor of American History, Public Policy, and Africana Studies at Sarah Lawrence College and author of A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka and Black Power Politics.

Table of Contents

Introduction. Histories of Racism and Resistance, Seen and Unseen: How and Why to Think about the Jim Crow North Brian Purnell Jeanne Theoharis 1

1 A Murder in Central Park: Racial Violence and the Crime Wave in New York during the 1930s and 1940s Shannon King 43

2 In the "Fabled Land of Make-Believe": Charlotta Bass and Jim Crow Los Angeles John S. Portlock 67

3 Black Women as Activist Intellectuals: Ella Baker and Mae Mallory Combat Northern Jim Crow in New York City's Public Schools during the 1950s Kristopher Bryan Burrell 89

4 Brown Girl, Red Lines, and Brownstones: Paule Marshall's Brown Girl, Brownstones, and the Jim Crow North Balthazar I. Beckett 113

5 "Let Those Negroes Have Their Whiskey": White Backtalk and Jim Crow Discourse in the Era of Black Rebellion Laura Warren Hill 139

6 Segregation without Segregationists: How a White Community Avoided Integration Mary Barr 163

7 "You Are Running a de Facto Segregated University": Racial Segregation and the City University of New York, 1961-1968 Tahir H. Butt 187

8 A Forgotten Community, a Forgotten History: San Francisco's 1966 Urban Uprising Aliyah Dunn-Salahuddin 211

9 "The Shame of Our Whole Judicial System": George Crockett, Jr., the New Bethel Shoot-In, and the Nation's Jim Crow Judiciary Say Burgin 235

10 "We've Been behind the Scenes": Project Equality and Fair Employment in 1970s Milwaukee Crystal Marie Moten 259

11 The Media and H. Rap Brown: Friend or Foe of Jim Crow? Peter B. Levy 285

12 Stalled in the Movement: The Black Panther Party in Night Catches Us Ayesha K. Hardison 307

Acknowledgments 333

About the Editors 337

About the Contributors 339

Index 341

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