Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Talk About Life in the Segregated South

by William H. Chafe (Editor), Raymond Gavins (Editor), Robert Korstad (Editor)

Overview

A timely paperback reissue of the stunning, prize-winning portrait of the Jim Crow South through unique first-person accounts

Praised as “viscerally powerful” (Publishers Weekly), this remarkable work of oral history captures the searing experience of the Jim Crow years through first-person interviews carefully collected by researchers at Duke University’s Behind the Veil project. Newly relevant today as Americans reckon with the legacies of slavery and strive for racial equality, Remembering Jim Crow provides vivid, compelling accounts by men and women from all walks of life, who tell how their day-to-day lives were subjected to profound and unrelenting racial oppression.

“A shivering dose of reality and inspiring stories of everyday resistance” (Library Journal), Remembering Jim Crow is a testament to how Black Southerners fought back against the system, raising children, building churches and schools, running businesses, and struggling for respect in a society that denied them the most basic rights. Collectively, these narratives illuminate individual and community survival and tell a powerful story of the American past that is crucial for us to remember as we grapple with Jim Crow’s legacies in the present.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620976821
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	09/07/2021
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

William H. Chafe is the Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History emeritus at Duke Universityand is the author of numerous books.

Raymond Gavins (1942–2016) was a professor of history at Duke Universityand the project director of “Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South,” an oral history project undertaken by Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was the author of The Perils and Prospects of Southern Black Leadership.

Robert Korstad is the Kevin D. Gorter Professor of Public Policy and History at Duke University. He received his BA and PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include twentieth-century U.S. history, labor history, African American history, and contemporary social policy, and he is the co-director of a major documentary research project at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies, “Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Acknowledgments xi

Editorial Method xix

Introduction xxi

1 Bitter Truths 1

2 Heritage and Memory 62

3 Families and Communities 99

4 Lessons Well Learned 170

5 Work 229

6 Resistance and Political Struggles 299

Appendix: Informant Biographical Information 339

Suggestions for Further Reading 343

Index 349

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Remembering Jim Crow:
Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award

Winner of the Carey McWilliams Award

“A landmark book.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Powerful.”
—Booklist

“A shivering dose of reality and inspiring stories of everyday resistance.”
—Library Journal

“A multimedia triumph.”
—Kansas City Star

From the Publisher