Jim Crow Moves North
Jim Crow Moves North
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A history of various efforts to desegregate northern schools during the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, exploring two dominant themes. The first considers the role of law in accomplishing racial change. Most northern state legislatures enacted legislation after the Civil War that prohibited school segregation and most northern courts, when called upon, enforced that legislation. Notwithstanding this clear legal opposition to school segregation, racially separate schools flourished in much of the north until the late 1940s and early 1950s. The second theme is the ambivalence in the northern black community over the importance of school integration. Since the antebellum era, northern blacks have sharply divided over the question of whether black children would fare better in separate black schools or in racially integrated ones. These competing visions of black empowerment in the northern black community as reflected in the debate over school integration are addressed here.
- Explores how African Americans challenged the persistence of school segregation in many northern communities
- Explores the sharp division that has existed for decades in the African-American community over the importance of school integration
- Explores the depths of anti-black sentiment in the American North from the Civil War until the middle of the twentieth century
Reviews & endorsements
"…This is a valuable contribution as a historical study, as a commentary on contemporary questions about the best means of providing quality education to all children, and as an addition to a growing literature that is reassessing the impact of desegregation for African American children."
-Choice
"Eminently readable and thoughtfully constructed, Jim Crow Moves North is a welcome addition to the literature."
-TCRecord
"Douglas has provided a solid summary of the fight for school integration in the North, and in doing so he has broadened our understanding of the struggle against racial segregation in America."
-Shawn Leigh Alexander, Yale University, Register of the Knetucky Historical Society
"Of the many strengths of thsi book, one taht stands out is Douglas's ability to make all these issues relevant, even essential, to his account. It is tightly written and never digressive, despite its wide-ranging subject matter."
-Christopher W. Schmidt, Dartmouth College, Michigan Historical Review
"Douglas provides a useful background to the continuing effort to bring African American children and youth into the mainstream of American education and thus of our society."
-Charles L. Glenn, Boston University, American Historical Review
"Douglas's book...offers a significan contribution for scholars and readers interested in not only the association between the campaign to end segregated schools in the North and the US's racist society, but also the value of exploring African American's complex opinions on integration and black self-determination in general." -John Daves, African American Review
Product details
- Published: October 2005
- Format: Hardback
- ISBN: 9780521845649
- Length: 346 pages
- Dimensions: 235 × 157 × 21 mm
- Weight: 0.584kg
- Contains: 18 b/w illus. 1 colour illus.
- Availability: Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. The struggle for black education in the antebellum north
- 3. Legislative reform: banning school segregation, 1865–90
- 4. The spread of northern school segregation, 1890–1940
- 5. Responding to the spread of northern school segregation: conflict within the black community, 1900–40
- 6. The democratic imperative: the campaign against northern school segregation, 1940–54
- 7. Conclusion.
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