Book Review: The Strange Career of Jim Crow

Woodward, C. Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. A Commemorative Edition with a new afterward by William S. McFeely. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

From the distance of sixty years since its original publication, The Strange Career of Jim Crow may not ignite reader’s passions as it did on the eve of the Civil Rights Movement of the nineteen fifties. But with the hindsight that history offers, The Strange Career of Jim Crow continues to be, as Martin Luther King, Jr. described, “The Historical Bible of the Civil Rights Movement.” C. Vann Woodward forever solidified his importance in Southern History with his groundbreaking essays on Reconstruction, race, and the Jim Crow South.

History is not always transparent or easy to interpret. The decades following the Civil War are sometimes characterized as harmonious and without conflict. Woodward turned that perspective on its head with The Strange Career of Jim Crow. His thesis runs that Jim Crow laws and segregation did not occur until after the Civil War, with Reconstruction well on its way. Instead, he argues that white racial superiority manifested itself at the very beginning of the twentieth century in the form of Jim Crow laws and segregation. Jim Crow was not an inevitable outcome of the Civil War or Reconstruction. Those laws were a choice made by white Americans, Northern and Southern.

The majority of the first part of The Strange Career of Jim Crow is a much-needed history lesson on racial circumstances from the Civil War onward. Woodward asserts that segregation stemmed from slavery. Although most slaves worked in the presence of their slave owners, a large amount other daily activities took place away from the whites. Slave’s sleeping, bathing, eating, and other daily activities took place away from the whites whom they served. Despite this seclusion, there was little other segregation. Black slaves, especially house servants, were constantly in the presence of whites. Woodward also mentions the fact of slave health in relation to the nearness of whites. It was in the best interest of the slave owner to maintain their slave’s health. Slave owners would have tended to wounds and otherwise been in close proximity with their property for mere financial reasons.

In what is considered a historical revelation, Woodward suggests that Jim Crow and segregation weren’t inevitable aftershocks of the Civil War or Reconstruction, but were instead part of a bigger political picture. The South did not go from Civil War to racial segregation over night. While it took nearly one hundred years for blacks to be recognized as full citizens, many held prominent positions in society. Woodward lists name after name and number after number of black men to hold respected societal positions up to the turn of the century, including members of state senates and postmasters. Next, the author points to the relationships blacks and whites held in day-to-day life. In certain areas, blacks and whites shared train rides. They shared restaurants. They shared barbers. They shared churches and religion. Woodward is quick to point out that Jim Crow laws regarding transportation began in the North, not in the South where they would eventually flourish. However, far from blaming the North for Jim Crow laws, Woodward goes on to explain how the laws and segregation permeated the South. He points to a fateful mix of Southern politics, white supremacy and economics as the factors that ultimately led to the South’s divided public.

Despite the doom and gloom the South created for itself, Woodward also hopefully maintained that if Jim Crow and segregation could come to be accepted, then desegregation and the Civil Rights movement could change what had previously been wrought. It is this hopeful endearment that makes The Strange Career of Jim Crow such a timeless piece. In the face of all of the hate, all of the negativity, C. Vann Woodward is able to live during these tumultuous times and still have hope for a better South.

The distance between W. J. Cash and C. Vann Woodward as writers rings loud and clear (not to be confused with Cash’s “gallop of Jeb Stuart’s cavalrymen”). Cash writes The Mind of the South as a great Southern fiction novel, while Woodward in The Strange Career of Jim Crow is clearly an academic writing for the general public. When comparing the two books, it is again evident how Cash pays little to no attention to the blacks. On the other hand, Woodward focuses on the plight of the black man and the challenges he faced.

Most significantly, Cash’s broad thesis surrounds his theory of continuity: a continual link between the Old South and the New South. Woodward begins The Strange Career of Jim Crow by comparing American history to that of a stream flowing through the centuries. The stream flowed down from the seventeenth century, reaching a level plain in the eighteenth century. Woodward points out that at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Southern history took a different path, plunging over falls or swirling through rapids. “The breaks in the course of Southern history go by the names of slavery and secession, independence and defeat, emancipation and reconstruction, redemption and reunion.” Without question Southern history took a different course, not only prior to the Civil War, but in the years known as Reconstruction. Clearly, Cash saw a continuity where Woodward did not.

And finally, Cash is never able to cut to the heart of the black experience as Woodward does. Mostly given to criticizing the black man for his laziness, Cash rarely mentions blacks and never does he champion their burgeoning civil rights cause. However, Woodward is able to see the black man’s point of view in regard to slavery, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. The Strange Career of Jim Crow is itself an advocate for Civil Rights. Perhaps, given the chance of a longer life, W. J. Cash could have had a chance to remedy some of his interpretations of history.

The Strange Career of Jim Crow details the life of one of America’s biggest embarrassment in terms of legislation. Woodward has completely mastered the pen and builds steam as the Civil Rights Movements crests. Generations of Americans have turned to The Strange Career of Jim Crow to learn about our shared history. This relatively short book still has much to teach Americans and will continue to teach even over the distance of time.