The Strange Career of Jim Crow Essay example -- Civil Rights Movement

The Strange life story of Jim triumphC. Vann Woodwards book, The Strange Career of Jim exuberate, has been hailed as a book which shaped our views of the history of the well-bred Rights proceeding and of the American South. Martin Luther King, Jr. described the book as the historical password of the civil rights movement. The argument presented in The Strange Career of Jim line-shooting is that the Jim Crow laws were relatively new introductions to the South that occurred towards the turn of the century rather than without delay after the end of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Woodward examines personal accounts, opinions, and editorials from the eras as well as the laws in place at the times. He examines the semipolitical history behind the emergence of the Jim Crow laws. The Strange Career of Jim Crow gives a new insight into the history of the American South and the Civil Rights Movement.C. Vann Woodwards The Strange Career of Jim Crow looks into the emergence of the Jim Crow laws setoff with the Reconstruction era and following through the Civil Rights Movement. Woodward contends that Jim Crow laws were non a part of the Reconstruction or the following years, and that most Jim Crow laws were in place in the North at that particular time. In the South, immediately after the end of slavery, most white southerners, especially the amphetamine classes, were used to the presence and proximity of African Americans. House slaves were often set well, almost like part of the family, or a favored pet, and umpteen upper-class southern children were raised with the help of a mammy or bootleg nursery- maid. The races often mixed in the demi- monde, and the cohabitation of white men and black women were far from uncommon, and close to areas even had spe... ...howing the true race relations end-to-end the south during that period. Jim Crow laws might not have been in answer and might have been though unnecessary by a tidy sum of southerners , but it would be interesting to find out how many African Americans were lynched during the period before Jim Crow laws became prominent for offenses which would later be nefarious under Jim Crow. Just as Woodward quoted President Eisenhower as saying you cannot alter peoples hearts merely by law(163), so the lack of Jim Crow legislation does not necessarily mean that some southerners wanted it and lived as though it existed.Works CitedWoodward, C. V. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. stark naked York Oxford University Press, 2002. Works ConsultedC. Vann Woodward. 31 Oct. 2004. Wikipedia. 1 Nov. 2004 .