America’s Second Reconstruction—what is usually referred to as the “civil-rights movement”—pushed back against Jim Crow half a century later by exposing the moral contradiction of segregation, especially in the context of a global struggle for democracy. This first reconstruction lasted until 1877, when the Great Compromise allowed the peaceful election of a President and the removal of all Northern occupational forces from the South. Abraham Lincoln and the winning politic party also believed the same ideas of White Supremacy as shown by Lincoln’s speech,” I am not…in favor of brining about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white… I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” Professor Woodward discusses the “unanticipated developments and revolutionary changes at the very center of the subject.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. referred to the book as the historical bible of the civil rights movement. The majority of blacks, however, remain in urban slums in both the North and South, with less than equal opportunity to pursue the "American Dream" of Martin Luther King. Paperback Strange Career offers a clear and illuminating analysis of the history of Jim Crow laws and American race relations. In 1955, Woodward’s The Strange Career of Jim Crow startled the nation. Order our The Strange Career of Jim Crow Study Guide, teaching or studying The Strange Career of Jim Crow. And until that commitment is realized, the struggle will no doubt continue—in the courts, at the ballot box, and in the streets. It failed. It is a book about history. Jim Crow. The movement had turned a red state blue. In 1955, Woodward’s The Strange Career of Jim Crow startled the nation. There was also segregation in public housing, which caused the creation of “Nigger Hill,” “New Guinea,” and “Little Africa.” The more western north barred African American from coming into the state in same way. : African Americans in an Age of Reform, 1890-1920, The Murder of Emmett Till: A Graphic History, Steeped in the Blood of Racism: Black Power, Law and Order, and the 1970 Shootings at Jackson State College, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s, The Jerry Rescue: The Fugitive Slave Law, Northern Rights, and the American Sectional Crisis, We Are Who We Say We Are: A Black Family's Search for Home Across the Atlantic World, Marching Across the Color Line: A. Philip Randolph and Civil Rights in the World War II Era, The Battle of Ole Miss: Civil Rights v. States' Rights, A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue: The Depression Decade, "They Say": Ida B. Attitudes, beliefs, social customs and de facto segregation cannot be legislated.  “The Strange Career of Jim Crow” is considered one of the great works of Southern history and was published in 1955.The book gives an analysis of the history of Jim Crow laws and shed light to the fact that segregation actually may have caused more of a divide than slavery. Among his books are Mary Chestnut's Civil War, The Origins of the New South, Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel, and The Burden of Southern History. But despite their use of terrorism, George White wasn’t going anywhere. This Study Guide consists of approximately 34 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - Woodward's most influential book was The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955), which explained that segregation was a relatively late development and was not inevitable. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. However, as Woodward, a native of Arkansas points out, the segregationist Jim Crow laws and policies were not fully a part of, The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward explains the development of Jim Crow Laws starting in the period of Reconstruction until its legal demise in 1965. Once again, it was a fusion of black and white, Christian and Jew, civil rights and labor coming together that presented the possibility of a new America. But proceedings in a federal courtroom in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, over the last few weeks make it clear that Jim Crow did not retire: He went to law school and launched a second career. Woodward, starting out on the left politically, wanted to use history to explore dissent. Southerners believed their “lost cause” was “redeemed” by noble whites ending black rampages. In the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. claimed the book to be "the historical bible of the Civil Rights Movement" (Dr. Fallin, class lecture, n, professor at Johns Hopkins University from 1946 to 1961. The term Jim Crow refers to a large body of law and social custom which served to establish and maintain segregation of the races in the South following the end of Reconstruction and moving into the mid-twentieth century. The Strange Career of Jim Crow is an absolutely classic history book that deserves to be read now, more than 60 years after its first publication. Throughout the McCrory trial, NAACP lawyers made a strong case that the voter-ID component of this legislation places an unnecessary and undue burden on voters—especially poor and African American voters. Features. At this point, the South had choices to make regarding race relations, and the victorious approach was to establish a large body of codified statutes, named Jim Crow, to vigorously and completely separate whites and blacks. Other critics also attack his style of writing in this very popular novel. George White’s political future after America’s First Reconstruction is illuminating; it outlines the pattern of a Third Reconstruction seen in the present fight for voting rights. It would be another 72 years before an African American from the South, with help from the 1965 Voting Rights Act, would circumvent Jim Crow and win a seat in Congress. Woodward shatters the stereotypical view of segregation through chronicling the history of America from reconstruction through the late 1960’s. To this day, no one knows how a caricature of a slave morphed from a song into the name of an entire system. History books based on lectures don’t usually become best-sellers, but The Strange Career… sold through several printings. Prominent Southern historian C. Vann Woodward, however, permanently changed history’s naïve, The Jim Crow laws were local and state laws that were supposedly “separate but equal,” but instead blacks were inferior to the whites due that to the social, educational, and economical disadvantages that they caused. Then, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court gave them the language of “separate but equal.” But White understood that, in fact, Jim Crow was determined to maintain the power structure of the plantation economy by any means necessary. C. Vann Woodward’s book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, has been hailed as a book which shaped our views of the history of the Civil Rights Movement and of the American South. With careful detail, Woodward described a forgotten — or white-washed — period of America’s past. The segregation took place in churches, railroads, and schools, prisons, etc. The first occurred at the end of the Civil War, with the occupation by radical Republican forces, who enforced the emancipation and equal rights Amendments to the Constitution. They are the test. In his book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, C. Vann Woodward provides a complete historical accounting and significant analysis of its advent, its impact on race relations within and outside of the South, and its legal demise by 1965. Woodward knew better, but he went beyond describing white mobs and Klan violence. Martin Luther King, Jr. described the book as “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” The argument presented in The Strange Career of Jim Crow is that the Jim Crow laws were relatively new introductions to the South that occurred towards the turn of the century rather than, Woodward’s novel “The Strange Career of Jim Crow” was simply a book about racism.