~Many people have helped me in the quest to write this book. Colleagues at Alverno College were very helpful: Denise Sanders was absolutely vital in organizing, proofreading, and generally making this book a real thing; Kris Vasquez read the entire manuscript and made valuable comments; Stephen Sharkey provided advice all the way through; librarian...

On March 7, 1965, between 500 and 600 civil rights marchers set out on a journey from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery. When they got to the Edmund Pettus Bridge they were attacked by white state troopers, police, and recently deputized white citizens with clubs and tear gas. Although none of the marchers were killed, many were badly injured. The entire beating was then shown on national television...

At the end of the Civil War in 1865, the South was bankrupt and destitute. A large proportion of industry, plantations, and railroad...

As conservative regimes reestablished control during the 1870s, the white Democrats claimed that they had “redeemed” the South from “Negro domination.” During the years of “Redemption,” black power did not disappear, but it eroded badly. Although blacks still voted and Jim Crow was not established, black fortune declined. Northern white concern for the welfare...

In the years from 1889 to 1908, the Jim Crow system was established. We refer to this period of black history as “Reconciliation,” using a word that was widely used at the time to describe the reunification of the country and recovery from the ill feelings of the Civil War. White leaders congratulated themselves for their accomplishment of “sectional reconciliation,”...

The African American population of the United States did not sit passively by as white Southerners erected Jim Crow and white Northerners helped or looked the other way. They had been fighting subordination since before emancipation, and they continued fighting....

In this chapter, we will look at the state of black America and Jim Crow in the beginning of the twentieth century, around the time the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was begun. We will look at the years between 1900 and about 1917, from about the beginning of the century to American entry into World War I. This period is often referred to as “the...

The period from 1909 to 1930 saw both progress and regression in black fortunes. Some important Supreme Court decisions began going the right way. There was a decline in lynchings but an increase in race riots, especially in 1919. But overall, with some exceptions,...

During the 1930s, the black struggle occurred in the context of three national trends. The first was the Great Depression. Millions of Americans of all races suffered, but the suffering was particularly intense for black Americans. African Americans in the cities were cast out of work, while those in the rural areas found less work even as sharecroppers and tenants. By the 1932 election, the...

Just as the 1930s had been dominated by the Great Depression, the 1940s were dominated by the Second World War. And just as the Great Depression had hurt millions of African Americans, and yet, had given blacks opportunities to advance in American society, World War II and mobilization for war offered chances for black advancement. Black opportunities came for many reasons. The most important...

Superficially, the years 1900 and 1950 look similar for African Americans. For example, by the year of 1900, the Jim Crow system had been almost completely established. Racial segregation was nearly universal in the South, and only a few black citizens still exercised the vote. In the year of 1950, the Jim Crow system was still established; racial segregation was nearly universal in the South and...

It is usually a bad idea to write history about something that is happening now. We do not have any perspective in time to see how today’s events will work out—what seems important now may be forgotten in a few years, and things we don’t even notice today may prove to be absolutely vital. There are many books in print today that dissect the state of contemporary black America....

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~Russell Brooker is professor of political science at Alverno College, teaching courses in American politics, as well as social theory, African American history, and statistics. He received his PhD in political science from The University of Chicago,...