The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward

The Strange Career of Jim Crow is one of the great works of Southern history. Indeed, the book actually helped shape that history. Published in 1955, a year after the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education ordered schools desegregated, Strange Career was cited so often to counter arguments for segregation that Martin Luther King, Jr. called it "the historical Bible of the civil rights movement." The book offers a clear and illuminating analysis of the history of Jim Crow laws, presenting evidence that segregation in the South dated only to the 1890s. Woodward convincingly shows that, even under slavery, the two races had not been divided as they were under the Jim Crow laws of the 1890s. In fact, during Reconstruction, there was considerable economic and political mixing of the races. The segregating of the races was a relative newcomer to the region.

The 616th greatest nonfiction book of all time


This book is on the following lists:

  1. - 70th on The Modern Library | 100 Best Nonfiction (The Modern Library)

Buy This Book

Name Binding Sales Rank Lowest New Lowest Used Published
The Strange Career of Jim Crow Paperback 550998 $6.92 $0.01 1974
The Strange Career of Jim Crow Audible Audio Edition 43855 $17.95 2014
The Strange Career of Jim Crow Hardcover 995461 $190.25 $33.76 2001
The Strange Career of Jim Crow Paperback 53143 $13.87 $6.93
The Strange Career of Jim Crow Hardcover 4234591 $5.14 1974
The Strange Career of Jim Crow: Commemorative Edition with a New Afterword by Will Kindle Edition 52341 $11.49 2001