40 pages • 1 hour read
C. Vann WoodwardThe Strange Career of Jim Crow
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1955A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “The Man on the Cliff”
By World War I, there was no significant resistance from the North on Southern race policy. However, African Americans participated in the war effort and saw combat overseas. Many other African Americans found work in the war industries. There was renewed hope and rising militancy as African Americans and their white allies advocated for the restoration of rights lost under Jim Crow and disenfranchisement. However, in the final months of 1919, 25 race riots occurred in both Southern and Northern American cities. In the 1920s and 1930s Jim Crow was further solidified in the South. The Ku Klux Klan, founded in Georgia in 1915, reached its peak membership of 5 million people in the mid-1920s. The Klan found a larger membership outside of the South, reflecting the rise of racist doctrines across the United States. In the postwar period it seemed like the Southern way was quickly becoming the American way in race relations.
During the Great Depression, however, interracial violence declined. The New Deal brought some new opportunities in education, housing, culture, and health to African American communities. As racial tensions eased in the South, “an avalanche of denunciation, criticism, and opprobrium descended upon the South from above the Mason and Dixon line” (207). Both African American and white people called for the immediate abolition of segregation. Following World War II, these calls escalated. Woodward calls this period the “Second Reconstruction,” which he divides into two distinct periods: before and after the 1954 and 1955 Supreme Court decisions on segregation in public schools.
Initially, the judicial and executive branches under President Harry Truman drove reforms. Congress and public opinion remained largely disinterested. Following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, which Woodward describes as “the most momentous and far-reaching of the century in civil rights” (250), there was a massive wave of resistance from the South. This was met with direct action from civil rights groups that gained public support and influenced Congress. Under the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the struggle for civil rights declined in significance.
Chapter 4 Analysis
Woodward turns his attention to the factors that led the American South to desegregation. To analyze why this shift occurred, he first turns to factors from the “realm of ideas, moral principles, and their agitators” (219). He lists the rise of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which was founded in 1909 and grew to be a formidable organization. The popularity of the Harlem Renaissance saw a flowering of African American literary and artistic production in the 1920s and 1930s. The cultural output of African Americans became popular among white intellectuals and philanthropists. The Catholic Church and the social gospel movement in Southern Protestant sects also played an important role. The liberal American faith in the equality of opportunity conflicted with the inequality of Jim Crow. This belief was expressed by organizations such as the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, founded in 1919 “to quench, if possible, the fires of racial antagonism which were flaming” (217).
Next, Woodward turns to “the sphere of the more amoral and impersonal forces” (219). Population changes saw increased numbers of African Americans in the North, which made them a more significant force in democratic political successes. This was bolstered by the rise of the African American middle class and increased prominence in the arts, academia, and politics. Rising economic fortunes in the South led to less polarization.
International factors also shaped American racial attitudes. The policies implemented by the Nazi regime horrified Americans and highlighted the dangers of racist doctrines. Racial discrimination in the United States was perceived as undermining America’s authority on the world stage. For instance, American racism was a prominent theme in anti-American propaganda produced by the Soviet Union. The establishment of the United Nations headquarters in New York drew global attention to Jim Crow, as segregation conflicted with the universal humanitarianism of the United Nations. Finally, Woodward describes the impact of African American organizing and resistance, writing, “It is clear at least that the Negro himself played a larger role in the new movement for emancipation than he had in the abolitionist crusade that led to the original emancipation” (213).
Woodward frequently uses comparisons to demonstrate that history is not evitable but rather a combination of choices and circumstances. He contrasts the American South with South Africa. At the time he wrote The Strange Career of Jim Crow, South Africa was still under the Apartheid system, which institutionalized racial segregation. Woodward describes similarities in the racial doctrines of South Africa and the American South but notes that, “as the tragic destination of South Africa became more and more apparent, and as more hopeful events transpired on the other side of the Atlantic, it began to seem as if the two great regions might be traveling in opposite directions” (208).
