West of Jim Crow

The Fight against California's Color Line

Lynn M Hudson author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:University of Illinois Press

Published:14th Sep '20

Should be back in stock very soon

This paperback is available in another edition too:

West of Jim Crow cover

African Americans who moved to California in hopes of finding freedom and full citizenship instead faced all-too-familiar racial segregation. As one transplant put it, "The only difference between Pasadena and Mississippi is the way they are spelled." From the beaches to streetcars to schools, the Golden State—in contrast to its reputation for tolerance—perfected many methods of controlling people of color.

Lynn M. Hudson deepens our understanding of the practices that African Americans in the West deployed to dismantle Jim Crow in the quest for civil rights prior to the 1960s. Faced with institutionalized racism, black Californians used both established and improvised tactics to resist and survive the state's color line. Hudson rediscovers forgotten stories like the experimental all-black community of Allensworth, the California Ku Klux Klan's campaign of terror against African Americans, the bitter struggle to integrate public swimming pools in Pasadena and elsewhere, and segregationists' preoccupation with gender and sexuality.

"West of Jim Crow explores the surge of violence precipitated by the second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan. . . . Black Californians responded with grassroots activism as they continued to demand access to homeownership, schools, and public spaces. Through the men and women themselves, Hudson provides incredible insight to California's racial battlegrounds." --Pacific Historical Review
"Hudson's book illuminates just that: how contestations over public and private spaces as they related to race were tied together through the web of resistance that Black Californians engaged in as they utilized tactics that would become better known in the mid-twentieth century." --Journal of American Ethnic History
"Outstanding history and an absorbing read. . . . Highly recommended." --Choice

ISBN: 9780252085253

Dimensions: 235mm x 156mm x 23mm

Weight: unknown

344 pages