The Strange Career of Jim Crow

Woodward paints a picture of the South as a society in transition following the overthrow of Reconstruction by the Redeemers and the establishment of “Home Rule.” The period was “an unstable interlude” before the establishment of “the Jim Crow code and disfranchisement” (73). This insight is critical to what has become known as the Woodward thesis. A core argument in Woodward’s analysis is that after the establishment of Home Rule, “alternatives” to segregation “were still open and real choices had to be made” (75). This is an important intervention in the historiography of the South. Woodward argues that segregation was not a natural outgrowth of Southern history and that, at this point, a different path was possible. Woodward suggests that despite its significance, this in-between period is neglected by historians. This is a significant oversight, as the period between Reconstruction and Jim Crow represents a “time of experiment, testing, and uncertainty—quite different from the time of repression and rigid uniformity that was to come toward the end of the century” (75). This is a core argument Woodward revisits throughout the text.

Woodward’s argument is based on both primary and secondary source material. He regularly cites other historians to bolster his argument. For example, he references Race Relations in Virginia by Charles E. Wynes, who concludes that at no point between 1870 and 1900 was there a general demand by white society to disenfranchise African Americans. Until the turn of the 20th century, Wynes argues that African American patrons were sometimes, but not always, asked to leave establishments, but there was no firm policy of exclusion. By 1900, however, laws requiring the separation of races on railroad cars were adopted. The flexibility and uncertainty that Wynes describes in Virginia is reflective of the South in this period.

Woodward extensively cites individual testimonies. He is careful to note that one could find conflicting examples but states he has chosen “the observations of intelligent men with contrasting backgrounds and origins” who have reflected on “a fluid, continually changing, and controversial situation” (77). Identifying that Southern white testimony from this period is generally dismissed as propaganda, he cites two external observers. In 1878 Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a prominent and militant abolitionist, traveled to Virginia, where he encountered “a condition of outward peace” (79). Higginson describes looking for “covert plans” to reenslave African Americans, but he concluded, “I can assert that, carrying with me the eyes of a tolerably suspicious abolitionist, I saw none of these indications” (79). In a follow-up visit six years later, he maintained his assessment of a general tolerance of African Americans by Southern whites. In 1879 a member of parliament from England, Sir George Campbell, also expressed surprise at the freedom of association, participation in politics, and intimacy of contact he observed in the South.

Woodward also draws from writings by African Americans who traveled through the South, such as T. McCants Stewart, an African American from Boston. Stewart recounted his surprise at finding no discrimination in dining or travel arrangements during his travel throughout the Southern states. Stewart also remarked on the willingness of white Southerners to enter into conversation. Woodward asks the reader to imagine these scenes of racial tolerance and intermixing happening in the first half of the 20th century in the South. In directly inviting the viewer to imagine these scenes, Woodward demonstrates how significant these incidents are in revealing a clear divide between the period following Reconstruction and Jim Crow.

Woodward uses language carefully. For example, he writes “more pertinent, whether typical or not, is the experience of a Negro” (83). By including the qualifier “whether typical or not,” Woodward anticipates criticism from other historians that he is cherry-picking his sources. In another instance, he writes, “the obvious danger in this account of the race policies of Southern conservatives and radicals is one of giving an exaggerated impression of interracial harmony” (124). By providing clear signposts to his readers, he continually returns to his core argument that race relations were nuanced and complicated. Rather than detracting from the strength of his argument, his clarifications and qualifiers strengthen his point that the situation was fluid and constantly changing.