The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Book excerpt: "Lynchings and beatings by night. Demeaning treatment by day. A life of crushing subordination for Southern blacks maintained by white supremacist laws and customs known as Jim Crow. The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow documents the brutal and oppresive era in American history, spanning the years from the end of the Civil War to the start of the modern Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s. As the twenty-first century rolls forward, we are losing the remaining survivors of this pivotal era. Incorporating eyewitness testimony and over seventy-five rare and compelling archival images, The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow is a poignant record of the African American struggle for freedom and the triumph of community spirit over institutions and laws designed to suppress it"--Back cover