American nightmare : the history of Jim Crow
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-280) and index.

Acclaimed historian Jerrold Packard brings fresh light to the most horrifying chapter in the nation's history since the end of slavery itself. For most of the century following the Civil War, a quarter of the nation lived under Jim Crow, a system of legalized segregation that governed nearly every element of life bearing on the relations between the races. Its function was simple: to force black submission to the perceived racial superiority of the white majority. Rivaling South Africa's apartheid in the humiliation and degradation of a people, the scars of Jim Crow are still felt on the American psyche. Having written seven wide-ranging works of nonfiction, Packard brings a practiced historian's viewpoint to a phenomenon that surpasses credulity. Though America has consigned Jim Crow to the ignominy it deserves, Packard shows why it is important that this man-made plague never be allowed to leave the nation's collective memory. A groundbreaking new look at the history of segregation, from the Reconstruction to the Civil Rights movement. For a hundred years after the end of the Civil War, a quarter of all Americans lived under a system of legalized segregation called Jim Crow. Together with its rigidly enforced canon of racial "etiquette," these rules governed nearly every aspect of life-and outlined draconian punishments for infractions. The purpose of Jim Crow was to keep African Americans subjugated at a level as close as possible to their former slave status. Exceeding even South Africa's notorious apartheid in the humiliation, degradation, and suffering it brought, Jim Crow left scars on the American psyche that are still felt today. American Nightmare examines and explains Jim Crow from its beginnings to its end: how it came into being, how it was lived, how it was justified, and how, at long last, it was overcome only a few short decades ago. Most importantly, this book reveals how a nation founded on principles of equality and freedom came to enact as law a pervasive system of inequality and virtual slavery. Although America has finally consigned Jim Crow to the historical graveyard, Jerrold Packard shows why it is important that this scourge, and an understanding of how it happened, remain alive in the nation's collective memory.