Strange Career of Jim Crow

            This paper will give a review of the book titled The Strange Career of Jim Crow. This book was written by a well known historian named C. Vann Woodward. Woodward was born in 1908 in a small town in Arkansas named Vanndale. After doing his undergraduate at Emory College, Woodward went on to take graduate school at Columbia University and get his P.H.D. from the University of North Carolina. Woodward died at the age of 91 in December of 1999. He is most known for The Strange Career of Jim Crow which was published in 1955. One of the books main focus is showing how the Jim Crow laws and segregation was a result of social and political events which took place in earlier years, and that is was not a natural result from southern traditions or mores. Starting in the 1880's and not ending until 1954, the Jim Crow laws made segration between blacks and whites legal. Everything from publics parks, to schools and hospitals were separated by race. Going against the belief that the Jim Crow laws was solely a result of southern white racism, in The Strange Career of Jim Crow, the author argues how there were many components involved in not only the emergence of the Jim Crow laws but also the acceptance of them. He also argues how these components grew over a period time and therefore the system of segregation didn't fully evolve until years after the Civil War.
             Woodward explains how northerners who were once in support of equality began to have a change of heart once imperialism started to play a role in the American society. Imperialism, as defined by the American Heritage ® Dictionary, is the policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations. With America becoming extremely powerful by imperialism, a sense of superiority started to arise in many Americans, including those of the north. This was extremely unfortunate for African Americans considering that the northerners, with most of the power and influence, were usually on the left wing in support of the Blacks.