- 304 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
"A very powerful and unsettling story of our nation's century-long 'pogrom' by vengeful white Southerners against their black neighbors." —
The Washington Times
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.
"Sweeping history . . . Packard compels us to remember that one cannot effectively confront the challenges posed by contemporary race relations without recognizing the agonies of the American past." — The Christian Science Monitor
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.
"Sweeping history . . . Packard compels us to remember that one cannot effectively confront the challenges posed by contemporary race relations without recognizing the agonies of the American past." — The Christian Science Monitor
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Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access American Nightmare by Jerrold M. Packard in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & African American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Title Page
- Table of Contents
- Preface
- Prologue - COMING HOME
- 1 - STARTING FROM THE VERY BEGINNING
- 2 - SLAVERY TRANSFORMED INTO PEONAGE 1865-1896
- 3 - INTO THE NIGHT: THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
- 4 - FULL-BLOWN JIM CROW: BETWEEN THE WARS
- 5 - HOW WHITE AMERICA RATIONALIZED JIM CROW
- 6 - THE WAR YEARS
- 7 - GETTING TO THE END
- 8 - THE LAST YEARS
- ALSO BY JERROLD M. PACKARD
- Bibliography
- Index
- Notes
- Copyright Page