Managing white supremacy
Subtitle: race, politics, and citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia
By: J. Douglas Smith.
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Chapel Hill
Language: eng
Number of pages: 411
Subjects: Whites -- Virginia -- Politics and government -- 20th century; Elite (Social sciences) -- Virginia -- History -- 20th century; African Americans -- Civil rights -- Virginia -- History -- 20th century; African Americans -- Segregation -- Virginia -- History -- 20th century; Citizenship -- Virginia -- History -- 20th century; Virginia -- Race relations; Virginia -- Race relations -- Political aspects; Virginia -- Politics and government -- 1865-1950
Description: Tracing the erosion of white elite paternalism in Jim Crow Virginia, Douglas Smith reveals a surprising fluidity in southern racial politics in the decades between World War I and the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Smith draws on official records, private correspondence, and letters to newspapers from otherwise anonymous Virginians to capture a wide and varied range of black and white voices. African Americans emerge as central characters in the narrative, as Smith chronicles their efforts to obtain access to public schools and libraries, protection under the law, and the equitable distribution of municipal resources. This acceleration of black resistance to white supremacy in the years before World War II precipitated a crisis of confidence among white Virginians, who, despite their overwhelming electoral dominance, felt increasingly insecure about their ability to manage the color line on their own terms. Exploring the everyday power struggles that accompanied the erosion of white authority in the political, economic, and educational arenas, Smith uncovers the seeds of white Virginians' resistance to civil rights activism in the second half of the twentieth century.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [371]-395) and index.
Based on author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Virginia.
Table of contents: title: Introduction : separation by consent; title: A fine discrimination indeed : party politics and white supremacy from emancipation to world war; title: Opportunities found and lost : race and politics after world war; title: Redefining race : the campaign for racial purity; title: Educating citizens or servants? : Hampton Institute and the divided mind of white Virginians; title: Little tyrannies and petty skullduggeries; title: A melancholy distinction : Virginia's response to lynching; title: The erosion of paternalism : confronting the limits of managed race relations; title: Travelling in opposite directions; title: Too radical for us : the passing of managed race relations; title: Epilogue : the making of massive resistance.