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Tax-exempt? | The Brown Decision, Jim Crow, and Southern Identity Cobb begins by looking at how our historical understanding of segregation has evolved since the Brown decision. In particular, he targets the tenacious misconception that racial discrimination was at odds with economic modernization-and so would have faded out, on its own, under market pressures. He then looks at the argument that Brown energized white resistance more than it fomented civil rights progress. This position overstates the pace and extent of racial change in the South prior to Brown, Cobb says, while it understates Brown's role in catalyzing and legitimizing subsequent black protest. Finally, Cobb suggests that the Brown decree and the civil rights movement accomplished not only more than certain critics have acknowledged but also more than the hard statistics of black progress can reveal. The destruction of Jim Crow, with its "denial of belonging," allowed African Americans to embrace their identity as southerners in ways that freed them to explore links between their southernness and their blackness. This is an important and timely reminder of "what the Brown court and the activists who took the spirit of its ruling into the streets were up against, both historically and contemporaneously." James C. Cobb is Spalding Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Georgia. His books include Away Down South and The Most Southern Place on Earth. November 2005 ISBN 0820324981 cloth • $22.95 112 pp. • 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 in.A volume in the seriesMercer University Lamar Memorial Lectures "Very few historians can turn their hand to both economic and cultural history but James Cobb is one of them." —Michael T. Bertrand, H-Net review of Redefining Southern Culture"An erudite and eminently readable corrective to academia's trendy fad of being 'down on Brown.' Professor Cobb's bracing analysis is impressively persuasive." —David J. Garrow, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Bearing the Cross"Cobb's ornery but learned Lamar lectures compose a powerful assertion of the centrality of the Brown decision to the South's racial progress in the twentieth century. Those who have said otherwise get taken to the woodshed in this lively little book."-Robert J. Norrell, author of The House I Live In: Race in the American Century "His writing is clear, concise, and engaging, his research rock solid ... this slim volume packs a wallop, and is a must read."-The African American History and Heritage site "[A] provocative book that promises not only to recast historical debate over Brown, but also to encourage a broader understanding of southern identity . Cobb's lectures are wonderfully concise and readable .even the 'naysayers' would concede Cobb's point that despite our inability to live up to the moral implications of the decision, Brown remains a catalytic event that deserves its central place in the history of twentieth-century America"-The North Carolina Historical Review"A useful tonic for those who have grown tired of the down on "Brown" crowd of historians and other academics whose chorus of despair amounts to a din of negativity . responds to the criticism over "Brown" with insight, cleverness, and powerful historical argument . For anyone interested in Southern historiography, this book offers a look at the thoughts of a leading practitioner and his take on the major themes of Southern history . this book is a good brief look at the issue of Southern identity, where it came from and where it is headed . highly recommended, and will certainly leave the reader wanting to explore the subject even more."-H-Net "[Cobb] effectively demonstrates that Jim Crow's segregation and hierarchy developed in conjunction with New South capitalism . [Demonstrates] the clear connections between race, economics, and power."-Journal of Southern History "The Brown Decision, Jim Crow, and Southern Identity should be read by all who study the Civil Rights movement and the twentieth century South. The perspectives that Cobb advances in these essays are sure to stimulate renewed inquiry into our assumptions about the South and the role of race in crafting its history and heritage." -Arkansas Review |
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