When Did Southern Segregation Begin: Readings

When did southern segregation begin? Students often assume that segregation was a natural outcome of Reconstruction. Even scholars cannot agree on which events at the end of the 19th century mark the beginning of American Apartheid. Each of the 6 selections in this volume addresses the question of segregation's origins, and amid the debate over "when" segregation began, revelations also emerge as to "where" and "how" it became the norm for relations between blacks and whites. Concentrating on the "antebellum" antecedents of segregation, the surprising fluidity of racial interaction in the postwar South, the relation between segregation and white supremacist doctrine, and the diversity of segregation practices among the states, the selections together demonstrate the evolution of southern segregation from a diverse array of local practices to a rigid, pervasive, legally-sanctioned system of racial apartheid.