Jim Crow Guide: The Way It Was

by Stetson Kennedy

This is not a Print-on-Demand, reprint or facsimile book. It is a hardcover book published with a dust jacket price of 18s. net by Lawrence & Wishart, Ltd. of Chancery Lane, W.C. 2, London and printed by The Camelot Press, London. The Jim Crow Guide documents the system of legally imposed American apartheid that prevailed during what Stetson Kennedy calls "the long century from Emancipation to the Overcoming." The mock guidebook covers every area of activity where the tentacles of Jim Crow reached. From the texts of state statutes, municipal ordinances, federal regulations, and judicial rulings, Kennedy exhumes the legalistic skeleton of Jim Crow in a work of permanent value for scholars and of exceptional appeal for general readers. Stetson Kennedy (1916-2011) was an American author, folklorist, and human rights activist. One of the pioneer folklore collectors during the first half of the 20th century, he is remembered for having infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s, exposing its secrets to authorities and the outside world. His actions led to the 1947 revocation by the state of Georgia of the Klan's national corporate charter.[. He is the author of the Palmetto Country, Southern Exposure, The Jim Crow Guide, The Klan Unmasked, and After Appomattox.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, American History

Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 1956

About the author

William Stetson Kennedy (October 5, 1916 – August 27, 2011) was an American author, folklorist, and human rights activist. He is remembered for having infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s, exposing its secrets to authorities and the outside world.

Reviews

[Nifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was written in the late 50's originally as a "Guidebook" on just how racist who was where in the United States. I knew this going into it, and I found it very enlightening. It did not leave a single stone unturned. It is written after Brown v. Board of Education but before the days of civil unrest, Martin Luther King, Jr, Freedom Rider, Malcom X, and all those other famous icons of the Civil Rights movement. I thought it was great for anyone who wanted to know exactly what was legal where (and not much was legal anywhere), who could sit where, who could talk to whom where, who could marry where, who could work where (and even what types of job you could take based on your skin color). I understand why no publisher in the United States would take it because of it unashamed and brutal honesty. We all need to have our eyes opened like that.

[Johanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this in a pile of requested and rejected books at the library, started reading on the bus home (ok, actually at the desk) sucked in immediately to the strangeness of a tour guide to Jim Crow written in the late fifties. If history lives for you in the details --how to get a sleeping car without white skin--this is quite a trip.
How had I never heard of Stetson Kennedy? A snarky self mythologizing friend of woody, a southern gentleman fighting racism, complete with scandals of representation?