Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow

by Leon F. Litwack

"The stain of Jim Crow runs deep in 20th-century America. . . . Its effects remain the nation's most pressing business. Trouble in Mind is an absolutely essential account of its dreadful history and calamitous legacy."  --The Washington Post

"The most complete and moving account we have had of what the victims of the Jim Crow South suffered and somehow endured."
--C. Vann Woodward

In April 1899, black laborer Sam Hose killed his white boss in self-defense. Wrongly accused of raping the man's wife, Hose was mutilated, stabbed, and burned alive in front of 2,000 cheering whites. His body was sold piecemeal to souvenir seekers; an Atlanta grocery displayed his knuckles in its front window for a week.

With the same narrative skill he brought to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Been in the Storm So Long, Leon Litwack constructs a searing history of life under Jim Crow. Drawing on new documentation and first-person accounts by blacks and whites, he describes the injustices--both institutional and personal--inflicted against a people. Here, too, are the black men and women whose activism, literature, and music preserved the genius of their human spirit. Painstakingly researched, important, and timely, Trouble in Mind recalls the bloodiest and most repressive period in the history of race relations in the United States--and the painful record of discrimination that haunts us to this day.

"Moving, elegant, earthy and pointed. . . . It forces us to reckon with the tragic legacies of freedom as well as of slavery. And it reminds us of the resilience and creativity of the human spirit."
--Steven Hahn, The San Diego Union-Tribune

"A chilling reminder of how simple it has been for Americans to delude themselves about the power of race."         --The Raleigh News & Observer

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Race, African American, Politics, College

640 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Leon Frank Litwack was an American historian whose scholarship focuses on slavery, the Reconstruction Era of the United States, and its aftermath into the 20th century. He received his BA in 1951 and Ph.D. in 1958 from the University of California, Berkeley, and taught the University of Wisconsin, University of South Carolina, Louisiana State University and Colorado College before assuming a position at UC-Berkeley, where he taught until his retirement in 2007.

Reviews

[Eric_W · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author of Been in the Storm So Long continues his study of Reconstruction and black/white relations in the South following the Civil War.

These two books, by Leon Litwack, professor of history at the University of California at Berkeley, are important and should be read by everyone interested in the history of race relations in this country. The period following the Civil War represents the nadir of black American history; a time when the white power structure in the South took back what they had lost on the battlefields. During this period a group of people were denied the basic rights of citizenship in the land of their birth. They were stamped as inferior based on the artificial concept of race — it was not the Nazis who invented the one-drop rule. Litwack describes how the first blacks born free after Emancipation had to cope with a new racial order, a vicious form of apartheid, in which they were nominally free, but enslaved in a system of tenant labor that forced them to remain in misery and poverty. They became “invisible” even as great waves of immigrants quickly assimilated into their role of superiority to the “nigger.” The celebration of "hard work" and "pulling oneself up by the bootstraps" applied only to whites. Education coupled with hard work could create prosperity and middle class for the white immigrant; for the indigenous black it resulted in lynching.

The boundaries of the New World for blacks were enforced by incredible violence. White savagery beggars the imagination. Blacks were mutilated and tortured in front of huge crowds often for the mere "crime" of trying to be successful. Black children witnessed horrible acts of random violence against black males. These actions were clearly intended to send a message to the black community: “Stay in your place or reap the consequences.” White children were taught the policeman
was your friend; black youngsters soon learned he was the enemy.

Litwack follows four generations of black southerners following the Civil War. This is the story of extraordinary courage and resourcefulness; of how blacks often managed to create a world of their own. The book explains the gradual destruction of barriers leading eventually to the 1954 Brown decision and the Civil Rights Movement.

Litwack begins with the generation of former slaves. Next he examines the lives of freeborn children of former slaves who desperately wanted success. Then he discusses the generation that supplied men for the "Jim Crow" army in the Spanish-American war while their brothers were being killed at home. Finally, he focuses on the generation of the early twentieth century that rejected accommodation and moved north in vast numbers. Across these generations, blacks were frequently denied access to the political process and education but found ways to create a rich oral tradition and a new musical form, jazz, that was to conquer the white musical world. They remained ambiguous about how to define themselves, becoming Africans, Negroes, colored, Afro-Americans, etc. "Negro" was the term preferred by Booker T. Washington and W.E.B.
DuBois until it was discarded during the Civil Rights Movement as too representative of white paternalism and subjugation This book is a celebration of the spirit of a people who survived enormous difficulty and managed to preserve the genius of their human spirit.

[Elizabeth Stolar · Rating 5 out of 5]

7/7. Back in 1998 I used to listen to NPR on my way to work. One day they interviewed a professor who had just published a new book about Black people living in the south during Jim Crow. Usually, I would forget the name of the author and the book by the time I ever made it to a bookstore, and typically, the bookstore wouldn't have the books that had been on NPR anyway. But, I worked at an organization that had a T1 line for its internet connectivity, which was state of the art at the time. I was able to look up the guest on the NPR website and then I went over to this new website called amazon that was selling books. I put the title in the search bar, and Voila! It came up. And it was available for purchase at a decent price. Life changing. Thus began the long line of many many book purchases from amazon. Although the book arrived a few days later, it then sat on my TBR bookshelf for a couple of decades, and I finally decided it was going to be the next book I read. It did not disappoint.

This book is one that every American should read. If everyone understood what was written here, there wouldn't be any more of these disingenuous arguments that Black people aren't oppressed or didn't suffer, or slavery wasn't so bad. Those asinine arguments would gain no traction because everyone would firmly know better. Although I felt like I generally knew the overarching information that the book conveyed, reading about the Black experience in the south, dealing with white people who were, for the most part, depraved psychopaths, ready to torture and murder at any time, and intent on preserving white supremacy at any cost, was still unsettling and enlightening. It reminded me so much of Isabel Wilkerson's more recent books, The Warmth of Other Suns and Caste. If you loved those books, you'd probably like this one, although Wilkerson, being a reporter, wrote books that flowed more like fiction, whereas Litwack, a professor, has a slightly more academic feel. The idea of caste -- discussed in Wilkerson's second book is significantly supported by this book.

I loved this book and I'm so glad I finally read it.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A remarkable, though hefty (500 pages) look at life in Jim Crow America. Though there wasn't much I wasn't already aware of, what kept me reading every single page was Litwack's remarkable use of primary sources and the voices of the people who lived during that time. There were quotes and stories everywhere. It was engaging and heart breaking. Not for the faint of heart, but worth looking at--if only to give a stirring introduction to a period of history that isn't talked about enough. Big bummer though--my book literarally fell apart. The glue wasn't right on the binding, and it was very annoying.

[֍ elle ֍ · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have ever read, and if I could make every non-Black person in the United States read this, I would do it in a heartbeat, so that something could be grasped of the cruelty, the absurdity, the pettiness of what Black people have had to contend with in this country. Though the book is beautifully and eloquently written, many of the sections were hard to read, simply because of the subject matter.

Even if I never manage to read it again, this will always have been an enriching experience and I am thankful for the teachers who brought this book into my orbit.

[anjeee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel fortunate to have studied extensively under Pulitzer Prize winning historian Professor Litwack while a student at UC Berkeley. He was by far my favorite professor, extremely personable and kind, and his insistence on primary sources remains with me to this day. From introductory freshman courses to writing my senior thesis under him, knowing him has been an education and an honor.

[James Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Litwack is one of the great historians of the history of slavery and Reconstruction in North America, and this is, in my opinion, his best book. I refer to it often in my teaching, and I always will.

[Julia w · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this not knowing it’s a sequel, but I feel non fiction can be exempt from that category at most times. Raised in MO, history was taught completely different from what happened, so as an adult I’m seeking the truth. And boy was this book the truth. Over 600+ pages it discusses all aspects of slavery, education, reconstruction, community, Jim Crow, etc. The systemic disadvantages from the start to now are so blatant. Idk man, sometimes it just seems so silly the Intentional ignorance of today

[Jennifer Warnock · Rating 4 out of 5]

depressing as hell...

[David Bates · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leon F. Litwack draws a dark portrait of the southern Black experience in the generation following Redemption in Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow (1998). As in his 1979 work Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery, Litwack brings the reader through thematically organized sections and explores social situations and experiences through illustrative anecdotes. While the earlier work sought to capture the varied and radical experience of emancipation and reconstruction as it was lived, Trouble in Mind documents the settling weight of the South’s racial caste system in its most violent years, and the experiences with it which were, if multifaceted, oppressively common for black southerners. The focus on the commonality, rather than diversity, of experience exacerbates the tendency of Litwack’s thematic/anecdotal style to portray a kind of uniformity that elides distinctions of time and place. Yet if something is lost, much is gained in the human details of the first post-emancipation generation’s struggle to thrive in spite of fierce white supremacist oppression. “[I]f I ever catch you saying ‘Marse’ again, I’ll whale the daylights out of you,” Pauline Fitzgerald recalled her freedman father rebuking her as a small girl growing up in North Carolina. But if the old forms of deference were altered, the trajectory toward formal segregation, hostility to black achievement and terroristic violence to obtain submission wrote new lines of fear, bitterness and despair into the lives of the coming generation. Despite a chapter on “Endurance” which chronicles the stubborn interior institution building and agonizingly won gains in the decades around the turn of the century, Litwack ‘s account is one of tightening bonds of humiliation and deprivation, unleavened by realistic prospects for internal resistance, or aid from Northern statesmen enthralled by imperialism and scientific racism. The futility, and the seemingly unstoppable descent into an even worse future, frames Litwack’s epilogue on the transformative post-1915 migrations away from the countryside and into the industrial metropolises of the North.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a spectacular, comprehensive and searing account of ordinary day-to-day life for black Americans living in the South during the age of Jim Crow. The author skillfully paints a very grim picture.

Since I was born long after Jim Crow and spent my whole life in Arizona, I didn't know too much about it other than it was very bad. This book provides specific details in every aspect of life, from law and justice, working jobs, owning land, the economic system, and social customs and traditions. They were all based on the unbreakable bedrock of white supremacy.

What makes the book even more valuable is that it describes, again in great detail, the various ways black folks tried to deal with this system and still live a semi-happy and productive life. It was, obviously, very difficult.

I recommend this book to all Americans who wish to gain a better understanding of the awfulness of the Jim Crow system.

[Jessica DeWitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read for every American, particularly white Americans. Litwack provides an incredibly detailed, well-researched account of life in the South for African Americans during the Jim Crow Era. I've been reading about narcissistic abuse recently and Jim Crow policies were this kind of abuse at the societal level.

This is a dense book, and it will take a while to get through, but I think that it is worth reading front to back. Every chapter is broken into fairly small segments, which make the content easier to digest. For this reason, I also think that it would be useful in an undergraduate course.

[Jarred Goodall · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magnificent, well-researched, detailed read about the lives of Black Southerners of Jim Crow...Dr. Litwack draws from hundreds of primary African-American accounts about life in the South during Jim Crow, painting an accurate picture of Jim Crow's ruthlessness toward African Americans, all because of their skin color, and nothing else. No matter how much African Americans tried, in terms of improving themselves, unless they played the white South's game (and even then, if treated better, Whites saw Blacks as second-class), they carried no shot of complete success in the racist South.

[Jamie Bronstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book--it's the kind of social history, rich with firsthand narrative and beautifully written, that drew me to history in the first place. I haven't read a book I loved so much since the Making of the English Working Class.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book shows us from where we came and unfortunately, we aren't that far away from it. After the Civil War, the South could probably have used what would be called "denazification" in Germany in the 1940s and 50s but we never let the wound heal...

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book. There are some very dark bits of this, particularly the account of lynching in the chapter titled Hellhounds, but ultimately it is the story of endurance against tremendous odds and horrific white violence.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of the Jim Crow era as told by those who lived it. Litwack brings their stories together in a moving and unforgettable portrayal of this horrendous period in American history.

[Cali · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be required reading for every US citizen.

[Jesús Rivera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Required reading to understand the extent of the hardship endure by blacks in the Jim Crow South; a period of history that is unfortunately expressed briefly in secondary education.

[Bethtrain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye-opening, difficult, necessary, and painful.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll start with the bad. This book could have been half as long and still been just as informative and educational. Saying the same things 100 different ways make for a dull reading experience. I found myself thinking "ok....I get it. PLEASE move on.". So the first half of most sections(the chapters were broken into numbered sections) were very interesting. Then it kept going....and going....and going. I had to put the book down a few times. Other than that, this book is very informative and educational. I believe all history, good or bad, is important to learn from. It helps you to understand the feelings and thoughts of other peoples and cultures. It helps you understand better how things got to where they are today. The book definitely gives you a better understanding of some of the trials and hardships Afro Americans dealt with in their fight for freedoms and civil rights. So on a educational level this book was great. Reading wise..... A little drug out. When you've over explained something it makes for tiresome reading.

[Juliana Maximiano Torres Carneiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Instant classic in my household.

[Ushan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Those of us who have lived in the United States of America in the last 20 years know it as a land of rampant political correctness. It was not always the case; in fact, in order to know this country better, one needs to understand, what political correctness was a reaction against. After the military occupation of the Southern United States was lifted in the 1870s, for almost a century the region supported a regime of brutal apartheid, informally called Jim Crow. The blacks were disfranchised by subjecting them, and not the whites, to arbitrarily complex educational tests. In Louisiana in 1896 there were 130,334 registered black voters; 8 years later, 1,342. All public facilities (parks, movie theaters, railroad cars, bathrooms) were segregated into a superior whites-only section and an inferior coloreds-only one. The exception was when the black person was in a servile role: a black servant pushing a wheelchair with a white invalid or a black nanny taking care of white children got to ride in the whites-only railroad car with their charges. A white schoolteacher once invited her black schoolteacher friend to a whites-only park; she was allowed in because everyone assumed that she was the white woman's maidservant. Measures were taken to see that the blacks did not acquire too much education, or made too good a career. This may not have made much economic sense: better to let the blacks develop their talents for the benefit of everyone's welfare. It did, however, make psychological sense: almost all Southern whites, however poor and uneducated, felt good by the virtue of being the social superiors of all blacks, however rich and well-educated. The situation did not bring out the best in the blacks either; a black college president once saw a white woman fall down a staircase at an Atlanta railroad station, and was about to catch her, but thought better of it and let her fall to her injuries; when he told this story, his black audience howled with laughter. At every social encounter between a black person and a white person, the former was expected to debase himself or herself before the latter. A black cotton farmer who accused a white cotton buyer of cheating him could be beaten up; if he struck back, he could be shot, and no one would prosecute the killer. A black person who showed too much independence could be lynched. The stereotype of a victim of lynching is a black man accused of raping a white woman; however, a study of almost 3,000 blacks lynched between 1889 and 1918 shows that only 19% were accused of rape; of the rest, one young man was lynched for stealing a pair of shoes and "talking big", another for accidentally brushing up against a white girl while running to catch a train. One black farmer was lynched for no other reason than being prosperous; another for owning an automobile while most whites still made do with mules. When three blacks lynched the white rapist of a black 13-year-old girl, thousands of people petitioned the governor to pardon them: white lynchers go scot-free, so too should they. This social order was the product not of the free market but of state coercion. A man who persisted in calling blacks "Mr.", "Mrs." and "Miss" was ordered by a municipal court to pay a fine; too poor to afford it, he was committed to a workhouse. Blacks were often arrested on trivial offenses, and given long prison sentences; many of them were leased to businesses as cheap labor working under horrible conditions, where they often sickened and died. In Mississippi in the 1880s, the mortality rate among convict laborers was between 9 and 16 percent, higher than that in the next century's Soviet GULag during most years.

American schoolchildren are taught that the Jim Crow era ended with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s-1960s and the passage of relevant Federal legislation in the 1960s. In fact, for most blacks it ended with emigrating from the South and moving into the cities. In 1917, nine of ten black Americans lived in the South, three quarters in the countryside. Half a century later, the first number dropped to 45%, and the second to 25%. In the North and the West, there was still discrimination, but nothing like the horror they left behind.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Litwack, Leon F. Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998 In Trouble in Mind, Leon Litwack rivets his readers with a thoroughly harrowing, but nonetheless engrossing, illumination of life in the Jim Crow era southern United States. Ostensibly, as the sub-title indicates, this monograph deals with Black Southerners existence within the white supremacist construct of Jim Crow. However, the main title leaves open the double entendre begging the question: trouble in whose mind? In a society where perception often outweighed reality, Litwack elucidates the nexus of Jim Crow: the supremacist construct most assuredly brought troubles to the minds of blacks but rather than eliminate white supremacist fears it instead brought continuing troubles to their minds as well. Litwack demonstrates that although black southerners were "slaves in the system," white supremacists (and white non-supremacists) were "slaves to the system (page 421)." Playing on the multiple meanings of ?trouble,? Litwack also argues that this was a race war and that both whites and blacks were not only in states of distress but also agitated against or for the system.[return]Litwack pulls his readers into the Jim Crow era through the voices of the people who lived the reality. From famous figures of the Harlem Renaissance, such as Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright, to political pundits of white supremacy Litwack uses these voices to weave a narrative full of details. His first three chapters focus on black experiences in Jim Crow from their initial exposure through the adaptations and compromises they made to survive within the system. The next two chapters bring in the white experience of manipulating and enforcing the system on the south. The final three chapters detail the explosive societal terms of lynching, black endurance and the choices made by blacks to either fight or leave the system.[return]Litwack takes the reader beyond the veil of the color line and forces the reader to confront the brutishness of Jim Crow. The familiar dialectic between the two polar positions of black reaction to Jim Crow is marked out. Black leaders could chose accommodation and industrial education, like Booker T. Washington, or entitlements to full citizenship, like W. E. B. Du Bois. Yet Litwack stunningly reveals how neither path satisfied white supremacists; who routinely interpreted any black advancement as a threat to themselves (page 51).[return]Litwack?s analysis of lynching, in his chapter Hellhounds, reveals just how deeply the trouble in white supremacist minds went. Litwack argues that lynching victim?s true offense was challenging Jim Crow white supremacy; either boldly or in the fickle perception of whites (page 307). Horror after horror was inflected upon black southerners by whites. Lynching may have served to underscore ?black vulnerability? but it also exposed the ?moral character of whites (page 312).? The construct that trapped blacks beneath the weight of white supremacy also trapped white supremacists to the violence necessary, in their view, to maintain the system. From living through lynching after lynching, blacks ?placed their own interpretations? on the events and realized that ?neither a deferential accommodation nor economic success guaranteed them civil or human rights (page 317).?[return]While most critics suggest Litwack is not breaking any new ground here but is simple telling the story again in a masterful way, Litwack does challenge at least one historical analysis. Although not overtly, Litwack challenges C. Vann Woodward?s tenet that Jim Crow segregation was not merely an extension of local custom but a built social construct. Litwack argues that the custom of segregation ?was not? new to the South but its ?legalization and intensity? of enforcement were new (page 238).

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure if this was written to be a textbook, but that is how it read. A huge number of primary sources are used to recreate the pervasive atmosphere of Jim Crow. Two examples stood out for me: a man who had worked for the postal service for years with an exemplary record, only to be fired as soon as wages were increased so that a white man could take his job; and the lynching of Sam Hose, in a frenzy of inconceivable violence and cruelty.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Between the end of Reconstruction and the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, states south of the Mason-Dixon line enacted a series of Jim Crow laws designed to preserve the so-called supremacy of the white race. In this very readable chronicle of those shameful years, the author recounts the numerous ways in which whites suppressed the attempts of black citizens to realize their full social, educational, and financial potential. If a black sought a level of education higher than that of the whites in his community, he might be beaten, killed, or forced to seek employment elsewhere. If his business thrived and he displayed the fruits of his success (such as a new auto), his property might be destroyed lest he appear more successful than whites. If he looked at a white woman the wrong way or stood up for his rights, he (or she) might be tortured, burned, or hanged. The details of how these atrocities were carried out are shocking in the extreme.

Think about this for a moment. The US celebrated its 200th Anniversary in 1976. Slavery and Jim Crow laws were in effect for the first 188 years of this nation's history. Along with the racial warfare simultaneously being conducted against Native Americans in the west, this was the most shameful period in the short history of the US. Before picking up this book I wondered why blacks continued to have such resentment towards whites. After all, hadn't slavery ended with the Civil War, nearly 150 years ago? Upon reading this book the big picture finally came into painful focus. I get it now.

[Sasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

So important to read for understanding this horrible period. I would say this book along with The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson are great companion books for a fuller picture of the lives of African Americans who stayed, and those who escaped from the oppressive South after the official end of slavery. I am only half way through - I put it down to switch to lighter reading several times, because each chapter is a litany of horrors. If you aren't a huge fan of history, and if you can only bear light reading, this will be a very thick and depressing book.

[Darla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for a class. I LOVED it. Its a rough history of African American people right after the reconstruction period. Its one of those books you will fine that its so unbelievable that it must be true, even at times find yourself saddened that this is our history. But this book is definitly worth reading.

[Faye · Rating 4 out of 5]

This text focused on a time in history that has been misrepresented for years. We don't realize how systematic and brutal black disenfranchisement was in the south and how much a role this discrimination had in the lives of real people. This is a well researched and interesting book with gripping and heart breaking first hand accounts of what the post reconstruction south was really like.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an awesome book...Very detailed and very well researched. Be prepared for an emotional roller coaster, especially Chapter 6...it's enough to bring you to your knees. This book is definitely worth the time it takes to read, but I would start with the first book: Been In The Storm So Long...I didn't realize that I was reading part 2.

[anique · Rating 4 out of 5]

A devastating book that chronicles America's race problem. A must-read for anyone trying to understand or come to terms with how this country has handled black folks throughout its time. I was just hysterical.