Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920

by Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore

Glenda Gilmore recovers the rich nuances of southern political history by placing black women at its center. She explores the pivotal and interconnected roles played by gender and race in North Carolina politics from the period immediately preceding the disfranchisement of black men in 1900 to the time black and white women gained the vote in 1920. Gender and Jim Crow argues that the ideology of white supremacy embodied in the Jim Crow laws of the turn of the century profoundly reordered society and that within this environment, black women crafted an enduring tradition of political activism. According to Gilmore, a generation of educated African American women emerged in the 1890s to become, in effect, diplomats to the white community after the disfranchisement of their husbands, brothers, and fathers. Using the lives of African American women to tell the larger story, Gilmore chronicles black women's political strategies, their feminism, and their efforts to forge political ties with white women. Her analysis highlights the active role played by women of both races in the political process and in the emergence of southern progressivism. In addition, Gilmore illuminates the manipulation of concepts of gender by white supremacists and shows how this rhetoric changed once women, black and white, gained the vote.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Race, American History, Feminism, Gender, Politics

414 pages, Paperback

First published September 23, 1996

About the author

Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore is the Peter V. and C. Van Woodward Professor of History, African American Studies, and American Studies at Yale University. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Reviews

[Martha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sneakily great. What starts out looking like a depressingly judgement-free examination of respectability politics among southern blacks around the turn of the century slowly morphs into a truly thrilling look behind the curtain of our conventional understanding of racial politics during that time. Gilmore regularly confronts and then undermines mainstream history by looking more closely at sources -- and mining others that mainstream historians have dismissed -- to reveal a vibrant, often inspired group of black women pushing boundaries and creating pockets of power for themselves during a time when we're taught they had none. A very impressive work of history.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would say that this book is a must-read for anyone interested in women's history and/or African American history. Gilmore expertly interprets her sources, and she weaves together an incredible narrative in the process.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book focuses on the state of North Carolina and starts in an era that I was not aware of. In the 1890s, middle class African-Americans were not only able to accumulate wealth and prosper in the cities of North Carolina, they were not only tolerated, but often respected by their white neighbors. While Jim Crow laws were being enacted in the deep south, these northern blacks were free to prosper. After 1896, that began to change as white supremacists gained control of the state government.

While black men were robbed of their voting rights the women managed to retain some voice through churches, relationships formed earlier in the women's temperance movement and through some schools. They didn't have an easy time, but they didn't give up so that, by the time women gained the vote in 1920, they were ready to insist on their rights too.

It's an amazing story, especially when Gilmore follows individuals through their everyday lives in the struggle.

Certainly, Jim Crow laws didn't end in 1920, but the efforts to resist them by the women of North Carolina make for an encouraging story of civil rights efforts long before the 1950s.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Progressive Era from a black female middle-class perspective. Very good scholarship.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

fascinating.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

uggghhhh....
another read for class...
she does employ very descriptive and evocative metaphors, which made the book bearable...

[Justin P · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gilmore writes case studies of African American women living in North Carolina from 1890s to 1920s. Takes a bit of effort to read because Gilmore presumes the reader knows about Redeemer and Fusion government compromises, the Booker T. Washington vs W.E.B DuBois debates, education reforms during the Progressive and Populist eras, what Gilded Age meant for a Southern economies, the Woodward historical interpretation, etc.

I'm giving 3 of 5 because of the lack of flow. The chapters are chronological but it would help if Gilmore had restructured her approach. Most paragraphs' key points are challenging to follow. Perhaps a thematic approach would have worked better to tell this story. Some reviewers applaud the narrative. Mmm, I've read much better narrative retellings from historians (like Demos for example). One reviewer who gave 5 stars admitted that they got lost in parts of the book. Exactly. By the end, I lost track of where our heroin Scott was at. (Spoiler: she had passed away.) It felt like I was being bounced here and there in details without a structure to bind the story of the narrative.

Yet the research it took to dig up these past people is deep and this has historical rigor behind it. Gilmore was the C. Vann Woodward chair after all!

[֍ elle ֍ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m so glad I finally read all of this! The middle was a bit tedious, what with all the different associations and conventions and clubs and leagues all blurring together and running into one another. I feel like there definitely could have been a better job of identifying and clarifying these various organizations for the benefit of people not as intimately familiar with the period or place as Gilmore is, but the book begins and ends very strongly, and is very edifying as to its subject. I look forward to learning more from this book in the future.

[David Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore’s 1996 study of North Carolina from the last years of the 19th century to the first decades of the 20th examines the interplay of gender, race and class in the establishment of the state’s Jim Crow regime. Following a small cadre of well-educated middle class black families, she argues for the centrality of gender to the political justifications for disfranchisement of black men which ended competitive party politics in the state, and for the key role of black women in advancing the political aspirations of their community. Into the 1890s North Carolina remained a political battleground, with a “less prosperous white elite than Virginia or South Carolina, a fast-growing, but ferociously struggling, middling group of people of all hues, and some chance for two-party government.” A black supported coalition of Republicans and Populists rested control of the state away from Democrats 1896. In response Democratic Party operatives launched a wave of negative propaganda against black men, focusing on their lack of self-control and the threat that they posed to white women now that they were socially emboldened by political victory. A legacy of Redemption had been the a political philosophy which Gilmore terms the “Best Man” paradigm, in which political participation was merited by a restricted perception of a politician’s personal virtue and gentility. The black middle class had somewhat reconciled itself to this framework, within which they were allowed some participation, and the hope that their upright morals and dedication to education would win respect for their race. Democratic leaders were secure in their ability to maintain control by manipulating standards in ways that excluded many black men – until 1896.

The attack on the virtue of black men posed by the exaggerated and often fabricated rape accounts distributed by Democrats at once delegitimized their claims to political equality and enlisted the protective manhood of whites against the coalition government, and the vulnerable sense of women to lobby their men on behalf of the Democracy. “The Populist white man who had valued his farm above his race discovered with a shock that he had opened the gates of hell for some distant white woman. The Democrats’ pressure swelled white men’s egos and honed their indignation.” When Democrats regained power in 1898 the disfranchisement of black men followed, along with anti-black violence. Gilmore writes that “elite whites blamed the violence on poor white men and called for more control over their behavior . . . North Carolina’s impoverished white men traded their economic future for “manhood” only to find themselves forever consigned to the ranks of the good ol’ boys“ Into the space left by middle class black men stepped their wives, mothers and daughters, working within national voluntary reform organizations, and serving as advocates for their communities as the state government gradually expanded its services during the Progressive Era.

[Samuel · Rating 2 out of 5]

While there are many interesting things discussed in this book, the main argument is not quite convincing given the evidence provided. In most cases, the central argument is proven by speculative claims interpreting silence or non-existent sources. The chosen African-American family, the Pettey family, is quite exceptional rather than representative. The family's context and connection to the broader African-American community is largely absent.

That being said, the historical events surrounding the Wilmington Rebellion and the disenfranchising of African-Americans in the South at the turn of the century is very well documented and quite fascinating. There is enough evidence to say that women, especially black women, played more than a passive role in the proceedings but they were not convincingly demonstrated as being at the center of the event. Showing that black women had more of a role in politics from 1870-1900 than they did from 1900-1920 was well articulated. Gender, race, and class are all used as historical frameworks in this monograph--some are more effective than others in this case. The resurgence of white supremacy and the nuanced debates and horrific violence related to miscegenation are well chronicled here. There is a clear tragic tone to the failure of post-Civil War Reconstruction and the regression to near slave-like status of African-Americans in the south. The means and methods of white supremacy to strip away the vote from black individuals were both crafty and successful: truly depressing to see democracy hijacked.

(pp. 1-175)

[Kristi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gilmore examines the interplay between gender and race in the construction of the Jim Crow era. Focusing her study on the period between the disfranchisement of African American males and women's enfranchisement, Gilmore argues that African American women played an operative role in furthering African American politic rights. Subverting socio-economic positions to political ends, African American women transformed the violence of white supremacy toward a non-violent and political factionalism.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a lot of facts. Interesting but had the dry and boring stuff too. It's for learning not entertainment. Nicely put together. I wish the text wasn't so jammed together because it felt like my eyes never got a break.

[Whitney Borup · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's both depressing and hopeful that Jim Crow was not an inevitable result of Reconstruction.

[Amy Hearth · Rating 4 out of 5]

An academic book with a narrow but important focus.

[Christopher Walls · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned alot about racism during this period, to include the era of the Black Great Men. Excellent read.

[Alane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual rating is probably closer to 3.5.

[Kye Flannery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compelling storytelling, impeccably researched, essential history.