This classic work helps recover the central role of black women in
the political history of the Jim Crow era. Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore
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. Gilmore argues that
while the ideology of white supremacy reordered Jim Crow society, a
generation of educated black women nevertheless crafted an enduring
tradition of political activism. In effect, these women served as
diplomats to the white community after the disfranchisement of
their husbands, brothers, and fathers. Gilmore also reveals how
black women's feminism created opportunities to forge political
ties with white women, helping to create a foundation for the
emergence of southern progressivism. In addition,
Gender and Jim
Crow illuminates the manipulation of concepts of gender by
white supremacists and shows how this rhetoric changed once women,
black and white, gained the vote.