Tracing the erosion of white elite paternalism in Jim Crow
Virginia, Douglas Smith reveals a surprising fluidity in southern
racial politics in the decades between World War I and the Supreme
Court's 1954
Brown v. Board of Education decision.
Smith draws on official records, private correspondence, and
letters to newspapers from otherwise anonymous Virginians to
capture a wide and varied range of black and white voices. African
Americans emerge as central characters in the narrative, as Smith
chronicles their efforts to obtain access to public schools and
libraries, protection under the law, and the equitable distribution
of municipal resources.
This acceleration of black resistance to white supremacy in the
years before World War II precipitated a crisis of confidence among
white Virginians, who, despite their overwhelming electoral
dominance, felt increasingly insecure about their ability to manage
the color line on their own terms. Exploring the everyday power
struggles that accompanied the erosion of white authority in the
political, economic, and educational arenas, Smith uncovers the
seeds of white Virginians' resistance to civil rights activism in
the second half of the twentieth century.