West of Jim Crow

As I have been reading books to expand my understanding of real history, West of Jim Crow filled a critical gap in my learning. Many people think only of the South when they think of racism or the legacy of slavery and Reconstruction. This book explores the experience of Black Americans who migrated from the South in hopes of finding freedom from oppression only to find "all-too-familiar racial segregation." I recommend this book to anyone else who is similarly working to learn or unlearn about the history of race relations, specifically of Black Americans, in the US.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

I was fortunate enough to receive a copy of 'West of Jim Crow: The Fight against California's Color Line' by Lynn M. Hudson from Netgalley.
I had been hoping to receive this book as I wanted to expand my learning about the experiences of Black Americans during the 1950's. There is sense that the rules of Jim Crow and the issue of racial segerations only impacted people living in the South, but this book explains that racism and segeration were sadly alive and well throughout the US. Many Black Americans moved from the Southern states to California in the hopes of a better life, without the shadow of racism. However, they quickly encountered "all-too-familiar racial segregation".
The author, Lynn M. Hudson recounters real-life stories to explain the difficulties faced and also the tactics used to Californians used both established and improvised to resist and survive the state's color line.
I found the book to be both well researched and full of poignant memories. It’s hard to image that so many of these events took place barely 70 years ago. Hudson does not stray away from the painful elements of the past but rather confronts these straight on and in doing so, provides an unbiased and fascinating account of race relations, specifically of Black Americans, in the US.

An exploration of many scenes in Black resistance to the imposition of white supremacist Jim Crow legal and cultural practices in California from 1849 until 1950.

The title comes from the imagined premise of California as a land of great opportunity for Black people, a place "west of Jim Crow." And yet from the beginning of statehood California was a bastion of white supremacy. It did not ratify the amendments granting Black people civil and voting rights. It wished to do all it could to limit the social standing and access for all nonwhite people.

The author begins with a survey of the condition of Black people in California in the 19th century from 1849 until the 1910s: a small black population, at first restricted from local schools until it became too onerous to maintain distinct schools for the nonwhite population. The first episode the author focuses on involved the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, its portrayal of Black people, Black participation in the event, and coverage of the event in Black newspapers. The author also spoke of attempts to suppress showings of The Birth of the Nation which was coming out at the same time.

The next episode featured Allensworth, an all Black town built in the southern part of the Central Valley, exhibiting the promise, the challenge, and ultimately the collapse of the dream of an all Black community which could be self-sustaining. That Allensworth was later made a state park is also explored.

Lynching is then explored, particularly an incident of lynching featuring two white men in the 1930s. It was approved of by the governor at the time as an example of wild west justice, and the author explores how the incident was used by the NAACP and others to promote the antilynching movement and to attempt to pass an antilynching bill through Congress.

The author then explores the powerful influence of the Ku Klux Klan in southern California, especially in Los Angeles and the Inland Empire, not only in the 1920s, but well into the 1930s and 1940s. They were highly entrenched in political leadership and particularly within the police force.

The final episode centered on Pasadena and the struggle to integrate the local city pool. It became a focal point of white anxiety because of the prospect of the intimacy of white and black bodies sharing such a space. Many rounds of court cases came and went; when the pool was to be integrated, city officials closed the pool. When forced to open, they did not provide sufficient maintenance. In this way all the ways white supremacy sought to preserve itself at all costs is made manifest.

Throughout the author does well to focus on the efforts of Black women in writing for Black newspapers, organizing, and other forms of political advocacy. The volume does well to expose the white supremacy prevalent in California for most of its history as part of the United States while keeping the emphasis on the heroic and powerful work done by Black people to advance their interests in spite of it all.

Great look into American racism and easily accessible for upper level high school and first year college students.

I found this book to be very informative. I do believe that others should read it so that they will get an understanding on the issues that POC go through. I will recommend this to others.

This book, like so others on this theme made my blood boil. African Americans searching for a new life in the west were still subjected to the same racial segregation and degradation that they suffered under in the east and south. The KKK, in various formats were active everywhere and out to make the lives of their black citizens as miserable and as sub human as possible. This book gave great insight into how those who moved to California strove toc combat the hardship inflicted by white supremacists there. It is an eye opener. It was well written and excellently researched. I learned so much about this horrific time in history from Hudon's grest story telling techniques.

I have spent a majority of my life feeling somewhat smug that I live in California where we don't have racism. After all, there were Black kids in all my middle class schools, Black families in my middle class neighborhoods, and Black coworkers at my parents and then my own white collar jobs. No racism here! Then Stephon Clark was shot. Then I read the completely different experience Elaine Welteroth had at the same college I attended. Obviously I was missing something. No longer could I live in my rose-tinted world of equality. Since then, I've looked to educate myself and clear up this obvious blind spot. This book was written for that very purpose! It is well written and illustrates very succinctly that although California entered the United States as a free state, Blacks have never experienced true equal freedom here. From race lines in housing to education to swimming pools. Jim Crow lived and thrived in California! I specifically appreciated the attention given in the book to Black women and their efforts to fight racism, segregation, and sexism in California. Long ignored, it was made clear that these women were the foundation and leading force in the fight for equality. But, at times, the narrative was disjointed and circled back on itself. I struggle to think of a better way to present the information. Sadly, there is so much to say and so many ways the events overlap. I finished the book disgusted with how Blacks have been, and still are, treated in this county. And just to drive the point home, the pathetic lack of proper indictments towards justice for Breonna Taylor was announced as I turned the last page. I wonder what wonderful things could have been and still be accomplished if all the energy used to oppress other human being had instead been used for something positive and good. Books like this make my heart hurt and hopefully also make me a smarter, more alert, and active person in the fight for equality (and justice).

I know very little about American civil rights history from the late 19th to early 20th century. This is not surprising; my focus has primarily been on Africa (especially South Africa) and on genocides in the 20th century. It has been interesting to learn that anti-miscegenation laws and job-colour bars weren't the invention of Apartheid South Africa but originated in North America. Specifically, a set of so-called Jim Crow laws emerged in America from about 1880 that sought to enforce racial segregation and these laws would be a highly influential on laws adopted by South Africa.

In West of Jim Crow: The Fight Against California's Color Line, Lynn M Hudson focuses on the African Americans who moved to California to escape Jim Crow, expecting freedom and the benefits of full citizenship but instead realising that Jim Crow and racial segregation were all too present in the west.

This is not simply a recounting of the racism, fear-mongering and obsession with eugenics that featured so prominently in white society for the century after the Reconstruction Era (although these are mentioned in some detail throughout the book). West of Jim Crow is about the tireless efforts of Black Americans to assert their citizen rights, establish respectability, secure equal opportunities and protect their men and women from the scourge of lynching and the rise of the KKK.

It is also notably about the role of Black women, their agency and the significant roles they took in journalism, activism and other roles to secure their rights both as women and as human beings. As Lynn M Hudson remarks on many occasions, just because there is little in the written records about Black women's struggles for freedom and activism, does not mean there wasn't significant agency and activism present.

West of Jim Crow is structured around six chapters, each concentrating on a specific event in Californian history:

Reconstruction: the initial gains and setbacks in the period following the Civil War, with the rise of Jim Crow and associated Jim Crow entertainments and minstrelsy
The Panama Pacific International Exposition: a look at the systematic erasure of civil rights gains, the emergence of the NAACP, the popularity of Birth of a Nation and the rise of eugenics
The Rise and Fall of Allensworth: the town founded by and for African Americans, doomed to fail because of misrepresentation, geographical and environmental issues
On Lynching: an account of the events that divided a country into those who supported lynching and those who were appalled by it; eerily prescient of Trump, tiki-torch marches and the gun lobby
On the Ku Klux Klan: fighting arson and intimidation while the KKK infiltrated law enforcement and local government in California
The Fight to Desegregate Pasadena's Municipal Swimming Pools: how activists began to use the damages of Jim Crow to argue for civil rights, winning the Pasadena pool case and later the Brown v Board of Education case

West of Jim Crow covers an incredible wealth of information and provides an interesting, readable account of African American history in California. Initially I felt a bit exhausted by the repetitive, circular mode of writing, featuring titbits and breadcrumbs followed by elaboration and exposition. I've noticed that this form of writing is favoured by many historians and while it can be taxing to read, the truth is it is preferable to a dry, linear account and also aids significantly in the reader's retention and comprehension of historical information.

Despite this small reservation, I give West of Jim Crow an excellent four out of five stars and highly recommend to those wishing to know about this particular area of Black history.

An important book dealing with Californians fighting for diversity and an end to the racial divide in the USA in the 1950s.

I requested this book because most of the books about the Jim Crow era center around the south. I have lived in California twice and really had not considered what it would have been like here.- certainly not this. Very insightful and timely reading for those who want to learn more.

Thank you to University of Illinois and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!

Now available!

In "West of Jim Crow", Professor Lynn M. Hudson details the lives of Black folk in the Golden State of California from the Great Migration to the post Jim Crow era. Addressing both the horrific acts of racial injustice as well as the brave acts of resistance by Black folk throughout the years, Hudson shows that indeed the only difference between Pasadena and Mississippi is the spelling. I could not help but be moved by the ways large and small that Black folk resisted white supremacy. Whether it was bringing national attention to the tragedy and prevalence of lynching to fighting for civil rights in court, Black folk have remarkable stories of resistance that can be a light to modern activists and organizers. Indeed in a time of national reckoning of racial justice, in a time when the President of the United States bans anti-racism trainings at the federal level, Hudson's West of Jim Crow is more important than ever before. A thorough and overall enjoyable read!

I am deeply excited to bring this book into my African American Literature course in Fall 2021. I was so pleasantly surprised with Lynn Hudson’s inclusion of the history of Allensworth, CA, a former township that is close to where many of my students reside. This history hasn’t been told in a way that is so accessible while maintaining such a literary and academically relevant presentation.

West of Jim Crow: The Fight against California’s Color Line traces the history of Jim Crow in California examining the laws, codes, and mores supporting white supremacy in the West and those African American resistors and freedom fighters who worked to end the conditions that limited their freedom. The scope of the book covers California statehood from 1850 to the 1930s with battles to desegregate public accommodations in Pasadena, in particular. The bulk of the book, however, focuses on African American experiences during the first decades of the 20th century. Several of the chapters highlighted the formation of Jim Crow in the West such as early laws enacted at the end of the 19th century codifying segregated schools, street cars, and other public accommodations. Notably, the author demonstrates the way in which both African American men and women worked to resist Jim Crow laws and it is the activism of African American women that propels the book forward. Hudson relies on a welter or sources including collections of oral histories of Allensworth residents, the Pasadena Museum and Archives Papers, and scores of articles from Black newspapers to shed light on unknown chapters of African American history in California.

Women such as Oakland journalist Delilah Beasley, Josephine Allensworth, and Ruby Williams, all worked to upend Jim Crow whether in its racist stereotypic depictions of African American life, cultural development of all-black communities, or vociferous battles to desegregate municipal services. Beasley took the Panama Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) of 1915 held in San Francisco to task for its horrific stereotypic portraits of African Americans while at the same time urging a boycott of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation. Perhaps the strongest chapter in the book is the exceptional story of all-Black town, Allensworth, a community that developed on the edge of Tulare County. Hudson does a fine job highlighting the purpose of the town as a refuge for Blacks seeking a community free from Jim Crow to the eventual downfall of the town owing to a short supply of water. Not only does she focus on the male founders of the city, but also those women who contributed to the cultural vibrancy of the town through dedication to schools, libraries, and other key institutions.

A chapter on the development of the Ku Klux Klan in California seeks to demystify the notion that the organization appealed to backwoods, small town provincialism, as Hudson shows how rampant the KKK was in locales such as Anaheim, Riverside, and Fontana. The author cogently argues that the growth of the California KKK was spurred on by the wave of Black migrants who moved there during World War II to work in defense industries. California KKK branches wreaked havoc on pioneering Black families who sought to integrate lily white neighborhoods in Riverside or Fontana through homeownership. The book ends with a final chapter on the battles waged to desegregate the Pasadena municipal pool led by local Black physician Edna Griffin and Pasadena NAACP branch president Ruby McKnight Williams.

While the author supports her two-fold goal of examining both the history of Jim Crow (e.g. segregation laws, KKK, and the state’s early history) and those who actively sought to dismantle the engine of white supremacy, at times more attention might have been paid to the black activists. For example, the chapter on the KKK extensively covers the institutional history of the organization in California, while the treatment of Black resistance to the Klan might have been developed further. Similarly, on a chapter on the PPIE, focus on Beasley seemed overshadowed by histories of other fairs such as Booker T. Washington’s role at the Atlanta Exposition. Despite this minor criticism, West of Jim Crow is an important contribution to the history of African Americans in Los Angeles, notably such lesser-studied communities as Pasadena, and Allensworth.

This is an incredibly eye-opening book that explores the effect of the Jim Crow laws across California predominantly in the early part of the twentieth century. It’s an academic book but still very readable. I’m so glad I picked it up and I learnt a lot from it. I know racism happens everywhere but I ignorantly believed that the worst race atrocities historically were in the southern states of America and had no real idea of what had happened in California. I found it hard to read at times, especially as a lot of my family lived in California for a long time and never have any of them talked about these issues and the idea they were blind to it is hard to rationalise. The book is set out in sections, each covering a different issue. There are the issues with segregation in schools and the local swimming pool; lynching; the Ku Klux Klan; and what happened in the town of Allenworth where black people tried to make a life for themselves. It’s also hard to read how laws that existed still didn’t offer any attempt at equality because the white people in power continued to act and interpret the law in the way they always had done. This is a book to read slowly, to really take in what you’re reading. It’s a book that I will be thinking about for a long time to come and I highly recommend it.

I loved this book so much. I was learning something new on every page. It's very interesting to think California was once as racially segregated and racist as Mississippi and Alabama. It's not something I would have thought was the case.

This book was dense and incredibly informative, but somehow remained accessible and engaging! Quite an accomplishment for the author. I think this book is one that all Americans can benefit from reading and I hope that it gets the recognition and acclaim it deserves. Readers can expect to learn how segregation was just a problematic in California as it was in the south, its just lesser known, to an extent. This books adds to an important gap in literature in the area of historical racism outside of the American South. Modern activists and allies alike can all find important history to be learned in this book.