Michael's Reviews > The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives

I sometimes struggle with autobiography, and this book was no exception. On the one hand, Adolph Reed's account of growing up in New Orleans during the dying days of the Jim Crow era depicts a complex picture of race, class and political power from the eyes of a youth and young man; on the other hand, the stories from his youth are less interesting than Adolph Reed's analysis and explanation of this complexity.

From the standpoint of autobiography, Reed sets out to tell the stories from his life and how it was impacted living in the deep south beyond the imagery of separated lunch counters, drinking fountains and bathrooms. In this, we get stories of youthful indiscretions like shoplifting and the fear that went with being caught one day by a white shop owner, who could have had him sent to prison but instead urged him to pick a different course; of planning trips to avoid stopping in some localities while making for other safe havens; and of the continuous testing of limits of the Jim Crow order that could be both comic and tragic, with the threat of obscene forms of violence always floating in the background.

But the book does not shine with these stories. The real richness of the book lies with the explanations of how and why the Jim Crow south became the Jim Crow south, how it was steadily dismantled as unsustainable, and the acts of opposition both open and by subterfuge that lead to its dismantling. Here we get stories that illustrate what passing for white meant, the utility of African Americans in a small town in Georgia passing for Native Americans and the legal stratagems other "nonwhites" used to find a niche within the binary opposition of black and white. The final chapters are outstanding, with Reed's explanation of how Jim Crow was used to obscure class relations and exploitation by the rich and powerful, and how these same class relations persist in present day America. These sections, sometimes significant parts of chapters, sometimes smaller reflections are where the best of the book lies. I left wanting to read more by Reed, but something more focused on this type of analysis and explanation.