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[[File:Race_Relations_in_the_Urban_South.jpg|thumbnail|left|250px|<i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195022831/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0195022831&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=ae63ece7174632e4b4bbdbcb6f4c1d04 Race Relations in the Urban South: 1865-1890]</i> by Howard N. Rabinowitz]]''This article was originally published on [http://videri.org/index.php?title=Race_Relations_in_the_Urban_South| Videri.org] and is republished here with their permission.''
<i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195022831/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0195022831&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=ae63ece7174632e4b4bbdbcb6f4c1d04 Race Relations in the Urban South : 1865-1890]</i> traces the origins of segregation and the conceit of “separate but equal.” Rabinowitz finds that the influx of emancipated slaves into southern cities created new frictions among white Democrats, white Republicans, and newly-freed blacks. Segregation offered an uneasy compromise between the three parties. White Democrats sought new ways to control blacks instead of slavery. Republicans strove to balance their appeal to white voters with a degree of support for blacks. Burgeoning black communities looked for whatever social and political gains they could find, and many viewed separation as an improvement over exclusion. “Separate but equal,” however, offered much more in theory than practice, and, by the end of the nineteenth century, most of what blacks gained during Reconstruction had been reversed.
The Thirteenth Amendment may have abolished slavery, but it did not erase the culture of white supremacy that justified it. White southerners commonly believed that black men and women had needed slavery to make them civilized. As large numbers of freed slaves migrated to southern cities, in which antebellum blacks had been scarce, whites look for different ways to keep them in check. A chief method was a legal system that held whites and blacks to different standards, even when the race was not an explicit criterion of the law.
Rabinowitz’s principal finding in Race Relations in the Urban South is that the seeds of Jim Crow had been planted before the ink of the thirteenth amendment was dry. The legal mechanisms of Reconstruction did nothing to diminish a deeply entrenched culture of white supremacy. Republicans in the South found that they could only offer limited support to blacks without alienating white voters. Still, for many blacks, segregation offered more opportunities than slavery, and the few blacks who grew comfortable in the late 19th century exploited these small advantages to invest in their communities. In the end, though, Reconstruction left blacks with weak protection while offering the Redeemers a series of shrinking hurdles.
<div class="portal" style="width:85%;"> ====Related DailyHistory.org Articles===={{#dpl:category=Book Review|ordermethod=firstedit|order=descending|count=7}}</div> ''This article was originally published on [http://videri.org/index.php?title=Race_Relations_in_the_Urban_South| Videri.org] and is republished here with their permission.'' [http://videri.org/index.php?title=Guide_to_the_Literature Check out other great articles at Videri.org.]
[[Category:19th Century History]] [[Category:Book Review]] [[Category:United States History]][[Category:African American History]] [[Category:Videri.org]]
