audiobook Postwar Immigrant America: A Social History (Bedford Series in History Culture) by Reed Ueda in History

Description

For a hundred years after the end of the Civil War; a quarter of all Americans lived under a system of legalized segregation called Jim Crow. Together with its rigidly enforced canon of racial "etiquette;" these rules governed nearly every aspect of life―and outlined draconian punishments for infractions.The purpose of Jim Crow was to keep African Americans subjugated at a level as close as possible to their former slave status. Exceeding even South Africa's notorious apartheid in the humiliation; degradation; and suffering it brought; Jim Crow left scars on the American psyche that are still felt today. American Nightmare examines and explains Jim Crow from its beginnings to its end: how it came into being; how it was lived; how it was justified; and how; at long last; it was overcome only a few short decades ago. Most importantly; this book reveals how a nation founded on principles of equality and freedom came to enact as law a pervasive system of inequality and virtual slavery.Although America has finally consigned Jim Crow to the historical graveyard; Jerrold Packard shows why it is important that this scourge―and an understanding of how it happened―remain alive in the nation's collective memory.