Review by Choice Review
This ambitious study sheds light on how Jane and Jim Crow circumstances conditioned the South's black and white younger inhabitants to manage racial inequality in the decades preceding the Civil Rghts Movement. Historian Reynolds (Samford Univ.) relies heavily on a wide array of autobiographical accounts, although she supplements recollections with contemporary records and observations. The author displays an excellent familiarity with existing scholarly literature, and her arguments are cogent. Focusing on several venues (separate homes, schools, and churches) where black and white natives learned about regional and racial dynamics, Reynolds contends that such instruction instilled for most an unthinking conformity to segregation. Yet within the system (and lessons) were tensions that planted seeds for future reconditioning. This renovation would occur during the civil rights era, when the juxtaposed issues of racial benevolence and self-interest became courses in a media-connected southern "classroom" that now adhered to a national and international "curriculum." The writing in this revised dissertation is a bit didactic. Overall, however, the narrative reads well, is engaging, and adds depth to the current understanding of a complex place and time. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All public and academic levels/libraries. --Michael Thomas Bertrand, Tennessee State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
