Jim Crow Wisdom

Starred review from August 19, 2013
“What do we tell our children? What stories do we pass along so they know their history?” These questions permeate Yale historian Holloway’s riveting account of how we see, study, and learn about racial identity, and how we acquire the memories that shape that identity. Holloway (Confronting the Veil) surveys the social, political, and cultural milieu of race in the latter half of the 20th century, from a review of various sociologists’ perspectives and the controversies surrounding them in light of “the explosion of social science literature in the 1940s,” to the role played by the Johnson family of magazines, the impact of 1960s documentaries, and the development of Black Studies programs in the 1970s. He visits American plantations, museums, and other important sites before taking his research to places such as Ghana and Liverpool. The book is noteworthy for the clarity with which Holloway treats historical events and persons buried in ephemera, and for its abundance of detail. Part jargon-free academic treatise and pertinent personal memoir, the result is an evocative bildungsroman in which we see the social scientist as a young man become the provocative historian. 18 illus.