Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in the American South
Episode: Robert Cassanello, “To Render Invisible: Jim Crow and Public Life in New South Jacksonville” (University Press of Florida, 2013)
Description: The story of the rise of Jim Crow in Jacksonville, Florida is in many ways illustrative of the challenges facing newly emancipated African Americans throughout the South with local officials erecting barriers to black participation; blacks building institutions to overcome those obstacles; then Southern bigots using the reaction of blacks as justification for both the initial barriers and further draconian measures. This usually involved labeling black political action as in some way primitive, corrupt or unfairly self-interested. For example, many in the white establishment in Jacksonville resented that blacks voted for Republicans out of loyalty, yet they a...