Sign-In
Cart
The Accident of Color: A Story of Race in Reconstruction
Hardcover
Black American History19th Century United States HistoryRegional: South
Publisher Price: $27.95
ISBN13: 9780393247442
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: Jun 18 2019
Pages: 336
Weight: 1.35
Height: 1.40 Width: 6.40 Depth: 9.30
Language: English
In The Accident of Color, Daniel Brook journeys to nineteenth-century New Orleans and Charleston and introduces us to cosmopolitan residents who elude the racial categories the rest of America takes for granted. Before the Civil War, these free, openly mixed-race urbanites enjoyed some rights of citizenship and the privileges of wealth and social status. But after Emancipation, as former slaves move to assert their rights, the black-white binary that rules the rest of the nation begins to intrude. During Reconstruction, a movement arises as mixed-race elites make common cause with the formerly enslaved and allies at the fringes of whiteness in a bid to achieve political and social equality for all.
In some areas, this coalition proved remarkably successful. Activists peacefully integrated the streetcars of Charleston and New Orleans for decades and, for a time, even the New Orleans public schools and the University of South Carolina were educating students of all backgrounds side by side. Tragically, the achievements of this movement were ultimately swept away by a violent political backlash and expunged from the history books, culminating in the Jim Crow laws that would legalize segregation for a half century and usher in the binary racial regime that rules us to this day.
The Accident of Color revisits a crucial inflection point in American history. By returning to the birth of our nation's singularly narrow racial system, which was forged in the crucible of opposition to civil rights, Brook illuminates the origins of the racial lies we live by.
Also in
Regional: South
Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution
Grandjean, Katherine
Hardcover
Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War
Fields-Black, Edda L.
Hardcover
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South
Jones-Rogers, Stephanie E.
Paperback
The Legend of Wyatt Outlaw: From Reconstruction Through Black Lives Matter
Boggs, Belle
Allen, Sylvester, Jr.
Hardcover
When It's Darkness on the Delta: How America's Richest Soil Became Its Poorest Land
Eubanks, W. Ralph
Hardcover
Bubble in the Sun: The Florida Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought on the Great Depression
Knowlton, Christopher
Paperback
The Golden Age of Normandale: An Illustrated Remembrance of Montgomery's Legendary Shopping Center
Moseley, Willie G.
Paperback
Wilmington's Lie (Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize): The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy
Zucchino, David
Paperback
The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home
Kiernan, Denise
Paperback
Partisans and Redcoats: The Southern Conflict That Turned the Tide of the American Revolution
Edgar, Walter B.
Paperback
South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
Perry, Imani
Paperback
Kings Mountain: America's Most Forgotten Battle That Changed the Course of the American Revolution
Tucker, Phillip Thomas
Hardcover
Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
King, Gilbert
Paperback
The Road That Made America: A Modern Pilgrim's Journey on the Great Wagon Road
Dodson, James
Hardcover
I Am Murdered: George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, and the Killing That Shocked a New Nation
Chadwick, Bruce
Paperback
Lost Raleigh: Exploring the Oak City's Architectural History
Dunn, Ian F. G.
Hanbury, Mary Ruffin
Paperback
Rise and Decline of the Redneck Riviera: An Insider's History of the Florida-Alabama Coast
Jackson, Harvey H., III
Paperback
Finding Sarah and Mary: Unraveling African American Genealogy from the Ground Up
Jones Royster, Jacqueline
Paperback
The Nature of Pain: Roots, Recovery, and Redemption Amid the Opioid Crisis
Sheffel, Mandi Fugate
Hardcover
Language and Life on Ocracoke: The Living History of the Brogue
Wolfram, Walt
Gaskill, Candy
Reaser, Jeffrey
Paperback
A Portrait of Walt Disney World: 50 Years of the Most Magical Place on Earth
Kern, Kevin M.
O'Day, Tim
Vagnini, Steven
Hardcover
Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia
Covington, Dennis
Paperback
Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America
Taylor, Candacy
Paperback
We Just Keep Running the Line: Black Southern Women and the Poultry Processing Industry
Gray, Laguana
Hardcover
Digging Up Bones: When Truth Is Exhumed: When Truth Is Exhumed (Large Print Edition)
Radic, Tanya Covington
Paperback
Defending Dixie's Land: What Every American Should Know About The South and The Civil War
Bishop, Isaac C.
Hardcover
Nashville's New Americans: Tracing the Journeys of Our Immigrant Neighbors
Sellmeyer, Sheri Lea
Paperback
Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food: Recipes & Stories from Mountain Kitchens
Pressley, Tipper
Casada, Jim
Paperback
Café Lafitte in Exile: Queer New Orleans and the Story of America's Oldest Gay Bar
Perez, Frank
Palmquist, Jeffrey
Hardcover
Everything You Were Taught about the Civil War Is Wrong, Ask a Southerner!
Seabrook, Lochlainn
Paperback
The Devil Is Here in These Hills: West Virginia's Coal Miners and Their Battle for Freedom
Green, James
Paperback
The Dark Side of the Smoky Mountains: A Travel Guide for Your Next Spooky Journey
Eerie Travels
Lance, Erika
Paperback
Nether Land: High School Temptation, Insurance Haze, Stolen Resolution, and Murder
Hinton, Kem
Paperback
Foxfire 12: Square Dancing, Crafts, Cherokee Traditions, Summer Camps, World War Veterans, Personalities
Foxfire Fund Inc
Paperback
South to America American Classics Edition: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
Perry, Imani
Paperback
The Price of Borrowed Coffee: The Eighty-Year Pursuit of Justice for Charlie Lee Price
Price, Richard
Paperback
Fairies of Northern Appalachia: A History of the Little People of the Mountains
Warburton, Andrew
Paperback
Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America's Revolutionary Era
Bunn, Mike
Hardcover
This Fierce People: The Untold Story of America's Revolutionary War in the South
Crawford, Alan Pell
Paperback
The Empire State of the South: Georgia History in Documents and Essays
Meyer, Christopher C.
Paperback
Spooky North Carolina: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore
Schlosser, S. E.
Paperback
Spooky Virginia: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore
Schlosser, S. E.
Paperback
Freedom's Dominion (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power
Cowie, Jefferson
Paperback
Florida Lore: The Barefoot Mailman, Cowboy Bone Mizell, the Tallahassee Witch and Other Tales
Neile, Caren Schnur
Paperback
The Lightning-Bug and the Lightning: Debunking the Myths of Mark Twain, in His Own Words
Dawidziak, Mark
Hardcover
The Tougaloo Nine: The Jackson Library Sit-In at the Crossroads of Civil War and Civil Rights
O'Brien, M. J.
Hardcover
Suncoast Empire: Bertha Honore Palmer, Her Family, and the Rise of Sarasota, 1910-1982
Cassell, Frank a.
Paperback
Out of Virginia: Black Americans' Search for Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Liberia
Stinnett, Joseph P.
Paperback
Gullah Days: Hilton Head Islanders Before the Bridge 1861-1956
Grant, Carolyn
Barnwell, Thomas C., Jr.
Campbell, Emory Shaw
Paperback
Backcountry Resistance: South Carolina's Militia and the Fight for American Independence
Borick, Carl P.
Hardcover
Inquisition for Blood: The Making of a Black Female Serial Killer in the Jim Crow South
Henley, Lauren Nicole
Hardcover
Unc A to Z: What Every Tar Heel Needs to Know about the First State University
Moore, Cecelia
Graham, Nicholas
Hardcover
Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion
Larson, Edward J.
Paperback
Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement
Anderson, Devery S.
Paperback
Pine Needles: The Rise and Fall of a Gilded Age Southern Quail Hunting Estate
Rebertus, Robert
Hardcover
Mountain Ghost Stories and Curious Tales of Western North Carolina
Barnett, Janet
Russell, Randy
Paperback
Arkansas/Arkansaw: How Bear Hunters, Hillbillies, and Good Ol' Boys Defined a State
Blevins, Brooks
Paperback
A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School
Lanier, Carlotta Walls
Page, Lisa Frazier
Paperback
S Is for Southern: A Guide to the South, from Absinthe to Zydeco
Editors of Garden and Gun
Dibenedetto, David
Hardcover
Power and Just Transitions: Struggles for a Post-Coal Future in an Appalachian Valley
Gaventa, John
Schwartzman, Gabe
Paperback
Creepy Florida: Phantom Pirates, the Hog Island Witch, the DeMented Doctor at the Don Vicente and More
Muncy, Mark
Schultz, Kari Ann
Paperback
Cure: New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix 'em from the Award-Winning Bar
Bodenheimer, Neal
Timberlake, Emily
Hardcover
Dixie Be Damned: 300 Years of Insurrection in the American South
Shirley, Neal
Stafford, Saralee
Paperback
A Stranger Among Saints: Stephen Hopkins, the Man Who Survived Jamestown and Saved Plymouth
Mack, Jonathan
Paperback
Eating on a Mountain at the End of the World: How I Found Love, Humor, and Beauty in My Quest for Ethical Food
Vernon, Zackary
Paperback
Zora Neale Hurston on Florida Food: Recipes, Remedies & Simple Pleasures
Opie, Frederick Douglass
Paperback
Loving Insects: John Abbot's Drawings and Natural History Collecting in the Atlantic World, 1760s-1840s
Tobin, Beth
Hardcover
This Fierce People: The Untold Story of America's Revolutionary War in the South
Crawford, Alan Pell
Hardcover
Scars on the Land: An Environmental History of Slavery in the American South
Silkenat, David
Hardcover
We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement
Umoja, Akinyele Omowale
Paperback
Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman's March and the Story of America's Largest Emancipation
Parten, Bennett
Paperback
James Oglethorpe, Father of Georgia: A Founder's Journey from Slave Trader to Abolitionist
Thurmond, Michael L.
Paperback
The Pool Is Closed: Segregation, Summertime, and the Search for a Place to Swim
Palmer, Hannah S.
Hardcover