A memoir and historical account of growing up in the Jim Crow South by a renowned political theorist

Famed for his political theory and commentary on class and race in American politics, Adolph Reed guides us through the quotidian contours of the Jim Crow south. In this memoir-come-history, we see America's apartheid system from the ground up, not just the legal framework or systems of power and interests but the way these systems structured day to day interaction.

As the living memory of Jim Crow fades, its laws and horrors--and its heroic defeat--will be remembered. This book reproduces in vivid detail that everyday realm in which the rules and ideological premises of Jim Crow came up against the practicalities of getting on with life, where formal precepts didn't provide useful guidance for behavior or interaction. Flowing seamlessly between memoir and historical argument, Reed maps the ways the segregationist order buttressed ruling class power, the processes that lead to its unravelling, and the enduring legacy that is still so evident today.

The South is more than a memoir or a history. Filled with analysis and fascinating firsthand accounts of the operation of the system that codified and enshrined racial inequality, this book is required reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of America's second peculiar institution.