Perspective

C. Vann Woodward wrote with a knowledge and understanding of the South that perhaps only a Southerner is able to have. Born in Arkansas at the height of Jim Crow, Woodward grew up in the era of complete racial segregation. Moving outside the South and eventually to Yale University, he was able to gain perspective on racial relationships in both regions, concluding that while de jure segregation was codified in the South, de facto segregation in the North created much the same conditions for black people. He abhorred both and became a leading white figure in the case for civil rights during the 1950's and 60's.

Even as Woodward deplored discrimination and racism, he obviously presented it academically in order to provide an objective analysis of how Jim Crow came to be, with the conclusion that it was not necessarily foreordained from the end of Reconstruction. Indeed, as...