245
Canada and the United States
JACK E. DAVIS. Race against Time: Culture and Separation in Natchez since 1930. Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University Press. 2001. Pp. xiii, 351. $39.95
In this exquisitely structured and elegantly written
study, Jack E. Davis tells a compelling story of how
whites and blacks in Natchez-the small southwest
Mississippi city known for its antebellum architecture,
as well as the birthplace of Richard Wright-have
struggled to define the meaning of the city's social
memories in the last three quarters of the twentieth
century. Building on extensive archival research and
in-depth interviews, the eight-chapter book traces the
evolution of Natchez's race relations in three markedly
distinctive periods: the Jim Crow era, in which a racial
hierarchy had been maintained not only by legal
segregation but also by the absolute dominance of
white culture and values in every aspect of the public
sphere; the era of the civil rights movement, in which
the white community fiercely and violently resisted the
challenges of organized blacks to end the white perceived "social harmony" and to dismantle the power
structure sanctioning Jim Crow; and, finally, the postcivil rights movement era, in which black and white
Natchezians were entangled in their painful search for
a new political and cultural foundation whereby a new
historical memory about the city, as well as about the
South and the nation, could be constructed.
Davis focuses his study on "the cultural basis of race
relations" (p. 3). The concept of race, he asserts, is not
only a historical construct but also a cultural construct.
In fact, the white Mississippians' understanding of race
by the mid-twentieth century, according to Davis, no
longer "revolved solely around biological traits" as in
the past but increasingly around "cultural traits" (p. 3).
It was racial differences in culture-as embodied in
the customs, values, behaviors, and social expressions
that were manifested in everyday experience and encounters-that primarily pushed the white Natchezians to conclude that black culture was irreversibly
inferior. This deeply rooted racial attitude, sanctioned
by law during the Jim Crow years and reinforced by the
daily experience of ordinary whites even after legal
segregation was ended, formed the ideological foundation for white Natchezians' determined and relentless defense of the supremacy of white culture. The
cultural battles throughout the period-the school
board's scrutiny of the history textbooks, the creation
of the nostalgic Pilgrimage tourist program, the denial
of cultural recognition for the black upper class, the
brutal resistance to the civil rights movement, the
repeated exoduses from the integrated schools, and
the refusal to rename the city's main street after
Martin Luther King, Jr., as demanded by black residents-vividly illustrated this process. Black Natchezians, argues Davis, also actively contributed to the
evolution and prolongation of the cultural separation.
When facing a hostile, white-controlled society, blacks
preferred a cultural separation as a strategy of "cultural survival" (p. 6). Mter the civil rights movement,
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
black N atchezians, too, sought to teach the history of
"our civilization" so that "our youth" would, in the
words of a local black leader, stop becoming "the
victims of white man's superiority complex" (p. 267).
Davis's emphasis on the cultural construct of race
and its impact on the evolution of race relations is
enlightening and perceptive. His unique approach
helps open up a new front of scholarly inquiry about
the complex dynamics that sustained the life of the de
facto racial hierarchy. It also brings to our attention
the roles played by such normally neglected social
groups within white community as women (in the case
of Natchez, the members of the Garden Club), local
educators, local historians, and employers of local
businesses and industries, who either vigorously used
their functions to maintain the supremacy of white
culture or consciously give acquiescence to the cultural
suppression imposed upon blacks. But Davis's most
important contribution, I think, is that he forces us to
reconsider the meaning of citizenship in the post-Jim
Crow South. His study compels us to see how a
citizenry that shares a common political (or constitutional) identity is helplessly divided by emotional and
cultural alienations. I am not sure that Davis would
agree with this observation, but I see what he describes
as "cultural" as in fact indisputably political. His most
memorable and striking chapters are those (chapters
five and six) devoted to the actual process of the civil
rights movement in N atchez. It is through those painstaking details that one learns how the civil rights
movement was conducted at the grassroots level in a
Deep South city and, more importantly, how crucially
such confrontation over the control of the power
structure helped to define the nature and scope of
black-white clashes over cultures and values in the
years to come.
Davis sets an exemplary model for a tasteful historical writing. His superb literary skills, together with his
carefully balanced reflections, make the book a
thought-provoking read. The absence of a bibliography, normally expected for a scholarly publication until
recently, will unfortunately disappoint those who are
interested to see his sources presented in an organized
and respectful format. An insertion of some visual
sources, such as a map of the city of Natchez and a few
images (about the Pilgrimage or the divided Pine-andMartin-Luther-King Street or other objects of the
historic Natchez) would enable readers to capture the
"cultural" substance of the events extensively discussed in the book. An appendix documenting some
essential demographic information, including the
backgrounds of those interviewed, would help provide
a more complete context for this passionately told
American story of race.
XI WANG
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
KARI FREDERICKSON. The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End
of the Solid South, 1932-1968. Chapel Hill: University
FEBRUARY
2002
246
Reviews of Books
of North Carolina Press. 2001. Pp. x, 311. Cloth $49.95,
paper $18.95.
In this book, Kari Frederickson sketches a detailed
picture on a large canvas. Her first two chapters
consider the impact of the New Deal and World War
11 on the South, and the book's last chapter discusses
presidential politics in the 1950s and 1960s. Much of
the material in these chapters is derivative, and informed students of southern history will find little new
or remarkable therein. The heart of the book focuses
on the insurgency of states' rights southerners against
the Democratic Party in 1948, a story that has been
told often before but never in the close detail presented here. The author has combed archives and
libraries across the South, with greatest attention to
repositories in Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina (the three key states in the Dixiecrat revolt).
Relying on dozens of manuscript collections and a full
complement of local newspapers and periodicals, as
well as the requisite secondary sources, she tells the
fascinating story of one of the few significant challenges to the nation's two-party political system.
Frederickson spins a good yarn about a quixotic and
colorful movement. The Dixiecrats of this volumeplanters, mill owners, oil men, bankers, and attorneys-seem to have been motivated by a combination
of heartfelt ideology, political opportunism, obstinacy,
and racism. Disunity and fractiousness characterized
the states' rights campaign. One of the book's real
contributions is to give us a clearer view of the
movement's leadership. Fielding Wright, the governor
of Mississippi and vice-presidential candidate of the
Dixiecrat Party, emerges as a more important figure
than his subordinate place on the ticket would indicate. The party's presidential candidate, South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, is portrayed as somewhat less than a true believer, a calculating politician
willing to use a generous dose of national publicity in
1948 as a springboard to the U.S. Senate in 1950. The
book also underscores the seminal contributions to the
states' rights movement of such comparatively unknown figures as Frank Dixon and Horace Wilkerson
of Alabama, WaIter Sillers of Mississippi, and Leander
Perez of Louisiana. As well, the book carefully details
the heroic efforts of African-American newspaperman
John Henry McCray to derail the Dixiecrat revolt in
South Carolina.
The efforts of the Dixiecrats produced less than they
had hoped, Frederickson suggests, but ultimately more
than they had planned. The insurgents sought to win
the Solid South's 127 electoral votes, thereby denying
Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman or Republican Thomas Dewey a victory and forcing the election
into the House of Representatives. But Thurmond and
Wright won only four southern states-South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana-for a total
of thirty-nine electoral votes. The failed Dixiecrat
revolt left Truman in the White House and the direction of the Democratic Party unchanged. Nevertheless,
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
"by breaking with the Democratic party," the author
notes, "the Dixiecrat movement demonstrated to conservative southerners that allegiance to one party was
'neither necessary nor beneficial' and thus served as
the crossover point for many southern voters in their
move from the Democratic to the Republican column"
(p. 4). To be sure, the Dixiecrats brought the end of
the one-party South by trumpeting the cause of white
supremacy but also by formulating a critique of New
Deal liberalism and a powerful federal government.
Although the formal structures of the States' Rights
Democrats dissolved quickly in 1949-1950, a lasting
taste for political independence and dissatisfaction
with the Democratic Party remained. This residue
became the soil in which the Republican Party blossomed.
Frederickson's book makes several important contributions to our understanding of post-World War 11
politics in the South. First, her nuanced retelling of the
Dixiecrat saga shreds the interpretation, posited by
political scientist V. O. Key and southern journalists
writing in the late 1940s and early 1950s, that states'
rights forces failed to employ race baiting effectively in
1948. Her view more sensibly notes that loyal Democrats portrayed themselves as more capable defenders
of the region's racial mores and drove the Dixiecrats
out of the party. Second, her discussion of context,
ranging both backward and forward in time from 1948,
underscores the complexity of the political transformation in the South in the last half century. Finally, her
careful examination of the events of 1948 at the local
and state levels in the South presents a more vivid
picture at the grassroots level of political change. As a
result, we have a clearer idea of why southerners
voted-or did not vote-for Thurmond and Wright.
ROGER BILES
East Carolina University
MARY L. DUDZIAK. Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the
Image of American Democracy. (Politics and Society in
Twentieth-Century America.) Princeton: Princeton
University Press. 2000. Pp. xii, 330. $29.95.
Over the past two decades, studies of the civil rights
movement have become increasingly localized. National civil rights leaders and organizations have been
pushed to the margins of scholarly focus by ordinary
and extraordinary grassroots women and men whose
inspiration and commitment propelled the civil rights
movement forward. Without detracting from the importance of the local origins of the black freedom
struggle, Mary L. Dudziak lucidly presents the case for
attaching a global perspective to racial reform in the
United States. "The international context structures
relationships between 'domestic' actors," she writes.
"It influences the timing, nature, and extent of social
change" (p. 17). Based on this premise, Dudziak
contends that, overall, the Cold War played a positive
role in extending first-class citizenship to African
Americans.
FEBRUARY 2002