Trouble in Mind [Paperback]

Leon F. Litwack (Author), Leon F Litwack (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 27, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0375702636 | ISBN-13: 978-0375702631

"The stain of Jim Crow runs deep in 20th-century America. . . . Its effects remain the nation's most pressing business. Trouble in Mind is an absolutely essential account of its dreadful history and calamitous legacy."  --The Washington Post

"The most complete and moving account we have had of what the victims of the Jim Crow South suffered and somehow endured."
--C. Vann Woodward

In April 1899, black laborer Sam Hose killed his white boss in self-defense. Wrongly accused of raping the man's wife, Hose was mutilated, stabbed, and burned alive in front of 2,000 cheering whites. His body was sold piecemeal to souvenir seekers; an Atlanta grocery displayed his knuckles in its front window for a week.

With the same narrative skill he brought to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Been in the Storm So Long, Leon Litwack constructs a searing history of life under Jim Crow. Drawing on new documentation and first-person accounts by blacks and whites, he describes the injustices--both institutional and personal--inflicted against a people. Here, too, are the black men and women whose activism, literature, and music preserved the genius of their human spirit. Painstakingly researched, important, and timely, Trouble in Mind recalls the bloodiest and most repressive period in the history of race relations in the United States--and the painful record of discrimination that haunts us to this day.

"Moving, elegant, earthy and pointed. . . . It forces us to reckon with the tragic legacies of freedom as well as of slavery. And it reminds us of the resilience and creativity of the human spirit."
--Steven Hahn, The San Diego Union-Tribune

"A chilling reminder of how simple it has been for Americans to delude themselves about the power of race."         --The Raleigh News & Observer

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The name of the era, "Jim Crow," was somehow derived from an old minstrel song, but there was nothing frivolous about the laws and traditions used to keep blacks from participating in society in the post-Reconstruction South. Leon Litwack, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a noted authority on black history, has written a searing account of the age of Jim Crow in Trouble In Mind. The book is arranged in thematic chapters that show how blacks were restricted at every turn. Blacks were kept in perpetual debt, denied proper schooling, and were subjected to daily assaults on their dignity. Most disturbing was the institution of lynchings, the thousands of hangings and burnings that terrorized blacks in the South. Litwack documents how lynchings were carefully planned and attracted large crowds who viewed them as cathartic entertainment. Trouble In Mind deals with a long and sad chapter in American History, but Professor Litwack has written a laudable book which deserves to be read. Trouble In Mind is considered a sequel to Litwack's Been In the Storm So Long, a critically acclaimed account of Reconstruction which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The 1970s witnessed an explosion of extraordinary historical scholarship on black slavery, culture, and the complex relationship between races in U.S. history. Among the best of the great books published was Berkeley professor Litwack's Been in the Storm So Long (Random, 1979), which examined the development of black society and culture roughly from the Civil War to the end of the 19th century. The new volume begins a century ago as race relations deteriorated toward strict segregation and a brutality that rivaled slavery. As in his earlier book, Litwack is strongest describing how the black community built and preserved its integrity while under constant assault from hostile whites. This long-awaited sequel shows that the author is a master of making the most of sources that only a generation ago were considered too meager to merit serious historical examination. A useful discography follows the thorough bibliography of primary and secondary sources. Highly recommended for most public and academic audiences.?Charles K. Piehl, Mankato State Univ., Minn.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (July 27, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375702636
• ISBN-13: 978-0375702631
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.2 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #385,265 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A white southerner says this book has been long needed, August 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Trouble in Mind (Paperback)

I picked up "Trouble In Mind" hoping it would be the kind of exhaustive and eloquent study of the Jim Crow South that has been needed for decades. I was not disappointed. This book goes to great lengths to document every facet of the black experience in the American South, the so-called "New South." It not only shows how a people struggled against unbelieveable injustice and violence, but endured. This must never be forgotten. Ever. Earlier reviews which call this book "revisionist" "biased" or "flawed" seem to have forgotten Litwack's admonition in the preface, that this book was not meant "to depict blacks only as victims or whites only as victimizers." But it also shows an unwillingness to believe that things of this nature could have happened in America. Unfortunately, they did, and this book is only a beginning. It must not be viewed as a sword of Damocles to be held over the head of every white, but as a beginning to understanding the very real work left to be done in this country between whites and blacks. I applaud Leon Litwack for his work.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A monumental account of the era of Jim Crow, May 3, 2000

By 

Eric W. Macaux - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trouble in Mind (Paperback)

Leon Litwack's book offers perhaps one of the most lucid and thorough descriptions of life under Jim Crow. By the time you turn the final page, it will be clear that Jim Crow is about far more than signs over drinking fountains. Rather, it was a systemic attempt to re-impose white supremacy after the yoke of slavery had been cast off. Despite others' criticisms, I found Litwack's evidence more than compelling. As a student of history, I must say that his coverage was complete, and his analysis was accurate. Trouble in Mind depends upon a wide variety of sources, including mainstream, white, periodicals. Perhaps what is most disturbing is that many of the primary-source documents are from mainstream, "white" sources.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Massive Achievement, January 28, 2001

By 

Ricky Hunter (New York City, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Trouble in Mind (Paperback)

Leon F. Litwack has assembled a massive book, Trouble in Mind, that will take the reader through the entire life of African Americans living under the Jim Crow laws in the South. All the stories are taken from original sources that allow the authentic voices of the African Americans to heard whether in protest, agony, prayer, sadness, sympathy, anger, or the range of other emotions pouring out from this book and their stories. Many of the voices recur throughout the book and become very familiar to the reader. The book is designed so as to take the reader from childhood under Jim Crow until death and having those familiar voices appearing throughout the book does add a horrifying element of the seeing how the Jim Crow laws and racial attitudes in the South were all encompassing and affected a person's entire life. It does help if the reader has a familiarity with the history of this period to truly understand the stories in this book. It is a fine work that allows the voices of African Americans to speak out about the times they lived through.