How Free Is Free? The Long Death of Jim Crow

reviewed by Margaret Russell

This brief but potent volume is a reminder that this nation's treatment of African Americans remains far more troubling than triumphant, despite the significant advances represented by the election of Barack Obama. Author Leon F. Litwack's five decades as a historian include winning a Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award for Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery (Vintage, 1980). In 2004, three years before he retired from an illustrious teaching career at UC Berkeley, Litwack delivered the three lectures in How Free Is Free? (each published as a chapter) at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University as part of its distinguished Nathan I. Huggins Lectures on African-American history. Particularly for those unfamiliar with Litwack's essential and brilliant work, these chapters provide compelling examples of his central thesis: that African-American progress, while remarkable, remains hampered by intractable social inequality. Or, in the words he uses to conclude the last lecture, "It is all very different. It is all very much the same."

The first lecture, "High Water Everywhere," chronicles the period of the 1890s through the start of World War II, including the zealous pursuits of lynch mobs and mass attacks on black communities; the exploitation of black soldiers to "make the world safe for democracy" even as blacks faced oppression in their own country; and the role of law and government in entrenching rather than correcting racial injustices. Litwack's vivid encapsulation of his earlier groundbreaking work in this area is extraordinarily effective and detailed.

The second lecture, "Never Turn Back," focuses on the period of World War II and its aftermath as a turning point in the struggle for racial equality: "the moment when the gathering storm of black unrest and impatience became impossible to contain." The convergence of several factors?most saliently, black soldiers' refusal to accept their continuing subordination; the fight for desegregation both before and after Brown v. Board of Education (1954); and the growth of black community protest?made this era, rather than the 1960s, the true catalyst of the modern civil rights movement.

The final lecture, "Fight the Power," covers the period of the 1960s through today. Perhaps because of its capacious and open-ended scope, it is the most ambitious and ultimately the least conclusive. Litwack chronicles the era of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, the Vietnam War, and hip-hop. He points out that despite the progress made, American society can hardly be pronounced "postracial" when levels of de facto segregation exceed those of 50 years ago.

Throughout these chapters, Litwack's particular gift lies in his thoughtful use of cultural and popular history to give voice to the long-ignored stories of African-American history. Litwack's larger goal?that African-American history is in fact our shared American history?is well-served in this highly readable and informative book.

Margaret Russell is a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law.

---