Coming of Age in Jim Crow DC, Paula Austin
Coming of Age in Jim Crow DC, Paula Austin
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Coming of Age in Jim Crow DC
Navigating the Politics of Everyday Life

Author: Paula Austin

Narrator: Ron Butler

Unabridged: 5 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/02/2020

Synopsis

This overview offers a complex narrative of the everyday lives of black young people in a racially, spatially, economically, and politically restricted Washington, DC during the 1930s. In contrast to the ways in which young people have been portrayed by researchers, policymakers, law enforcement, and the media, Paula C. Austin draws on previously unstudied archival material to present black poor and working-class young people as thinkers, theorists, critics, and commentators as they reckon with the boundaries imposed on them in a Jim Crow city that was also the American emblem of equality. The narratives at the center of this book provide a different understanding of black urban life in the early twentieth century, showing that ordinary people were experts at navigating around the limitations imposed by the District of Columbias racially segregated politics. Coming of Age in Jim Crow DC is a fresh take on the New Negro movement and a vital contribution to the history of race in America.

About Paula Austin

Paula C. Austin is the assistant professor of history and African American studies at Boston University. She writes and teaches about Black visual culture and African American and civil rights history, and she facilitates faculty professional development on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul

3.5 * This (audio)book wasn't bad, the author did great research, and I generally enjoyed it (especially after completing an autobook autobiography on DC native and basketball coaching legend John Thompson).......more

Goodreads review by Joe

Interesting but far too brief, with the whole first third of the text a dry academic overview of author Paula C. Austin's archival source material. In the rest of the book, she brings the late 1930s to life and presents not merely the racist structures governing young African-Americans in the nation......more

Goodreads review by Rosa

Short quick read with a lot of impact. The author takes a famous study done by Howard University and follows deeper into who the people were being interviewed for it. With brief discussions on how a person is interviewed might affect what is recorded and who gets to be a part of the History of Ideas......more

Goodreads review by Emma

This book is so powerful. Young voices are often lost to history unless they are particularly remarkable. Austin has done a masterful job of resurrecting the voices of ordinary, young black youth from the archives of a group of sociologists and psychologists. This shows a powerful juxtaposition betw......more

Goodreads review by Jeanne

This was a fascinating use of archival material and a great example of how primary sources can be reinterpreted beyond what they were designed to collect. It was interesting to get a snapshot of this particular place at this particular time through the eyes of these poor Black youths and to place it......more

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