The Color of Race in America, 1900-1940

by Matthew Pratt Guterl

With the social change brought on by the Great Migration of African Americans into the urban northeast after the Great War came the surge of a biracial sensibility that made America different from other Western nations. How white and black people thought about race and how both groups understood and attempted to define and control the demographic transformation are the subjects of this new book by a rising star in American history.

An elegant account of the roiling environment that witnessed the shift from the multiplicity of white races to the arrival of biracialism, this book focuses on four representative spokesmen for the transforming Daniel Cohalan, the Irish-American nationalist, Tammany Hall man, and ruthless politician; Madison Grant, the patrician eugenicist and noisy white supremacist; W. E. B. Du Bois, the African-American social scientist and advocate of social justice; and Jean Toomer, the American pluralist and novelist of the interior life. Race, politics, and classification were their intense and troubling preoccupations in a world they did not create, would not accept, and tried to change.

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 25, 2001

About the author

I am a historian, so I write books. But I read them, too. If I really enjoy something, I'll review it here. And feel free to message me.

Reviews

[Samanta · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Merriam-Webster's definition of race is "a family, tribe, people, or nation belonging to the same stock". In my understanding, we are all one race, human race, yet humans have spent thousands of years trying to create differences between each other, often confusing race with skin color, nationality or a religious denomination, to justify the way human society developed through centuries.

This book describes one of the most turbulent and, I dare say exciting, periods of U.S. (and world's history), the first half of the 20th century, when people witnessed the beginning of the fundamental changes in their learned way of life and seeing things. Out of four chapters, 3 are dedicated to the issues with African-Americans, and one to the issues of Irish-Americans (I use these names, because the author used them). I found the book very interesting for the most part (with the exception of the last chapter about Jean Toomer, which was a bit on the boring side), but I learned many new this and learned of new people connected with the issues of civil rights in U.S.

One quote, by Marcus Garvey, mentioned in the book, stuck with me (speaking about the Irish and the British, which can be applied to the human race as a whole, but which Garvey himself did not understand or want to admit):

"...they are all cousins, if not brothers. They are all one people, and it is only a matter of national limits that caused them to be fighting one against the other."