Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow

by Neil R. McMillen

This is a history of Mississippi's black people, its majority people, and their struggles to achieve autonomy and full citizenship during the critical period of disfranchisement, segregation, and exclusion following 1890.

Genres: History, Historical

430 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1984

Reviews

[Jim Gulley · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Dark Journey" is an overview of the Jim Crow era in Mississippi from 1890 to the outbreak of WWII. It chronicled the societal factors of the antebellum and Reconstruction eras that presaged the implementation of Jim Crow laws and customs that supported a culture of white supremacy. McMillen notes that Mississippi had fewer Jim Crow statutes than neighboring states but the paradox – “the relative exiguity of legal apparatus in the most racially restrictive state” – could be explained in the confidence of the dominant race to enforce its customs by extra-legal means. The book’s title speaks of its periodization and the journey toward freedom that occurred in three stages: the collapse of Radical Reconstruction, the oppression of the Jim Crow era, and the beginning of the end after World War I.

McMillen traced the degradations of Black Mississippians from their disfranchisement in the political system, to their limited educational or economic opportunities, by being restricted in public spaces, and as experienced in the injustices of the legal system. The book ends abruptly, however, at the conclusion of World War II without telling the “rest of the story” of escalating resistance during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Nonetheless, Dark Journey is a powerful account of a low point in Mississippi history that in many ways is unrecognizable to us today, but in others, all too familiar.

[Marta E C R · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a rigorously researched historical tome, taking advantage of primary sources and teasing out data that is not easily available. Its topic is one which all Americans need to face head on, particularly white Americans, in order to understand why our country is where we are today. I am grateful for the opportunity to have read and discussed this book as part of my personal attempt to self-educate about U.S. history which has far too often been glossed over, ignored or dismissed.

[Jerome Noto · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introductory book for me on Jim Crow Mississippi…at times I would have preferred a more detail examination of various concepts (legal, lack of federal involvement or involvement of various leaders). Hard for me to conceptualize that this environment existed in the US for such an extended time…

[Stella · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't even remember this book. That can't be a good sign.