From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality.

• Author: Carson, Clayborne
• Position: Book Review

FROM JIM CROW TO CIVIL RIGHTS: THE SUPREME COURT AND THE STRUGGLE FOR RACIAL EQUALITY. By Michael J. Klarman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Scholars writing about black-white relations in the United States typically offer either optimistic or pessimistic narratives. The former emphasize racial progress--the gradual realization of American egalitarian and democratic ideals, which is variously attributed to the heroic efforts of idealistic reformers, mass protest movements, foreign policy considerations, or the impersonal forces of modernization. American history, and especially African American history, is understood as a progression from slavery to freedom, from pervasive racial segregation and discrimination to landmark civil rights reforms and affirmative action policies. The pessimists in contrast call attention to the persistence of racial conflict, segregation, discrimination, and inequality. Although military force, civil rights legislation, and federal court decisions overcame slavery and the southern Jim Crow system, the pessimists point out that white Americans still exercise political dominance on most issues of racial salience, still generally have better educational and economic opportunities than do black Americans, and still often resist concerted efforts to reduce longstanding racial inequalities. Michael Klarman's From Jim Crow to Civil Rights is on the pessimistic side of the spectrum, offering a strong critique of the tendency of some civil rights advocates to rely too much on civil rights litigation while ignoring broader social issues.

During the twentieth century, Martin Luther King, Jr., became the prototypical racial optimist, while Malcolm X was usually assigned the role of his pessimistic antagonist. King's optimism was most famously expressed when he announced at the 1963 March on Washington that this nation would "one day ... rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'" (1) Malcolm X, for his part, was skeptical that such a day would ever come. He ridiculed the Washington "picnic" as a sell-out by King and other major civil rights leaders. But both men's views evolved over time as King came to understand that Malcolm's harsh rhetoric "came into being as a result of a society that gives so many Negroes the nagging sense of 'nobody-ness.'" (2) By the end of his life, King agreed with the 1968 prediction of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders that the United States was "moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal." (3)

In the years since King's assassination, the literature of the modern African American freedom struggle has expanded enormously, and optimistic scholars have outnumbered pessimists. It is not difficult for optimists to point to the substantial changes in race relations that have occurred during the past century. Lynching and other forms of racist violence no longer deter African Americans from exercising their civil rights. Segregation is no longer legally mandated or allowed in public schools, restaurants, hotels, and other places. Overt racial discrimination and explicit barriers to black suffrage are prohibited throughout the United States. Significant changes have also occurred in the racial attitudes of white Americans.

But pessimists could point to the persistence of white supremacy in the post-civil rights era. Even in the twenty-first century, black Americans continue to feel the impact of white political dominance, even if that dominance is exercised through dramatically increased incarceration rates rather than through lynch mobs and Jim Crow laws. During the four decades since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the expansion of black suffrage has been offset by a major shift in the political and ideological allegiances of southern white voters from a New Deal-oriented Democratic Party to an increasingly conservative Republican Party. Black voters have generally continued to favor Democratic presidential candidates, but no such candidate since Lyndon Johnson has attracted the support of the majority of white voters. In the large sections of the South and West that are now dominated by the Republicans, candidates supported by black voters rarely prevail. Republican dominance in national politics has resulted in a shift away from Johnson's Great Society policies. An ideological gulf now separates the majority of black voters from the white majority regarding the role of government in responding to social needs.

Critical race theorists are among the dissenters who have argued that the indications of civil rights progress have obscured underlying continuities in the institutional foundations of white supremacy. These theorists question the notion that laws prohibiting individual acts of...