The Accident of Color Lib/E: A Story of Race in Reconstruction

In The Accident of Color, Daniel Brook journeys to nineteenth-century New Orleans and Charleston and introduces us to cosmopolitan residents who elude the racial categories the rest of America takes for granted. Before the Civil War, these free, openly mixed-race urbanites enjoyed some rights of citizenship and the privileges of wealth and social status. But after Emancipation, as former slaves move to assert their rights, the black-white binary that rules the rest of the nation begins to intrude. During Reconstruction, a movement arises as mixed-race elites make common cause with the formerly enslaved and allies at the fringes of whiteness in a bid to achieve political and social equality for all. In some areas, this coalition proved remarkably successful. Activists peacefully integrated the streetcars of Charleston and New Orleans for decades and, for a time, even the New Orleans public schools and the University of South Carolina were educating students of all backgrounds side by side. Tragically, the achievements of this movement were ultimately swept away by a violent political backlash and expunged from the history books, culminating in the Jim Crow laws that would legalize segregation for a half century and usher in the binary racial regime that rules us to this day.

About the Author :
Daniel Brook is a journalist and author whose writing has appeared in Harper's, the New York Times Magazine, and the Nation. His A History of Future Cities was longlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize and selected as one of the ten best books of the year by the Washington Post. Brook's research and writing have been supported by fellowships from institutions including the Library of Congress and Tulane University's New Orleans Center for the Gulf South. Born in Brooklyn, raised on Long Island, and educated at Yale, Brook lives in New Orleans. When he was seven, David Sadzin's first grade teacher gave him a paragraph to read out loud. She interrupted him halfway to proclaim him the "Ringmaster" in his class's musical extravaganza about the circus. He's been using his voice to get out of trouble ever since. After a few intense years on New York's stages, performing traditional and experimental theater, improv, and sketch comedy, he's now settled comfortably in front of the mic in his home studio in Brooklyn.

Review :
"A spell-binding exploration...Heartbreaking but also vividly alive, The Accident of Color moves easily from court cases to activists on the ground to politicians in legislatures as it portrays the many ways people struggled for the right to define themselves in a time of hardening racial lines. A lovely, necessary book." -- "Gregory P. Downs, professor of history, University of California, Davis" "Brook's history points to the ways Reconstruction impacted urban settings differently than across much of the South and how early civil rights attempts almost succeeded. In doing so, he reminds us that Jim Crowism and disfranchisement were not inevitable...This poignant and powerful book shows us that decisions and laws surrounding racial identity and interest were deliberate. Knowing that matters in thinking about race today." -- "Library Journal" "The phrase 'civil rights movement' is usually associated with the 1950s and 1960s, but, as journalist Brook's insightful history shows, it is just as appropriately applied to the post-Civil War era... This thoughtful and vivid history makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of race in America." -- "Publishers Weekly"