The Jim Crow North: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Pottstown, Pennsylvania

The 1950s witnessed the revitalization of the civil rights movement, illustrated by the success of Brown vs. Board of Education. Moreover, after this case, the movement continued to flourish (21). Studying contemporary accounts and civil rights works enables one to appreciate the hardships and experiences of the disenfranchised African American communities across the United States.Enter Matthew George Washington’s The Jim Crow North: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. This well-written work depicts how Pottstown, a small northern industrial community, contributed directly to the struggle for Black freedom during and after World War II (26). The author employs government census records, oral history, newspapers, and letters to chronicle African American experiences during the late twentieth century. He purports to explain that “activism can still hold relevance to individuals diligently laboring in modern day toward creating an even more level playing field—socially, economically, and politically—in the realms of racial and ethnic justice” (26). More specifically, he focuses on how Pottstown remained an “essential center for the civil rights activism” and how its incorporation into the historiography of civil rights studies helps provide a fresh interpretation of Black freedom struggles in the North (20).Professor Washington (Prairie View A&M University) is a historian whose research centers primarily on Civil Rights history in the North, with a focus on working class activism in Pottstown. Over the years, he has investigated the experience of African Americans in that city, employing government census records, oral histories, newspapers, letters, and other primary sources. Some of Washington’s other works include the following articles: “Examining Interracial Civil Rights Activism in 1950s Pottstown, Pennsylvania” and “Segregation, White Supremacy, and the Dangers of Political Opportunism: A Case Study of George Wallace and Hendrik Verwoerd.”1In The Jim Crow North, Washington examines “the liberal interracialist strategy during World War II (and postwar years)—a concept already documented within the scholarship of northern civil rights” (20). From the early stages of the civil rights movement, activism for equal rights has proved relevant, helping to foster an equal playing field for social, economic, and political opportunities. Washington believes that activities in locations like Pottstown must be incorporated into civil rights literature to better understand African American struggles for inclusion and equal opportunities.In chapter 1, Washington presents his arguments and reviews the book’s organization. Each chapter addresses the experience and the development of civil rights activism in Pottstown. With this method of organization, Washington assembles a diverse look at northern civil rights, situating Pottstown at the center of his research concerning the national and regional impacts of Black freedom struggles. He addresses the experiences of the marginalized African American working class in the city and, by including the views of these individuals, demonstrates how the collaboration of blue-collar workers across the United States proved vital to the struggle for equality.Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the experiences of Black working-class members, chronicling their steps toward obtaining equality. Washington notes that like their western Pennsylvania counterpart employing the Pittsburgh Courier as a mouthpiece, African Americans in Pottstown drew on the press to expose the racial discrimination “both in the North and the South” (81). The Pottstown Mercury, first published in July 1944, would focus on “presenting humanizing and dignified portrayals of local Blacks to the white minority of the area” (123). Here, Washington’s examination of the role of African American newspapers, such as the Mercury, demonstrates how African Americans in that city were able to express their grievances concerning the vast amount of racial inequality and de facto segregation found in the small towns of Pennsylvania. (123).Chapters 4 and 5 examine the correlation between the Black freedom struggles of Pottstown and the success of Brown v. Board of Education. In this section, Washington focuses on how Pennsylvania legally “barred racial segregation within its public school system in the late nineteenth century” (147). Here, the author recalls that though segregation in the North had been theoretically outlawed before the Brown decision, de facto apartheid remained within Pennsylvania school systems and the workplace (147–48). Overall, in these chapters, Washington references how the experiences of Pottstown African Americans illustrated how “both the North and the South equally oppressed African Americans,” even though the United States government had enacted civil rights legislation (163).Finally, in his last two chapters, Washington provides an overview of how we can learn from the experiences of Pottstown’s Black freedom struggles. He specifically focuses on “how locals struggled to implement racial justice and democratic change in and around Pottstown can also have current-day relevance that centers on similar smaller-size communities both above and below the Mason-Dixon Line” (224). Here, the author focuses on the civil rights struggle not only in Pottstown but in other Pennsylvania cities (227). In sum, Washington’s The Jim Crow North reminds readers that local histories of small towns, such as Pottstown, have the potential to further expand our understanding of Black freedom struggles, on both sides of the Mason–Dixon Line.The book’s primary strength lies in Washington’s ability to employ oral histories to connect the political rhetoric of the Civil Rights movement with the Black freedom struggle of Pottstown, Pennsylvania. If The Jim Crow North contains any weaknesses, it would leave the reviewer wondering what other small towns could be examined to elucidate the Black freedom struggle further. In sum, Washington’s work constitutes a smooth, easy-to-read study that will appeal to African American and Civil Rights historians, as well as to general audiences. Moreover, Washington’s study opens the door for historians to examine more fully the Black freedom struggles in municipalities across the United States.