The Road to Jim Crow: The African American Struggle on Maryland's Eastern Shore, 1860–1915 by C. Christopher Brown (review)

When one thinks about the rise of Jim Crow, Maryland's Eastern Shore does not typically come to mind. C. Christopher Brown's The Road to Jim Crow: The African American Struggle on Maryland's Eastern Shore, 1860–1915 seeks to change that. Brown's work breaks new ground while simultaneously adhering to the model of previous studies on the development of the Jim Crow system. By using Maryland's Eastern Shore as a case study, Brown has "unveiled a number of strong black leaders who fought for the end of slavery, the right to vote, and the right to equal participation in our society's democratic process" (p. x). These strong black leaders included men like William Perkins and Herbert Maynadier "Maynie" St. Clair. Through their efforts, Maryland was brought to the forefront of the African American struggle. Perkins, St. Clair, and countless others did not want to sit idly by while African Americans were cast into a system that treated them as second-class citizens.

Perkins was a business owner and part of a small but powerful black elite class on the Eastern Shore. While Perkins fought tirelessly to help African Americans in the region gain equality, his work largely benefited those like him. One of the book's strengths is showing that even though Perkins campaigned for the Fifteenth Amendment in eastern Maryland, the right to vote did not extend far beyond black elites. This holds true throughout the book. While Perkins, St. Clair, and a number of others worked toward making the lives of African Americans better, Brown points out that their initial successes were fleeting. Every time they made a gain, political or otherwise, white people within both parties came up with loopholes to negate the progress.

By starting with the Civil War, Brown changes the traditional timeline for the study of Jim Crow. Typically, works on the subject start in the 1880s and pay very little attention to the Civil War and Reconstruction. Brown emphasizes the Eastern Shore's distinctiveness. The Eastern Shore is different from the rest of the state geographically, culturally, and therefore politically. By beginning in 1860, Brown highlights the fact that African Americans' struggles on the Eastern Shore did not start with the passage of Jim Crow laws in the 1880s and 1890s. Rather, the laws were an extension of slavery, and it would take more than a few men like Perkins and St. Clair to change a system so deeply rooted in the Eastern Shore's history.

Brown, a lawyer by trade, excels in the details. His use of local newspapers, census records, and a wealth of other sources is extensive. While Brown is able to weave an interesting narrative with these sources, his attention to detail is at its best in the appendix. He offers a variety of tables that depict the amount of property owned in the Eastern Shore counties (with separate tables for white and black property owners), voter registration rates, and how voting totals changed when African Americans were excluded. He even provides a list of the people identified as lynching victims in Maryland from 1854 to 1933.

Brown's title, especially the subtitle, is apt for this book. Maryland's African Americans on the Eastern Shore struggled long before the advent of Jim Crow. With The Road to Jim Crow, Brown has brought that struggle to light, bringing a fresh new perspective to a long-studied subject.