This Is Not Dixie: Racist Violence in Kansas (1861-1927)
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This Is Not Dixie: Racist Violence in Kansas (1861-1927)
By: Brent M.S. Campney
Often defined as a mostly southern phenomenon, racist violence existed everywhere.
Brent Campney explodes the notion of the Midwest as a so-called land of freedom with an in-depth study of assaults both active and threatened faced by African Americans in post “Civil War Kansas."
Campney's capacious definition of white-on-black violence encompasses not only sensational demonstrations of white power like lynchings and race riots, but acts of threatened violence and the varied forms of pervasive routine violence--property damage, rape, forcible ejection from towns--used to intimidate African Americans.
As he shows, such methods were a cornerstone of efforts to impose and maintain white supremacy.
Yet Campney's broad consideration of racist violence also lends new insights into the ways people resisted threats.
African Americans spontaneously hid fugitives and defused lynch mobs while using newspapers and civil rights groups to lay the groundwork for forms of institutionalized opposition that could fight racist violence through the courts and via public opinion.
Ambitious and provocative, This Is Not Dixie rewrites fundamental narratives on mob action, race relations, African American resistance, and racism's grim past in the heartland.
Paperback; 296 pages
ISBN: 978-0252083792
About the Author
Brent M. S. Campney is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
Praise For This Is Not Dixie: Racist Violence In Kansas, 1861-1927…
"A significant contribution to the field of racial violence and the understanding of the history of Kansas in the post–Civil War period…This Is Not Dixie secures the University of Illinois Press’s dominance as a publisher of scholarship on racial violence in the post–Civil War era. Highly recommended.”
--Choice
"Campney exposes the shameful extent of violence in our past and also highlights the episodes of actions against such violence by law enforcement officers and by the African American community. Others should follow his lead to rediscover the world of law, race, and violence that shaped the past and continues to shape the present."
--American Historical Review
"Campney has written an amazing and profound book that challenges many assumptions regarding racist violence in America, putting both the Midwest and the South in a deeper, richer context. This Is Not Dixie will no doubt inspire similar state-level studies."
--Journal of Southern History
By: Brent M.S. Campney
Often defined as a mostly southern phenomenon, racist violence existed everywhere.
Brent Campney explodes the notion of the Midwest as a so-called land of freedom with an in-depth study of assaults both active and threatened faced by African Americans in post “Civil War Kansas."
Campney's capacious definition of white-on-black violence encompasses not only sensational demonstrations of white power like lynchings and race riots, but acts of threatened violence and the varied forms of pervasive routine violence--property damage, rape, forcible ejection from towns--used to intimidate African Americans.
As he shows, such methods were a cornerstone of efforts to impose and maintain white supremacy.
Yet Campney's broad consideration of racist violence also lends new insights into the ways people resisted threats.
African Americans spontaneously hid fugitives and defused lynch mobs while using newspapers and civil rights groups to lay the groundwork for forms of institutionalized opposition that could fight racist violence through the courts and via public opinion.
Ambitious and provocative, This Is Not Dixie rewrites fundamental narratives on mob action, race relations, African American resistance, and racism's grim past in the heartland.
Paperback; 296 pages
ISBN: 978-0252083792
About the Author
Brent M. S. Campney is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
Praise For This Is Not Dixie: Racist Violence In Kansas, 1861-1927…
"A significant contribution to the field of racial violence and the understanding of the history of Kansas in the post–Civil War period…This Is Not Dixie secures the University of Illinois Press’s dominance as a publisher of scholarship on racial violence in the post–Civil War era. Highly recommended.”
--Choice
"Campney exposes the shameful extent of violence in our past and also highlights the episodes of actions against such violence by law enforcement officers and by the African American community. Others should follow his lead to rediscover the world of law, race, and violence that shaped the past and continues to shape the present."
--American Historical Review
"Campney has written an amazing and profound book that challenges many assumptions regarding racist violence in America, putting both the Midwest and the South in a deeper, richer context. This Is Not Dixie will no doubt inspire similar state-level studies."
--Journal of Southern History