Dear VA-Hist Members:
 
On Thursday, June 5, 2003, at noon, J. Douglas Smith will speak at the
Library of Virginia on his book Managing White Supremacy: Race,
Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia, published by the
University of North Carolina Press. Dr. Smith is a visiting assistant
professor of history at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California.
He holds the Ph.D. degree in American History from the University of
Virginia and has done extensive research at the Library of Virginia. The
book will be available in the Library Shop and a book signing in the
lobby will follow the lecture.  Please call 804-692-3592 for further
information.  
 
Tracing the erosion of white elite paternalism in Jim Crow Virginia, Dr.
Smith reveals a surprising fluidity in southern racial politics in the
decades between World War I and the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board
of Education decision. Smith draws on official records, private
correspondence, and letters to newspapers from otherwise anonymous
Virginians to capture a wide and varied range of black and white voices.
African Americans emerge as central characters in the narrative, as
Smith chronicles their efforts to obtain access to public schools and
libraries, protection under the law, and the equitable distribution of
municipal resources.  Exploring the everyday power struggles that
accompanied the erosion of white authority in the political, economic,
and educational arenas, Dr. Smith also uncovers the seeds of white
Virginians' resistance to civil rights activism in the second half of
the twentieth century. 
 
Gregg D. Kimball
Director of Publications
  and Educational Services
Library of Virginia
804/692-3722
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