REMEMBERING JIM CROW is a colletion of first hand accounts of life in the Jim Crow south. The stories are compelling and at the same time sad.

The stories create the atmosphere that one is sitting in one of the elderly story tellers living room listening to them.

This book is especially worthwhile for non-African-Amercians readers, because virtually all African-Americans that have roots in the south, know these stories all too well.

This is an absolutely superb book, comprised of recollections of the Jim Crow years in the form of oral histories. It can be read through, or picked up at any part. There is an appropriate amount of historical introduction to each chapter.
This material needs to be read, and remembered. There was a long time in our history when, although there was no more slavery, African Americans were treated as a separate serf class, under constant pressures and reminders of their lower status. Whites used pervasive legal and social downward pressures to keep African Americans out of an equal education, and equal access to public facilities, much less the right to equal jobs and the right to vote -- and then claimed that African Americans' lack of achievement was a racial fault. If an African American violated one of the many social taboos, the sanctions ranged from a beating, to loss of job, and even being lynched.
While whites benefited from Jim Crow, the whites, also, were trapped in the system. They were also forced to abide by legal segregation, and were subject to social pressure if they were too liberal (being called "n* lover," "white n*," etc.).
What led to the mindset that the end of slavery should lead to continued legal and social oppression of African Americans? It was part of white American culture. Lincoln himself said that he was not "in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry.... [T]here must be the position of superior and inferior. I am as much as any other man in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." In 1877, Rutherford B. Hayes traded the end of southern post-war Reconstruction for the electoral votes he needed to win the presidency. Southern states then were free to institute the Jim Crow system.
I believe we are more subject to peer pressure than we would like to believe. Although reviewer McInerney asserts that "no civilized person" would benefit from Jim Crow, I feel many otherwise-good people were trapped and/or blinded by their own interests and surroundings. When allowed, and even encouraged, their evil side showed itself. On this topic, see John Griffin's _Black Like Me_, on the different faces that whites showed to other whites, and to African Americans.
While we are certain that we wouldn't go back to that system, we shouldn't be so sure that we, also, wouldn't be trapped by it if we were born into it. Consider that Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy (to a large extent) didn't take effective action to end segregation.
This book is excellent. Those dreadful and shameful times -- and the vestiges which still continue -- must not be forgotten.

This slipcased book and 2-cd set supplements the written word with oral history, gathering the voices of men and women who were firsthand witnesses to segregation in the south. Stories by men and women from all walks of life reveal how blacks fought against the system, built communities, and ran businesses in a society which denied them basic rights. Remembering Jim Crow offers the reader a comprehensive, involving, highly recommended presentation.

In this anthology, Chafe and Sitkoff have collected a number of articles that are critical in understanding the major issues in American history during the past 50 years. Despite the broad thematic scope of essays--ranging from post-war foreign policy to the creation of an "urban underclass" during the Reagan administration--the organization and careful editing of the book provide the reader with a clear understanding of America's recent sociopolitical transitions. The lucid and well-written individual essays, submitted by leading historians and well-known political figures, work particularly well alongside the documents and commentaries they are paired with.

Only a few pages of the 4th edition are new so if you have the 3rd don't bother with the 4th. The publisher should be ashamed.

Chafe does a good job on selected topics;i.e., politics, civil rights and foreign policy. Weak on economics, technology, farm policy. Heavily dependent on some secondary sources like Doris Kearns Goodwin. Needs updating badly. 4th edition has been delayed for months.