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.

This is a rare look at a regular guy in the Civil War. You get to read the letters of the rich and famous often enough as every letter they ever wrote was saved but here is a collection of letters from an ordinary guy. He tells about his life, battles, and how he wants the money he sends home spent. You get to know him almost too well as you feel the pain of losing him. This is well worth reading.

Infantryman Pettit is the civil war through the eyes of a teenager gone off to war. He goes into battle at 19 with the naivety that speaks of youth seeking glory. He becomes a hardened veteran that loses none of his morals in the process. Here is the epitome of the American G.I., no anti-hero stuff here, just out and out reasons why we should respect our soldiers and the terrible situations they must endure. You ever wonder why people jumped on handgrenades to save their fellow soldiers in World War II? Read about Pettit and his civil war experience and you will understand.

Gavin's work on the 100th Pennsylvania is the first serious work ever to come out on the regiment. Gavin relies heavily on soldiers' reminiscences, and in many cases quotes in long blocks from them. To the researcher, that is important. He also did some ground-breaking research on Col. Daniel Leasure's brigade at the Battle of the Wilderness. However, his style is somewhat stilted and stiff; the soldier's narratives often are repetitive and some add little to the story. Overall, it is an important work, but could have been written better. As a Civil War historian myself, I found his work invaluable in my research on the Wilderness.