The Road to Jim Crow

With unflinching dedication, Chris Brown has unearthed the secret history of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. He brings to life a separate world that is also heartland America. His vivid stories make the record of cross-racial democracy at once shameful, revealing, inspirational, and all too contemporary.

The Road to Jim Crow is a masterful blend of scholarship and insightful analysis. It is at once engrossing and informative. The history of the African American’s quest for equality, especially politically, is fascinating—and, more important, provides a window into some of the peculiarities of the Eastern Shore mindset, particularly as relates to policy choices locally as well as state-wide.

Finally! A crucial part of Tidewater history that for too long has been ignored, forgotten, and altogether sadly neglected. Chris Brown has written an eye opener about one of the most difficult and, at times, promising political periods for African-Americans on Maryland’s storied Eastern Shore. The Road to Jim Crow is essential reading, even for those who thought they knew all there was to know about 'the Land of Pleasant Living.'