Books like How free is free? by Leon F. Litwack

C. Vann Woodward’s classic 1955 study argues that Jim Crow segregation emerged only in the 1890s, showing the South’s racial relations were more mixed during slavery and Reconstruction.

A century after Appomattox, the civil rights movement won full citizenship for black Americans in the South. It should not have been necessary: by 1870 those rights were set in the Constitution. Journalist Lemann describes an insurgency that changed the course of American history: from 1873 to 1877 white Southern Democrats waged a campaign of political terrorism to create chaos and keep blacks from voting out of fear for their lives and livelihoods, aiming to overturn the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and challenge President Grant's support for the emergent structures of black political power. The remorseless strategy of well-financed "White Line" organizations culminated in a bloody, corrupt election in which Mississippi was "redeemed" —That is, returned to white control. This led to the death of Reconstruction— and of the constitutional rights of the former slaves. We are still living with the consequences.

"Winner of several national awards including the 1967 Pulitzer Prize, this classic study by David Brion Davis has given new direction to the historical and sociological research of society's attitude towards slavery. Davis depicts the various ways different societies have responded to the intrinsic contradictions of slavery from antiquity to the early 1770's in order to establish the uniqueness of the abolitionists' response. While slavery has always caused considerable social and psychological tension, Western culture has associated it with certain religious and philosophical doctrines that gave it the highest sanction. The contradiction of slavery grew more profound when it became closely linked with American colonization, which had as its basic foundation the desire and opportunity to create a more perfect society. Davis provides a comparative analysis of slave systems in the Old World, a discussion of the early attitudes towards American slavery, and a detailed exploration of the early protests against Negro bondage, as well as the religious, literary, and philosophical developments that contributed to both sides in the controversies of the late eighteenth century. This exemplary introduction to the history of slavery in Western culture presents the traditions in thought and value that gave rise to the attitudes of both abolitionists and defenders of slavery in the late eighteenth century as well as the nineteenth century."--Publisher description.