African American History - Social Aspects, United States - Ethnic & Race Relations, 19th Century American History - Social Aspects, Southern Region - History - General & Miscellaneous
Dangerous Liaisons: Sex and Love in the Segregated South
CHARLES F. ROBINSON II
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Overview
In the tumultuous decades after the Civil War, as the southern white elite reclaimed power, "racial mixing" was the central concern of segregationists who strove to maintain "racial purity." Segregation - and race itself - was based on the idea that interracial sex posed a biological threat to the white race. In this study, Charles Robinson examines how white southerners enforced anti-miscegenation laws. His findings challenge conventional wisdom, documenting a pattern of selective prosecution under which interracial domestic relationships were punished even more harshly than transient sexual encounters. Robinson shows that the real crime was to suggest that black and white individuals might be equals, a notion which undermined the legitimacy of the economic, political, and social structure of white male supremacy.Synopsis
Robinson (history, U. of Arkansas) explores how US Southerners enforced anti-miscegenation laws, focusing on the period from the end of the Civil War through 1930. Among his findings are that whites were more concerned about intimacy and domestic relations than about sexual relations, and about black men and white women than vice versa. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Book Details
Published
October 1, 2003
Publisher
University of Arkansas Press
Pages
160
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9781557287557