This book shows us the history of the Jim Crow laws and American race relations in general during the late 1800s up until the 1950s, and how they changed during these periods. Woodward convincingly shows that, even under slavery, the two races had not been divided as they were under the Jim Crow laws of the 1890s. In fact, during Reconstruction, there was considerable economic and political mixing of the races. The segregating of the races was relatively a new concept to the area. The time in our history when laws of segregation arose is referred to as the Jim Crow system and the laws, the Jim Crow laws. Thomas D. Rice wrote a song and dance in 1832 called ‘Jim Crow,’ and that is where the term originated.