Many people think of the first three decades of the 20th century as the formative years of Jim Crow, or legal segregation, a time when African Americans shared in the aspirations and expectations of their fellow citizens, but who did so as a people with a unique set of barriers to overcome. In
the South, segregation had become a way of life. In the North, opportunities for work were hard to come by in the face of a less overt racism. Yet, even...