Crescent City Girls

The Lives of Young Black Women in Segregated New Orleans

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Cultural Studies, African-American Studies, Gender Studies, Women&, History, Americas, United States
Cover of the book Crescent City Girls by LaKisha Michelle Simmons, The University of North Carolina Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: LaKisha Michelle Simmons ISBN: 9781469622811
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press Publication: May 28, 2015
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press Language: English
Author: LaKisha Michelle Simmons
ISBN: 9781469622811
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication: May 28, 2015
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Language: English

What was it like to grow up black and female in the segregated South? To answer this question, LaKisha Simmons blends social history and cultural studies, recreating children's streets and neighborhoods within Jim Crow New Orleans and offering a rare look into black girls' personal lives. Simmons argues that these children faced the difficult task of adhering to middle-class expectations of purity and respectability even as they encountered the daily realities of Jim Crow violence, which included interracial sexual aggression, street harassment, and presumptions of black girls' impurity.

Simmons makes use of oral histories, the black and white press, social workers' reports, police reports, girls' fiction writing, and photography to tell the stories of individual girls: some from poor, working-class families; some from middle-class, "respectable" families; and some caught in the Jim Crow judicial system. These voices come together to create a group biography of ordinary girls living in an extraordinary time, girls who did not intend to make history but whose stories transform our understanding of both segregation and childhood.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

What was it like to grow up black and female in the segregated South? To answer this question, LaKisha Simmons blends social history and cultural studies, recreating children's streets and neighborhoods within Jim Crow New Orleans and offering a rare look into black girls' personal lives. Simmons argues that these children faced the difficult task of adhering to middle-class expectations of purity and respectability even as they encountered the daily realities of Jim Crow violence, which included interracial sexual aggression, street harassment, and presumptions of black girls' impurity.

Simmons makes use of oral histories, the black and white press, social workers' reports, police reports, girls' fiction writing, and photography to tell the stories of individual girls: some from poor, working-class families; some from middle-class, "respectable" families; and some caught in the Jim Crow judicial system. These voices come together to create a group biography of ordinary girls living in an extraordinary time, girls who did not intend to make history but whose stories transform our understanding of both segregation and childhood.

More books from The University of North Carolina Press

Cover of the book Muslim American Women on Campus by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
Cover of the book Separatism and Subculture by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
Cover of the book The Gymnasium of Virtue by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
Cover of the book Eroding Military Influence in Brazil by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
Cover of the book Between Churchill and Stalin by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
Cover of the book Gertrude Weil by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
Cover of the book Terror in the Heart of Freedom by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
Cover of the book Chancellorsville by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
Cover of the book Cornwallis by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
Cover of the book North Carolinians in the Era of the Civil War and Reconstruction by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
Cover of the book Tobe by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
Cover of the book Heroes of Hell Hole Swamp: Photographs of South Carolina Midwives by Hansel Mieth and W. Eugene Smith by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
Cover of the book A Savage Conflict by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
Cover of the book Recognition, Sovereignty Struggles, and Indigenous Rights in the United States by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
Cover of the book The Intellectual Construction of America by LaKisha Michelle Simmons
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy