Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

One recurring theme in Four Hundred Souls is the fatigue at struggling against the same problems. Slavery no longer exists in America, but the authors in the book demonstrate that racism and systematized racial oppression persist. Much of the current racism stems from policies, attitudes, and acts that took place centuries prior.

Emancipation ended slavery but gave rise to the Jim Crow era of the South. The fight against Jim Crow resulted in the Civil Rights movement, desegregation, and other great advances. But the attitudes that led to slavery, and which made Jim Crow possible, did not go away in light of new legislation. According to theories of racial caste held by Four Hundred Souls contributor Isabel Wilkerson, with each new reform—the end of slavery, desegregation—racism evolves in insidious ways to preserve the racial caste system in America. Most recently this occurred with the War on Drugs and mass incarceration, the outcomes of which disproportionate affect Black men. Moreover, each new racist innovation makes it easier for proponents of white supremacy to argue that these policies are race-neutral or “colorblind.” For example, the “separate but equal” doctrine was applied to paper over the fundamental racial inequities of segregation. Similarly, mass incarceration is defended as a race-neutral set of policies, even as police officers are shown to target Black communities, according to scholars like Michelle Alexander.