Coming of Age in Jim Crow DC

Austin does incredible work here assembling numerous sources - interviews, psychological tests, researcher notes, etc. - to provide a rich perspective on the experiences of Black teenagers during the interwar period in DC. This was still under Jim Crow, and the awareness that these kids had of politics and society refutes many common narratives of the era, and their plans and hopes for the future are interwoven with insight into their sometimes turbulent environment. Overall this helps to put faces on a not-so-distant past and add depth to the statistics one finds in other work.