Book excerpt: Starting in the 1870s, Jim Crow laws began to appear across the South. Their aim was to enforce racial segregation, consolidating power in the hands of whites. This book examines the impact of these laws and other challenges that African Americans faced between the Reconstruction period and World War I. Topics discussed include the rise of groups promoting white supremacy, laws designed to quash African-American voting, Plessey v. Ferguson, the success of Booker T. Washington and the Tuskegee Institute, racially motivated riots, and the formation of the NAACP.