Jim Crow Sociology

Originally published in 2020, Jim Crow Sociology is a lauded history of how “Black sociology” came into existence. Diving into the history of four historically Black colleges and universities and their roles in pioneering a new intellectual field, Earl Wright II argues that the roots of sociology lie not in the primarily white Ivies but in HBCUs. Wright’s work is foundational in tracing the roots of sociology at distinct institutions. Tuskegee Institute, for example, established the first program of applied rural sociology under the leadership of Booker T. Washington. Fisk University, under the guidance of first George Edmund Haynes and then Charles S. Johnson, developed one of the earliest and most influential programs of applied urban sociology. The history of W. E. B. Du Bois’s Atlanta Sociological Laboratory reveals the contributions of women to the first American school of sociology.

In exploring the histories of these institutions and programs, Wright upends old ideas about the roots of an academic discipline and makes the case that sociology began in the United States as a Black and Southern enterprise.