Participant Info

First Name
Kathryn
Last Name
Tucker
Country
United States
State
AL Alabama
Affiliation
Troy University
Website URL
legacyoflynching.com
Keywords
Race, race relations, Jim Crow, US South, southern history, African American history, miscegenation, interracial marriage, racial identity, racial definitions, law, legal history, community, lynching, racial violence, Civil Rights Movement, school integration, Reconstruction, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi
Availability
Media Contact
Additional Contact Information
PhD
PhD

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

I’m a historian of American race relations in the 19th-20th century at Troy University in Alabama.  I received my PhD from the University of Georgia in 2014, and my first book, Regulating Race:  Miscegenation and Mixed Race in Laws and Communities of the Jim Crow South, is forthcoming from UGA Press.

This book examines the contrast between legal bans against interracial relationships in the Deep South during Jim Crow, and the ways in which communities dealt with these relationships and the families they created.  I argue that communities defined race differently than the law, and that because of these different markers and concerns, along with community ties, they frequently tolerated interracial relationships for years. My research shows that neighbors or family members generally only initiated miscegenation prosecution for personal gain unrelated to racial ideology.  This weaponization of Jim Crow laws for personal reasons, rather than racial outrage, demonstrates the fictions and complexity of beliefs and actions regarding segregation and racial oppression.

In addition to interracial relationships and racial identity, I also study racial violence and lynching, using these trends to help understand the development of the world today. By analyzing all types of racial violence on a local, micro level, I’ve been able to recreate local networks of power and resistance that shaped communities during Jim Crow. While these violent incidents have largely been forgotten, the patterns they created persist. I have presented my early findings at several conferences, and am working on an article and second book based on this project. This work actually stems from a student research project I led in collaboration with the Equal Justice Initiative on lynchings in the Troy area. Our research and findings are available online at LegacyofLynching.com.

In addition to my research, I have extensively taught, interviewed, and publicly spoken on the Civil Rights Movement, particularly leadership and the grassroots and student movement.

Recent Publications

Selected Publications:

Regulating Race:  Miscegenation and Mixed Race in Laws and Communities of the Jim Crow South, Southern Legal Studies Series, UGA Press, forthcoming

Selected Presentations:

“Lovers versus Legislators: Interracial Marriage as a Challenge to the Politics of Jim Crow,” Rethinking Race and Politics in Alabama from the Civil War to the Present Symposium, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, October 2022

“Marriage in Black, White, and In Between: How Women Used Marriage to Challenge Jim Crow.” Southern Association of Women Historians Conference, University of Kentucky, June 2022

“Empty Landscapes: Erasure of Racial Violence and its Legacy in Lower Alabama.” Sites of Reckoning: Memorials, Museums & Fractured Truth(s) in the Aftermaths of Mass Violence Symposium, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, March 2020

“Racial Violence, Local Connections, and Memory in Lower Alabama.” Monmouth University Interdisciplinary Conference on Race, West Long Branch, NJ, November 2019

“An Education on Race:  School Attendance Trials and Defining Race in Jim Crow Alabama.” Alabama Historical Association Annual Meeting, Montgomery, AL, April 2016

“Crossing Jim Crow:  Legal Proscription versus Community Toleration of Interracial Relationships in the Jim Crow South.”  European Association for American Studies Conference, The Hague, Netherlands, April 2014

“Regulating Race:  Interracial Relationships, Community, and Law in the Jim Crow South.”  Organization of American Historians Conference, Washington DC, April 2010

Media Coverage
My work and teaching has been featured on Troy Public Radio (NPR affiliate), Alabama Public Radio, Reckon AL.com, Mississippi Free Press, WFSA Montgomery, WAFF Huntsville, WTVY Dothan, Dothan Eagle, Troy Today blog, the Tropolitan, and Trojan Vision.
Country Focus
United States
Expertise by Geography
United States
Expertise by Chronology
19th century, Modern, 20th century
Expertise by Topic
American Civil War, Gender, Human Rights, Law, Local & Regional, Race