# White Fright: The Sexual Panic at the Heart of America's Racist History - Hardcover

by **Jane Dailey** (Author)

**A major new history of the fight for racial equality in America, arguing that fear of black sexuality has undergirded white supremacy from the start.**  
In _White Fright_, historian Jane Dailey brilliantly reframes our understanding of the long struggle for African American rights. Those fighting against equality were not motivated only by a sense of innate superiority, as is often supposed, but also by an intense fear of black sexuality.

In this urgent investigation, Dailey examines how white anxiety about interracial sex and marriage found expression in some of the most contentious episodes of American history since Reconstruction: in battles over lynching, in the policing of black troops' behavior overseas during World War II, in the violent outbursts following the Supreme Court's decision in _Brown v. Board of Education_, and in the tragic story of Emmett Till. The question was finally settled -- as a legal matter -- with the Court's definitive 1967 decision in _Loving v. Virginia_, which declared interracial marriage a "fundamental freedom." Placing sex at the center of our civil rights history, _White Fright_ offers a bold new take on one of the most confounding threads running through American history.  

### Author Biography

**Jane Dailey** is an associate professor of history at the University of Chicago. A recipient of fellowships from the American Academy in Berlin and the Guggenheim Foundation, she is also the author and coauthor of several previous books, including _Before Jim Crow_ and _Building the American Republic_. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.

**Number of Pages:** 368

**Dimensions:** 1.5 x 9.3 x 6.3 IN

**Publication Date:** November 17, 2020

## Details

- **Price:** 30.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 30.00 USD | In stock |

## Images

- White Fright: The Sexual Panic at the Heart of America's Racist History - Hardcover

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