The Thousand-Year Flood: The Ohio-Mississippi Disaster of 1937 by David Welky (review)

Abstract

102 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY A second problem concerns the relationship between white supremacist teachings and lynching. DuRocher argues that lynching served as the ultimate expression of southern whites’ determination to maintain racial control. On this point few scholars will disagree. Yet because she leaves the relationship between the racialized lessons she describes and lynching uninterrogated, readers are left to wonder exactly how she believes that racial education prepared white youths to participate in lynchings—and, ultimately, to carry out similar acts of violence as adults. While she convincingly shows that white children received no shortage of racialized teachings, why these necessarily led to violence is not clear. On this count, DuRocher’s study disappoints. Failure to delineate the teachinglynching relationship undermines her argument and leaves the book with a fundamental disconnect between the first three chapters and the last. Despite these reservations, Raising Racists delivers important insights into the racial education of white children. Even with its shortcomings, the book reveals the racial dimensions of white childhood and suggests directions for further investigation. Daniel Vivian University of Louisville