But Not Jim Crow: Family Memories of African American Loggers of Maxville, Oregon

Cecil and Celeste talk to Pearl Alice Marsh, author of “But Not Jim Crow: Family Memories of African American Loggers of Maxville, Oregon.”

This book is about African American loggers who came to Oregon between 1923 -1945 during the Great Migration of more than six million African Americans from the Jim Crow south to the north. While Oregon was no paradise from racial discrimination, the loggers found a modicum of respite high in the North woods of Wallowa County in this small company town. Through meticulous archival research and personal stories, this book provides its readers with a deeper understanding of the interplay between Oregon’s developing lumber industry and the complex dynamics of race relations in the rural American west.