Racial Dynamics in Early Twentieth-Century Austin, Texas

This pioneering study sheds new light on racial dynamics in the urban Southwest at a critical juncture in the history of the region and the nation. It focuses upon the experiences of ethnoracial minorities, particularly African Americans and Mexican immigrants in Austin, Texas from the dawn of the Progressive Era to the onset of the Great Depression. Through this lens, McDonald explores the issues of migration, proletarianization, marginalization, adaptation, identity, and community. He reveals how, in response to the exponential growth of the local ethnic-Mexican population, the white elite of the Lone Star State’s capital adapted the city’s bipartite system of segregation, which had traditionally separated blacks from whites, to incorporate Mexicans as a third and separate element, neither black nor white. As well as examining how African Americans and Mexican Americans responded to life in a racially-stratified society, McDonald examines the often fraught relationship between these groups.

This pioneering study sheds new light on racial dynamics in the urban Southwest at a critical juncture in the history of the region and the nation. It focuses upon the experiences of ethnoracial minorities, particularly African Americans and Mexican immigrants in Austin, Texas from the dawn of the Progressive Era to the onset of the Great Depression. Through this lens, McDonald explores the issues of migration, proletarianization, marginalization, adaptation, identity, and community. He reveals how, in response to the exponential growth of the local ethnic-Mexican population, the white elite of the Lone Star State’s capital adapted the city’s bipartite system of segregation, which had traditionally separated blacks from whites, to incorporate Mexicans as a third and separate element, neither black nor white. As well as examining how African Americans and Mexican Americans responded to life in a racially-stratified society, McDonald examines the often fraught relationship between these groups.