Hurricane Jim Crow

How the Great Sea Island Storm of 1893 Shaped the Lowcountry South

By: Caroline Grego

Narrated by: Diana Blue

On an August night in 1893, the deadliest hurricane in South Carolina history struck the Lowcountry, killing thousands—almost all African American. But the devastating storm is only the beginning of this story. The hurricane's long effects intermingled with ongoing processes of economic downturn, racial oppression, resistance, and environmental change. In the Lowcountry, the political, economic, and social conditions of Jim Crow were inextricable from its environmental dimensions.

This narrative history of a monumental disaster and its aftermath uncovers how Black workers and politicians, white landowners and former enslavers, northern interlocutors and humanitarians all met on the flooded ground of the coast and fought to realize very different visions for the region's future. Through a telescoping series of narratives in which no one's actions were ever fully triumphant or utterly futile, Hurricane Jim Crow explores with nuance this painful and contradictory history and shows how environmental change, political repression, and communal traditions of resistance, survival, and care converged.

©2022 Caroline Grego (P)2022 Tantor

Great telling of an awful tale

A wonderful but jarring retelling that should be matched with Wilmington’s Lie in telling how the Black population of the Carolinas was aggressively displaced.

Outstanding Research!

I’m genuinely impressed by the depth and clarity with which Grego has explored a pivotal chapter in South Carolina's history after a devastating event. She has recovered names, details, and imagery that are frequently forgotten. This work is a must-read for anyone who values the richness of historical insight.