Awarded the 2016 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, Luxenberg’s second book is a deeply researched account of events leading up to the infamous “separate but equal” Plessy v. Ferguson decision. Announced on May 18, 1896, the decision had a deceptively quiet reception. But as Luxenberg shows, the case went to issues at the heart of the nation’s unresolved image of itself. Focusing on the individuals involved in bringing, arguing, and deciding the case as well as on the broader separatist currents throughout the era of westward expansion and industrialization, Luxenberg, a longtime Washington Post senior editor, forces us to see both how entrenched racism has been as well as how some have always struggled to root it out. https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780393239379