More than nine million black American families migrated from the southern United States to parts of the north and west during the early to mid-1960s to escape the terror of Jim Crowism, a Southern strategy designed to strip away the dignity of Black Americans whose ancestors, by little more than two generations, were kidnapped from Africa and brought to America and enslaved.

Surviving Jim Crowism is a recollection of stories by Lafayette "Tom" Garrett, who was born in rural East Texas to sharecroppers. Like other young blacks growing up in the South, Tom enjoyed outdoor adventures, such as hunting opossums and snakes with his loyal coon dogs and going to the movies after a hard day's work in the fields, all the while fighting against the racialized social structures that were intent on keeping him and his family down. As the pressure of Jim Crowism mounts, Tom traveled from Texas to Southern California, integrating movie theaters, schools, and restaurants along the way. Jim Crowism presented a significant challenge to Tom, but it wasn't insurmountable. According to Tom, "Thanks be to God, we lived and survived in the world of Jim Crow."