Welcome to A Darker Shade of Whiteness (DaShoW), a project funded under the European Commission’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship Programme. DaShoW explores the rich history of Italian immigration and racial dynamics in the Gulf South of the United States, with a focus on New Orleans, Louisiana and the Italian language newspapers published in the Crescent City, nearby parishes and states, including Alabama and Tennessee. Our mission is to shed light on how Italian immigrants negotiated their racial identity and culturally re-territorialized and positioned in the complex racial landscape characterizing the Jim Crow US South between 1877 and 1945—a period marked by significant social and political changes following the Reconstruction era and leading up to the early civil rights movement.