Unit 1 Lesson 1- Reconstruction and Redeemers PART 1: INTRODUCTION Today, we will begin to consider the nature of the power structure of the antebellum South. In many ways, the example of the South provides a fascinating example of a bundle of contradictions, but the most interesting of all is the contradiction between freedom and slavery that runs as a constant strand throughout southern history. In a way, it is this strand that provides us with a common theme characterizing the 19th century South in this course. Southerners had long prided themselves (and still do to a large degree) on their freedom. This pride was melded with geography: an intense localism that emerged in large part because of the nature of settlement during the colonial era. Southerners were vocal supporters of the American Revolution, and they remained vocal supporters of the libertarian, state rights position during the 19th century. Southerners were deeply suspicious of government but also resented any outside intrusions into local society. If there was anything white Southerners could agree on, it was that large areas of private life (such as the family and slaveholding) were completely out-of-bounds when it came to the interference of outsiders. However, at the same time Southerners were also strict authoritarians. Southern authoritarianism was based, at root, on the slave system. Early on, white southerners realized that maintaining control over a coerced population required strict controls: early slave codes, development of harsh measures of control during the 17th and 18th centuries, separate legal system, etc. However, southern authoritarianism was also connected to the prevalence of wider social hierarchy. For example: • • • • •

gender roles tended to be strictly defined social structure was ossified the political system (and holding of power) was hierarchy and oligarchic at the state level but especially at the local level county/local government sectional balance of power

Perhaps the best way to understand this confusing relationship between libertarianism and authoritarianism is as an ongoing tension: white southerners obsessed about various kinds of freedom because they were sorely aware of what slavery meant for AfricanAmerican Southerners. They obsessed about personal freedom and honor because they realized what the loss of such things would mean and because they based their society on the degradation of human beings.

How do we define the South? Before we get much further, I’d like to spend a little time considering the terms that we are dealing with in the study of the 19th century South. It can be argued that there was not one, but rather several “Souths.” One way the South can be defined is geographically. Traditionally, the South can be defined geographically as those states south of the MasonDixon Line separating Pennsylvania from Maryland and extending westward to those states south of the Ohio River. It includes the older, colonial South (Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia), along with the old Southwest (Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana), and the new Southwest states of Arkansas and Texas. Somewhere in there we should probably throw in Border States such as Kentucky and Missouri and fringe states like Florida. The South can also be defined thematically. There is in fact great diversity over what historians and social scientists describe as “the South”—compare NC and Louisiana, Tennessee and South Carolina. We think of the South as a rural place, but there were also significant urban areas—and the urban South played an important function in the 19th century South, to be sure. Clearly there were economic and geographical differences among the various regions of the South, but there WERE shared characteristics, such as a common racial and ethnic tradition (the racial tradition of slavery). By the early 18th century, what eventually became “the South” had adopted slavery as its main form of labor. Before the Civil War especially, an overwhelming proportion of African-Americans lived in the South—more than 9 out of every ten African-Americans lived in the South. Increasingly, the caste system did not just mean slavery—it also meant the ambiguous position of free blacks. As early as 1820, there were about 117 free blacks, and that number grew appreciably thereafter. The white population was similar in coastal areas of the Atlantic South—the white population was mostly ethnic English, while the interior was predominantly Scots-Irish and German. A large majority of ethnic Southerners (white and black) were descended from Virginia or the Carolinas. For example, Kentucky and the southern lower Midwest were settled by Virginians, Tennessee and Arkansas were both settled by North Carolinians, and the Deep South states were populated by the Carolinas. This shared ethnic heritage was important in terms of speech, manners, culture, social structure, and government—all of which was important in what Southerners had in common. At the same time, it is quite possible to exaggerate the distinctiveness of the South in the antebellum period (and there is a significant historical debate about this, to be sure). Throughout the first half of the 19th century, white southerners considered themselves Americans. Their sense of nationhood, to the extent that they had one, was toward the peculiar Republican experiment of the Union. Southerners celebrated the 4th of July and white Southerners revered the American Revolution and frequently alluded to its heritage as their heritage.

Most people, scholars included, tend to exaggerate the significance of sectionalism and make the important error of antedating the onset of the Civil War crisis. Other elements of southern distinctiveness include: • family • language • religion • emphasis on place In sum, this dialogue between southern distinctiveness and American-ness provides yet another of the contradictions that typify the 19th century South. Southerners are also united by their history—the heritage of the Civil War. PART 2: THE HERITAGE OF THE CIVIL WAR In order to understand the South, it is essential to also understand the Civil War and its impact on southern life. The end of the Civil War in 1865 brought many changes to the South, including widespread destruction and devastation, economic consequences, and political disarray. Yet the Civil War experience had different effects for blacks and whites. The biggest single change was the emancipation of the millions of slaves and the changed role of African-Americans. It is not an exaggeration to describe this change as “revolutionary.” By the end of the Civil War, emancipation had become a central preoccupation of the war, on both sides. However, we should remember that emancipation was not a war aim, at least of Abraham Lincoln and mainstream Republicans when the war began in 1861. For the first year and a half of the war Lincoln pursued a conservative policy in which he avoided making emancipation a war aim. He also sought to keep the Border States in the Union by avoiding antagonizing slaveholders there. Lincoln, through much of 1861 and into 1862, carefully avoided saying that emancipation was a war aim. Yet, as often happens during wartime, the conditions of war transformed the objectives for which both sides were fighting. The Confederacy’s war objectives were transformed into the objective, at least for Jefferson Davis, of establishing an independent southern nation, even without AfricanAmerican slavery. For Lincoln and the Union, by 1863 they embraced emancipation as a central aim. By 1865, emancipation had become a minimal condition for peace. Almost immediately, it became apparent that Lincoln’s policy of avoiding emancipation meant, effectively, that he had no consistent policy toward slaves from the beginning of the war. This was so because the 4 million slaves in the South were not passive partners in the process—they correctly perceived that the advent of war provided an extraordinary opportunity to upend the oppressive system of chattel slavery. From the beginning of the war in the spring of 1861, African-American slaves perceived this opportunity and they fled plantations when they saw the opportunity to reach Union lines. This happened despite the fact that Union forces had no consistent policy. Some Union commanders welcomed fugitive slaves as a way to undermine the slave system.

John C. Fremont, commander of the Western Dept in July 1861, proclaimed martial law in Missouri and emancipated all slaves belonging to disloyal masters. There was a similar occurrence when David Hunter took command of the S.C. Sea Islands in April 1862. He proclaimed martial law in S.C., G.A., and F.L. (even though his control was restricted to coastal areas) and emancipated all the slaves of these areas. He also sought to recruit and establish black troops. It is noteworthy that both Fremont’s and Hunter’s proclamations were directly and specifically reversed by Lincoln’s orders. Others, such as Benjamin Butler, not only excluded black fugitives from Union lines, but also helped return them to slaveholders. In Maryland, for example, he offered slaveholders the aid of his forces in apprehending fugitive slaves. Other leading Union commanders, including William T. Sherman, George McClellan, and U.S. Grant, made it their policy to return fugitive slaves in Border States to slaveholders. Still other commanders in Border States, such as Henry W. Halleck in M.O. and western K.Y., Gen. Don Carlos Buell in K.Y., and Gen. John A. Dix in M.D., all issued orders barring slaves from Union lines. In a sense, this was an extension of the antebellum pattern of runaways—the earliest refugees were individuals, typically younger males, while later refugees became increasingly family groups. Also, despite the inconsistency of Union policies, the fact remains that as Union forces began to occupy the periphery of the Confederacy in 1861 and 1862, many blacks fled plantations. Farther into the war, slavery was disrupted by the Confederacy with its labor impressment policies. Further disruptions also came as slaveholders “refugeed” their slaves—that is, removed them toward safer havens in the interior, away from Confederate officials and the Union army. However, this gave slaves additional incentives toward running away. What most clearly exposed the inconsistency of Union policies toward slaves in the occupied South—and provided additional momentum toward transforming the war aims of the Union—was the problem of how to deal with slaves of clearly disloyal owners. In eastern V.A., in the vicinity of Hampton Roads, an area under Union control, Ben Butler took command in May 1861. After Confederates impressed the slaves and slaveholders sought to refugee them, many took off for Union lines. But the problem was what to do with them. Unlike the Border States, one could not presumably return them to Confederate owners. As a result, Butler reversed his earlier M.D. policy, announcing a new policy—he seized these fugitive slaves and placed them into a category that he called “contraband,” promising to return them, with compensation for their labor, if their owners swore an oath of loyalty to the Union. Congress endorsed the Butler policy with the passage of the First Confiscation Act in August 1861. This act stated that any property used in support of the rebellion was subject to seizure, and this included slaves. The act did not make clear, however, the disposition of slave property. The First Confiscation Act provided greater clarity to Union policies—it meant that in the rebellious South, slaves could be removed and placed into the nebulous category of “contraband.” But it also provided tremendous

incentive for slaves, many of whom were eager to exchange their status as slaves for that of contraband. These actions by slaves, and the impact of the Civil War on southern society, made a fluid situation even more fluid. For example, when Union forces occupied the S.C. Sea Islands around Port Royal in November 1861, they found lots of slaves but few slaveholders, virtually all of whom had fled. To whom should the Union forces return the slaves if there were no slaveholders? They became another category of the semifreed—those not technically “contraband” but in as equally a murky condition. Meanwhile, Radical Republicans gained a stronger foothold toward transforming war aims and using emancipation policies to undermine Southern society and advance a Union victory. As Union forces advanced into Confederate territory during 1862, they employed contraband labor. Indeed, it became an important part of the war effort under the First Confiscation Act. There were also frequent conflicts between commander-level decisions to exclude fugitives and lower-rank decisions to harbor them, usually because of local advantage and personal contacts with fugitives. Perhaps most important, however, was that it became a matter of numbers—the large numbers of slaves near Union lines who were opting for freedom. Within a year’s duration, the war was simply undermining the viability of the slave system. Even in Louisiana, where Ben Butler (in command in New Orleans) attempted to maintain a distinction by returning slaves to loyal owners and even helping to manage plantation labor, they eventually had to move to some system of wage labor which radically transformed the slave system. By 1862, all of this was having an effect, particularly in two categories of the South—the Border South and the occupied South. The Second Confiscation Act, passed by Congress in July 1862, continued to transform war objectives and Union policies toward slaves. The Second Confiscation Act expanded emancipation to include slaves of disloyal masters, but specified that they would be freed “forever.” This went beyond the first act, which included only those engaged in Confederate service. The act also forbade military authorities from deciding validity of claims on slaves or from surrendering slaves to slaveholders. All slaves arriving to Union lines claiming that their owners were disloyal were therefore free, with promise of Union army protection. The Second Confiscation Act further authorized Lincoln as President to employ blacks in any capacity as part of the war effort. A Militia Act (passed on the same day) specified that blacks could be employed in military service and granted freedom to these men and their families. On the heels of this legislation, Lincoln had decided by late July 1862 to embrace an Emancipation Proclamation. On September 22, 1862, Lincoln announced his intention to make such a proclamation on January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation did not free anyone. It was directed at slaves owned behind rebel lines. The Proclamation maintained status of slaves in Border and occupied South, but it did maintain that slaves seeking freedom would obtain it once they reached Union lines, an important change in policy.

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was a significant moment in the Civil War. Its effects were primarily psychological—the war became a war against slavery, a war which would require the destruction of southern racial slavery. Although there was continuing confusion about how Union commanders enforced the handling of slaves, confusion that persisted toward the end of the war, it greatly encouraged the destruction of the slave system, and African-Americans participation in its destruction. Vivid evidence of African-American participation was the role they played in the Union military. With the Emancipation Proclamation, emancipation became a state war aim of Union forces. Emancipation, in fact, became intimately related to the progress of the war, as Union forces disrupted plantations and either freed slaves or encouraged them to flee their masters. Confusion in Union policies during the war also occasioned great flux and uncertainty among black communities about the degree of protection they would enjoy— and what sort of future they faced. PART 3: RECONSTRUCTION Reconstruction was a major, traumatic experience for the South. It defined what the South was for a generation, and its success, as well as its failures, had long-lasting effects on the southern social, political, and economic landscape. For a long time, Reconstruction was portrayed negatively by historians, and this negative portrait was reflected in the popular media. The treatment of Reconstruction in accounts such as Gone with the Wind was fairly indicative of this negative portrayal, which usually went something like this— Reconstruction was a gigantic failure, filled with corrupt politicians, carpetbaggers and unscrupulous whites who looted the state treasuries. A major subtext here was the exploitation of a malleable African American population manipulated by this unscrupulous white leadership. This sort of interpretation dominated the early historians of Reconstruction, who saw the period as anomalous in southern history. We now know that this portrait was vastly overdrawn, and more than that, represented a serious distortion of what actually happened—and the true meaning of Reconstruction. Reconstruction involved many miscalculations and falsely raised hopes, but it also represented an alternative of what the South might have become. In this lecture I would like to explore some of the implications of that and of what it meant. Black Political Mobilization African Americans enjoyed a major opportunity during Reconstruction—unlike any other Western Hemisphere society undergoing the transition from slavery to freedom, blacks in America eventually experienced full civil and political rights. However, this did not occur without a struggle, and the rights proved to be very difficult to protect. “Self-reconstruction” developed as an extension of Lincoln’s and Johnson’s wartime policies. Southern self-reconstruction involved the acceptance of emancipation and the repudiation of secession, but little beyond this. It was an attempt to reconstruct the South along the lines accepted by the dominant leadership class of the South. By 1867, self-

reconstruction had failed because of this, because of the refusal of South to endorse the14th amendment, and because of the passage of the Black Codes. One of the key reasons why self-reconstruction failed was that it failed to recognize a new status for freed people. Self-reconstruction leaders sought to continue the status quo. The best example of the attitude of ruling whites—an example demonstrating how far removed from the realities of northern politics and the forever changed condition of African American political awareness Southern white leaders were—were the Black Codes. An important reason why the Black Codes and the antebellum system of justice failed to work was that they did not enjoy the new-found confidence of freed people. The Civil War had, after all, changed things. The fact that 179,000 blacks had served in the Union army, where they gained new experience in bearing arms, public dignity, and leadership, was key to this transformation. Even after the war, military units continued to form the basis for political awareness and, from the end of the war onward, black leadership maintained a visible political presence. After the war, the Union League became an important vehicle of African American political mobilization. The Union League started during the war as a mostly northern, entirely white organization, but by the war’s end, it became dominated by blacks in the South, at least in predominately black areas. During the period of self-reconstruction, the Union League emerged as a kind of lobbying organization for black political mobilization. By 1867, one historian has estimated that virtually every black voter in the South was a member. The League was often associated with black military organizations but its main function became political education and consciousness-raising. As part of this black mobilization was the emergence of a new, more aggressive African American political leadership. This leadership was partly composed of freed slaves, but also prominent were antebellum free blacks. There was also significant participation by northern freed blacks who had served in the Union Army during the war and remained in the South thereafter. By 1867, black political mobilization was very much a factor in the political equation of the rapidly moving developments of the Reconstruction South, evidenced by the appearance of organized movements of blacks by 1867 and the holding of political conventions of freedmen to work toward political enfranchisement and full civil rights. Black mobilization coincided with, and to a large extent was encouraged by the fate of self-reconstruction. By 1867, self-reconstruction had encountered disaster. The imposition of the Black Codes and the rejection of the 14th Amendment spelled the end of the white South version of Reconstruction. Additionally, the imposition of military rule in the spring of 1867 completely altered the rules—this was followed by federal protection for black registration in the organization of new constitutional conventions after 1867. These were stunning developments for the native white political elites. It is fair to say that they had not fully anticipated this kind of sweeping change. Although there had been noises about establishing a biracial coalition led by antebellum cooperationists (who had,

for the most part, led the efforts at self-reconstruction), for the most there was universal shock and condemnation of black suffrage. South Carolina’s Benjamin Perry declared that this form of Reconstruction would throw control of the South into the hands of “ignorant, stupid, semi-savage paupers.” According to North Carolina antebellum Whig and cooperationist William Alexander Graham, enfranchising blacks meant rolling back “the tide of civilization two centuries at least.” Black leaders realized, of course, that coalition-building was necessary: only in three states (Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina) did blacks constitute a majority of the population. Blacks constituted one quarter of the population in Texas, Tennessee, and Arkansas, 40 percent in Virginia and North Carolina, and a bit less than half in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. It was obvious that blacks would have to form a biracial coalition, but it was less obvious where, in the mid-19th century, this biracial coalition would come from. Carpetbaggers have traditionally been presented in a poor light by historians, but recently they have been presented more fairly by historians. There were certainly men on the make among them. The desire for personal gain was strong and many men saw new opportunities in the South. The Republicanization of the South and the development of a new entrepreneurial, free-labor economy went hand-in-hand. Carpetbaggers were far from being the dregs of society; they were well educated and often well motivated. Some were missionary types motivated by humanitarian impulses, and many others were men who had migrated South after end of war. Carpetbaggers were more significant in influence than in numbers. One estimate puts about 20,000 carpetbaggers region-wide, while another has it that they composed no more than two percent of the total population. Especially in states with few native-born white Republicans (such as FL, SC, and LA), carpetbaggers tended to occupy large numbers of offices, but even in states such as N.C. they played an important function. Scalawags were even more reprehensible than carpetbaggers. “We can appreciate a man who lived North and…even fought against us,” wrote a former governor of N.C., “but a traitor to his own home cannot be trusted or respected.” Scalawags were a key to the Republican condition. Attracting a majority of white Republicans was unimaginable, but Republicans were able to siphon enough native-born whites to put together majorities. Who, then, were the scalawags? They were a diverse lot. They included Unionists and secessionists, idealists and opportunists. Some of the region’s largest landholders became Republicans—Daniel L. Russell of southeastern N.C., a future governor of the state, was the son of the largest landholder in the state. Like Russell, many (though certainly not all) of these scalawags were Whigs. James L. Alcorn, who owned the largest plantation in the Delta, was most prominent Whig Scalawag. Scalawags also included modernizers and attracted some urban votes. Yet by far the most important base of Republican scalawag support came from the interior South, from those parts of the region that had contained large numbers of non-

slaveholders. These areas often voted Whig in the sectional politics of the antebellum period, were partially or openly Unionist during the war, and continued a political tradition and culture at odds with the southern mainstream once the war had ended. The strongest concentrations were in eastern Tennessee, Missouri, N.C., West Virginia., and West Texas, along with northwestern Arkansas and west Texas. A direct connection with wartime loyalism was Heroes of America. This was the most important white organization during and after the war. This organization favored, finally, a righting of the skewed antebellum political order—more publicly financed schools, equal representation, better taxation policies, and democratically elected local government. In 1867-68, under the umbrella of federal protection, this coalition emerged full blown. New constitutional conventions were held across the South. These conventions embodied the composition of the Republican party: about 1/6 were carpetbaggers from black belt communities, southern whites composed the largest number of Republican delegates and were especially numerous in NC, GA, AR, AL, TX. Some significant accomplishments of these conventions included guaranteed black civil and political rights, abolishment of the whipping of blacks, required proper qualifications for office and jury service, and implemented viva voce (voice) voting. The conventions changed the nature of local government in some states, such as N.C. The political punch of the state Republican Party around the South was rooted in the power of black votes, but depended also on the white swing vote and considerable white involvement at the leadership level. In much of the South, Republicans established power in the aftermath of constitution-writing. This biracial coalition composed an unusual moment in the history of the South, but the main reason that it worked was that the extent of direct racial contact was in fact limited. Most black votes were in plantation districts and few whites voted there. Most white Republican votes were in the upcountry, and there were few black votes there. The politics of racial coalition-building therefore still maintained significant racial distance. Nonetheless, there were still significant tensions in this Republican coalition. There were economic tensions and tensions between old Whigs and new Republicans interested in a politics of class. There were also significant tensions of class within the black community that emerged: differences between northern and southern blacks, antebellum free blacks and slaves freed during the war, and between urban and rural blacks. The racial tensions were the most significant in the coalition. Although Republicans obtained and exerted power in a number of southern states in the late 1860s and into the 1870s, there were serious stresses. Two issues divided the Republican coalition. One was the issue of Confederate disfranchisement: this opened up significant divisions, but particularly among radical and moderate white Republicans. The second issue was the issue of race: particularly the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) as tool of white violence. This represented a general assault on Republican rule.

The high tide of Reconstruction was the late 1860s and early 1870s. Thereafter, the opponents of Reconstruction gathered their senses and were able to devise various ways in which to upend the process, defeat the Republican Party, and restore, or at least partially restore, some of the characteristics of the antebellum political system. There can be little doubt that Reconstruction collapsed and perhaps even ultimately failed. There is considerable doubt, it seems to me, why it failed. Next, we will examine the failure of Reconstruction and its political embodiment in the Republican Party by looking at this subject from two dimensions: 1. The way in which we usually examine the subject: Republicans were defeated by external factors, primarily the Conservative race appeal 2. The ways in which the Republican coalition imploded from within. To a certain extent, this might be a false distinction: the Republican coalition no doubt failed because of a combination of external and internal factors, but it is useful to separate these factors to understand this central component of the history of the 19th century South. PART 4: THE RISE OF THE CONSERVATIVES It is fair to say that, following the imposition of political control by the Republicans and the enfranchisement of blacks in the spring and summer of 1867, the traditional political elites of the South were suffering from a kind of trauma and shock. At first, their response to black suffrage and Republican constitutional conventions was to not participate, hoping to discredit the entire process by their absence. But within a year or so, many of the members of the political status quo had regained their bearings and were beginning to fashion a strategy of opposition. That strategy had several important components. For the most part, this opposition did not challenge the least common denominators of federal-mandated Reconstruction policy, such as disavowal of Confederate governments, the 13th amendment, and black voting and acceptance of black citizenship. This realization had less to do with any real acceptance and more to do with political realism of the need to avoid federal intervention. “We are led to this course,” said a Mississippian in 1871, “not through choice but by necessity—by the stern logic of events...” Many Conservatives, it is clear, publicly countenanced black political participation while they privately anticipated ways in which it might be limited or eventually even ended. In some states, opponents of reconstruction, generally calling themselves Conservatives, were willing to seek out new coalitions and exploit differences among Republicans. Consider the instance of Virginia. There, radical Republicans, led mostly by its African American wing, dominated the constitutional convention of 1868. That constitution had, among other things, required the disfranchisement of large numbers of former Confederates. But the commanding major general, John M. Schofield, held up approval of the constitution (by popular referendum). Grant intervened by calling, through

presidential proclamation, for a referendum in 1869 in which voters could separately approve or disapprove the main body of the Constitution and the disfranchising clauses. Largely out of opposition to the disfranchising clauses of the proposed state constitution, a so-called “new movement” was organized which was led and spearheaded by traditional political leaders. The strategy of these “New Departure” Democrats was clear: rather than focusing on black voting, they would focus on white voting. In Virginia, this “new movement” coalesced around the candidacy of a carpetbagger, Gilbert C. Walker, and his candidacy succeeded in splitting off a large portion of the white members of the Republican coalition. Walker’s election, remarkably, meant that Virginia essentially avoided a period of Republican rule during Reconstruction. Similar “new movements” occurred in much of the rest of the Border South: In TN, Republican DeWitt Senter sought out Democratic votes and took a conciliatory position on the issue of disfranchising Confederates. In Missouri, a New Departure returned Democrats to power in 1870 when they formed a victorious coalition with Liberal Republicans. It soon became apparent, however, that the New Departure was a wolf in sheep’s clothing: in fact, it meant the earliest varieties of what eventually became known as “Redemption.” Once in power, New Departure Democrats cast aside their Republican allies and attempted to limit black political power and civil rights. In Tennessee, New Departure Democrats repealed Republican law penalizing railroads for racial discrimination and drafted a new constitution requiring racial segregation in schools. Other Border South states pioneered ways in which black rights could be limited: Delaware in 1873 imposed a poll tax for voting, Tennessee imposed a poll tax in 1870, and Maryland enacted a property qualification. Virginia gerrymandered vigorously, empowered government to appoint local governments, and imposed poll tax and other limitations over voting. New Departure was less successful in the Deep South. An exception was Georgia, where Democrats took charge in 1870 and enacted strong restrictions over black voting. In other states with larger black populations, however, such as Mississippi and S.C., Republican control could not so easily be overturned. As another part of the Conservative assault, a full-scale attempt was made to taint the motives, objectives, and implications of Republican rule. As part of an effort to alienate white support for Republicans, Conservatives launched a general attack claiming corruption on part of Republican officeholders. Conservatives denounced increased taxes that came during Reconstruction (largely to pay for increased public services). Taxpayers’ Conventions organized in various parts of the South: the tax issue was an issue that resonated well with yeomen whites, traditionally strongly opposed to high property taxes. All of this added up to a concerted effort on part of opponents of Reconstruction to eradicate the Republican Party. Indeed, much of the focus of their activity, interestingly, had become political: hatred toward Republicans was

hatred of Reconstruction and everything that it represented. It was obviously racial, but by the 1870s it also became partisan. The Rise of the Klan An instrumental part of the Conservative strategy to upend Reconstruction was the Ku Klux Klan. The best way to see Klan is as a paramilitary, guerrilla equivalent of Conservatives: their chief objective was political. The historian Kenneth Stampp once commented that the Civil War had two phases, one conventional, the other guerrilla. The conventional phase ended in 1865, the guerrilla phase began almost immediately thereafter. The Klan emerged in the chaotic social and political environment of the late 1860s. Out of these conditions it emerged, but it did so with the objective, insofar as possible, of restoring white supremacy and the traditional arrangements of political power. Its chief objectives were to destroy the Republican Party’s infrastructure and undermine Reconstruction at the local and state level. All of the latter would, of course, bring a restoration of racial and social order. Who were members of the KKK? We know that far from being poor whites, the bulk of the membership came from political elites of the South. Between 1868 and 1871, there was a wave of violence across the South, spearheaded by the Klan. The Klan sought out black leadership as a primary object of the violence: at least 1/10 of black members of the 1867-68 constitutional convention were victims of violence. Seven of them were actually murdered. Political terrorism against blacks also involved intimidation: consider the case of Andrew Flowers, a Chattanooga, TN black who defeated a white in an election for Justice of the Peace in 1870. There, the local KKK visited him and whipped him. In October 1870, a group of armed whites attacked a Republican gathering in black belt Eutaw, county seat of Greene County, Alabama, killing 4 blacks and wounding 54. The KKK also sought, however, to intimidate white Republicans. KKK purposes were not solely political: they extended into the public realms in which African Americans were seeking equality. In KY, the Klan flourished even before black suffrage was obtained in 1870. Singled out often for attack were two significant institutions: black schools and black churches. KKK also attacked freedmen who sought economic independence. However, Klan activities were most intense in those areas where it had political objectives. Consider the example of the Piedmont Carolinas—Piedmont NC, but particularly Piedmont SC. In York County, nearly the entire white population joined the Klan, committing in the early 1870s at least 11 murders and hundreds of whippings. Things were so bad that local African Americans took to the local woods each night to avoid assaults. There is, it should be noted, ample evidence that the victims of KKK violence fought back, often with great courage against great odds: a white Georgian under Klan attack

single-handedly fought off 20 attackers, killing 4. In northern Alabama, local white Union army veterans organized an “anti-Ku Klux” that protected themselves and threatened the KKK with reprisals. In eastern NC, the KKK was weak largely because of the strength of local black opposition to it. For the most part, the KKK was spectacularly successful at breaking the back of the Republican effort to transform the South. They combined psychological assault on the freed people and their white allies with practical obstacles to armed resistance. Most freedmen owned firearms, but these were an inferior grade of weapons to the Klan weapons of choice, the Winchester and six-shooter pistols. Resistance to Klan violence, black resistance in particular, tended to inflame anti-black sentiment—in communities where every white male routinely had some kind of training in bearing arms. This specter was born out in 1872 in Grant Parish, LA where, after a gubernatorial election, a group of freedmen cordoned off the county seat of Colfax and even built defensive fortifications. They were subsequently attacked by whites armed with rifles and cannon. Some 50 blacks were massacred after their surrender on Easter Sunday 1873 (total black deaths were 280). This was the single bloodiest instance of white violence in the Reconstruction era. One could argue that the ultimate reason why all of this happened lay within the failure of Reconstruction. Republicans had been seriously divided, almost from the beginning and there were factional divisions based on race. There were also factional divisions among black Republicans, often based on class. There were even divisions among whites, often on class issues as well. In an important sense, the Republicans destroyed themselves because they were unable to achieve a viable political coalition. But the failure of Reconstruction—and the failure, ultimately, of a very different alternative to the pattern of power and politics that we have been examining in this class—also lies with the failure of federal intervention. State governments under Republican control proved unequal to the task of combating KKK violence: when they attempted to clamp down, they ran the risk of alienating white support for their political coalition. Federal government did not provide effective protection for freedmen and for southern Republicans. Despite various civil rights acts and force bills designed to provide for effective enforcement, the reality was that divisions among northern Republicans (mirroring divisions among southern Republicans) prevented a concerted policy. The potential effectiveness was hinted at in various campaigns against the KKK, which resulted in numerous indictments and prosecutions. 700 indictments were issued in Mississippi alone. U.S. Grant declared a “condition of lawlessness” in nine upcountry counties of South Carolina, and suspended the writ of habeas corpus. An 1871 campaign spearheaded by A.G. Amos Akerman resulted in the KKK being put out of business by 1872, but so was Akerman, who was dismissed in 1871. Thereafter, northern interest in protecting Republicans wavered. At this point, significant damage had already been done to the Republican infrastructure in the South.

PART 5: RISE OF THE REDEEMERS After the end of Reconstruction there was a rise of a new group of people in power, the so-called “Redeemers.” Redeemers were those political leaders who “rescued” the South from Reconstruction. They came to power at different points in different states, but what they shared was a determination to maintain control, a resistance to Reconstruction policies, and the pursuit of white supremacy. During the late 1860s and 1870s, Reconstruction governments were overthrown, first at the municipal level, then at the state level, and then at the national level. Concerning municipal elections, Norfolk, Savannah, Memphis, and Richmond all came under Conservative control from the beginning of universal manhood suffrage. New Orleans and Nashville had Republican regimes until 1873, then were overthrown by antiReconstruction Conservatives. Republicans were ousted in Houston in 1874, and in Raleigh and Montgomery in 1875. In a handful of cities such as Jackson and Chattanooga, Republicans were in power until the late 1880s. With state elections, this occurred at different points in time—Tennessee and Virginia basically skipped Republican control entirely. Conservatives were in charge of governments in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, N.C., and Texas in 1874. Mississippi was recaptured in bloody elections of 1875. By 1876, only in Louisiana, Florida, and S.C. did Republicans still maintain control. In all of these states, the use of terror and racial polarization were key ingredients of Conservatives electoral victories. It is worth noting that it was in the political fray of these intense ideological and political battles that the very concept of “Redemption” emerged. A kind of mythology developed: “black rule,” northern control, corruption, etc. All was redeemed by the intervention of heroic white southerners with the credibility of the old regime. Note that this was and is mythological. The reality was quite different: these regimes established themselves through brute force, extra-constitutional means, and an appeal to the base emotions of racism. Reconstruction was thus defeated at different points in time during the 1870s, but another key ingredient of defeat—and of “redemption”—occurred at the national level: the northern electorate possessed varying degrees of interest and commitment to southern Reconstruction. There was, to be sure, a current of race that flowed through northern politics, a belief in the need to defeat the South along with doubts among white northerners about the abilities of freed people to participate in politics. There was ambivalence among northern white leaders, especially Republicans, to sustain commitment to the protection of civil and political rights of freedmen. There was also a natural tendency of northern whites to identify with southern whites—a kind of transcendence of race. As the Leslie’s Newspaper said in 1874, “the white North cannot avoid sympathizing with the white South.” Meanwhile, the northern white electorate was distracted by other issues, above all the economic hard times of the 1870s.

There was an overall trend toward disengagement of federal government. This was amplified by Democratic control of the House of Representatives in 1874, and culminated in the presidential election of 1876: Samuel Tilden vs. Rutherford B. Hayes, which brought the Compromise of 1877 and the withdrawal of federal troops from the South. This was seen as the official end of Reconstruction. The Aftermath of Reconstruction The phased defeat of Reconstruction brought the “redeemers” into political control of the South for the next 20 years. One thing to keep in mind—Redeemers were constantly battling for control, to varying degrees, across the South. The Republican Party survived the end of Reconstruction dispirited, divided, and factionalized, but still very much a force. Redeemers had to battle with the possibility of federal intervention: the 14th amendment, and the possibility of federal protections for elections. There was also a battle within the Conservative/Democratic coalition: sectional and class divisions with the “white man’s party” remained real. Thus, the political regimes that emerged during the 1870s and remained in power for the next 20 years were negative and repressive, interested in maintaining power at all costs. How did they maintain power? • • • •

Gerrymandering Harsh electoral systems: ballot laws, electoral intimidation, fraud Undermined new system of public education Alliance with new business interests at the expense of old allegiances to rural South

Lost Cause Ideology By the 1880s, a widespread social movement of Lost Cause emerged across the South. The movement started in the 1860s and 1870s with groups of women that organized themselves to tend the graves of Confederate dead. This mythology proclaimed that the South lost the war not because of a wrong cause but because of superior numbers of northern resources and northern armies. It argued that the root of the war was not slavery but state’s rights. This is part of the historical denial about slavery and its consequences. States’ rights ideology was connected to republicanism and the heritage of the Revolution, only with even greater emphasis on heroism and the individual accomplishment of Confederate military leaders. The larger message was the attachment to the notion of confederacy and Confederate dead. This involved the creation of monuments, both cultural and physical, to the Confederacy. There was a monument building craze between 1880 and 1920. By 1914 there were over 1,000 monuments to Confederates in the South. According to one historian, “Never in the history of the world had the losing side of a civil war been permitted such a public and honored institutionalization of its defeat.”

Unit 1, Lesson 2- Rise of the New South PART 1: BACKGROUND: THE RURAL SOUTH The South was an overwhelmingly rural place in the 19th century. Agriculture predominated the way of life in the South. It is important to note the major differences between the geographical areas of the South: •

Cotton South: experienced expansion and boom, particularly in newer areas of the cotton zone. This area was generally located in the upland, interior South, but during this period pushed westward into newer and less soil-exhausted regions. An example is the land boom in Texas after the Civil War.

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Tobacco South: keep in mind the distinction between the older burley tobacco and newer bright leaf tobacco. This area experienced contraction and continued decline of older tobacco in the coastal South, and the expansion of bright leaf tobacco.

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Upland/background South: there were major changes in this area of the South, including changes in the status of “yeomen” farmers, chiefly in the upland South, and the condition of southern Appalachian underwent major changes.

Migration Patterns There was a good deal of out-migration and immigration into selected areas, generally regions in which a plantation boom was occurring. The population grew at a rapid pace in the older, eastern South. The typical pattern in older southern communities was represented by a good deal of out-migration and very little in-migration. The South was distinguished by an almost complete lack of impact of European immigration during the heaviest national period of immigration. How did people live? Southerners were unified by similar living conditions. In general, isolation prevailed in rural South. Despite the penetration of railroads, most people, white and black, lived apart from concentrated areas of population. In many respects, black people were oppressed by this system, just as they had been under slavery. But we should, I think, stress change over continuity—the key reason being the new characteristics that came with the New South plantation system. New South Plantation System In essence, what occurred in the New South was the adaptation of the antebellum plantation system, but in such a way as to perpetuate poverty. The New South plantation system became a kind of poverty machine.

The New South plantation system was marked by the rise of the crop lien system, especially in cotton. It was a compromise that came out of the failure of wage labor in the Reconstruction period. It was a system of land and labor and credit. This had particular implications for black people—the New South plantation system replaced slavery as a system. The fact of the matter is that this system became highly oppressive by the end of the 19th century. Sharecroppers became locked into system and previously independent white farmers were drawn into system as tenants. The credit system imposed horrific burdens on people at the bottom, which saw the emergence of the system of “debt peonage,” by which people were bound to the land. PART 2: REDEEMERS AND NEW SOUTH IDEOLOGY Although Redeemers came to power as purifiers rescuing the south from the “corruption” of Reconstruction, they themselves experienced a period of extensive corruption. In 1884, the Tennessee treasurer, the adopted son of President James K. Polk, disappeared with $400,000 in cash. The same year, Alabama’s treasurer fled to Mexico, with Alabama’s treasury being $233,000 short. The most notorious instance was the case of Louisiana, especially its corruption-ridden state lottery system. Redeemer regimes were simultaneous Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs: Jacksonian Democrats in their penny-pinching approach to government and their determination to reduce the expanded government services of the Reconstruction era. During the Reconstruction era, Redeemers cut public education to the bone. As another cost-cutting measure, they instituted a convict-lease system in much of the South. State convicts were leased out to private businesses to avoid the costs of maintaining a prison system. The great majority of convicts were African Americans, and the system became a kind of Gulag of brutality, racism, and oppression. Convicts were sent to convict-lease arrangement for both major and petty crimes. The beneficiaries were the private contractors who obtained a slave labor system with the connivance of Redeemer regimes. Concerning political leadership, Redeemers adopted and subsumed old ideas of the Whig Party: consider the example of Zebulon Vance of North Carolina. Redeemers were also Whiggish in their emphasis on strong support for economic development. They were enthusiastic promoters of railroad development. The cultural leadership of redeemer regime involved an alliance with New South boosters, the development of Lost Cause ideology and Confederate sentimentalism. The Redeemer regimes promoted a paradoxical message: preserving the status quo on political leadership, but proclaiming a new message of outside investment and economic development. Redeemer regimes in the southern states openly welcomed investment by

northerners and foreigners: • •

Development of railroads Development of extractive industries in mining and lumbering: there was a massive cutting of timber—northern timber syndicates swept through the South, lumbering both softwood pines across the region and also hardwood forests of the Appalachians. By 1900, wide swaths of forests were denuded. According to one government forestry expert in the early 1900s, the result in the South was “probably the most rapid and reckless destruction of forests known to history.”

This rapid development occurred with the open encouragement of Redeemer regimes, who adopted a development mindset. Similarly, Redeemer regimes promoted modernization in agriculture. The best example was the adoption of enclosure laws and an enclosure movement in much of the rural South: there had been a tradition of open range husbandry across the South, but with Redeemers came the slow introduction of commercial agriculture and fencing laws throughout the South. The case of fencing laws placed New South/Redeemer regimes on the side of modernizing forces. Cracks in the Wall By the 1880s and 1890s, however, the Redeemer regimes began to crack, on several fronts. There was an internal inability to rule because of factionalism, old partisan conflict, and corruption. In addition, there was a growing resentment on the part of the “outs” among southern whites about the consequences of economic growth. Redeemers also experienced conflict with southern white yeomanry on a host of issues. Adding to this was the problem of race: Conservatives, then Redeemers, were white supremacists, but they were not “radicals” on race. That is, they did not favor radical solutions, and they saw race in terms of slavery. The racial situation went from bad to worse in the last decade or so of 19th century, and challenges to Redeemer rule emerged in the 1880s and 1890s. PART 3: THE RISE OF POPULISM Although Redeemers appeared to have a firm handle on the political structure, in fact there were troublesome elements continuing to challenge their control: • • •

Dissatisfaction within the Democratic party; continuing factionalism related to polyglot nature of the Democratic Party during and after Reconstruction Persistence of Republicanism in much of the South Continuing power of African Americans in voting

It was in this fragile political environment that another, potentially even more serious challenge came: the rise of agricultural/rural discontent with the Peoples’ Party. There was a general environment of agricultural distress in the South. Much of this was systemic—there was the emergence of sharecropping and share tenancy as systems of credit and labor after the Civil War. Also, the spread of railroads and market agriculture brought mixed blessings for southern farmers: it exposed them to the vicissitudes of the

market system and placed extraordinary pressures on marginal farmers, and the South had many marginal farmers, white and black. The historical pattern for Southern agriculture had been labor-intensive, for both whites and blacks, and this continued to be the case. Rather than declining, plantation, one-crop agriculture actually expanded. There was an increasing dependence on staple crops, turning to cotton in particular over food production, and there was another form of plantation expansion with the rise of new, bright-leaf forms of tobacco production in Virginia and North Carolina. When Henry Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution and New South booster, surveyed southern agriculture, he proclaimed that planters were “still lords of acres, though not of slaves.” What all this added up was a perceptible decline in the material condition of southern farmers: this was matched by an equal decline in the status of agriculture. Particularly during the 1880s, it became apparent that the political ideal of agriculture as a vocation was gone, that it was being displaced by the sweeping changes of the late 19th century. It is safe to say that farmers felt a sense of bewilderment and even betrayal about the changes that were affecting them. “There is something radically wrong in our industrial system,” declared one of them in 1887. “There is a screw loose. The wheels have dropped out of balance. The railroads have never been so prosperous, and yet agriculture languishes. The banks have never done a better or more profitable business, and yet agriculture languishes. Manufacturing enterprises never made more money or were in more flourishing condition, and yet agriculture languishes. Towns and cities flourish and ‘boom’ and grow and ‘boom’ and yet agriculture languishes.” It is noteworthy that much of the farmers’ frustration was expressed against big business generally, but railroads specifically. Farmers saw these changes, and for many of them the causes were basically political. They believed that the political system—which they understood in basically Jacksonian terms—was no longer representing them, as the majority of the American people. When they looked at the Redeemer regimes, to put it in more concrete terms, they saw an unresponsive, undemocratic system that seemed to be tilting toward monopolists, railroad interests, mill-men, banks, and towns—all at their expense. This perception was expressed in producerist rhetoric: the motto of the Farmers’ Alliance was “Equal Rights for All, Special Privileges for None.” All of this was connected to Jacksonian egalitarianism and republicanism.

Rise of the Farmers’ Alliance It was in this context that the Farmers’ Alliance came into existence. The Alliance was a widespread, massive protest movement, yet it was a protest movement whose objectives were basically conservative: it wanted to save the old, 19th century agrarian world of the South. As a movement, it was not interested in radically altering the social, racial, and gender structure of the South.

However, this is generally how social movements and even revolutions start out, and what happened in the South was not unusual—there were various movements of agrarians around the world, at various points in time, seeking to reverse the irreversible tides of modernization. Various agricultural protest groups arose in the 1870s and 1880s, and a culture of producerism emerged. There was widespread resistance to fencing laws in the 1870s and 1880s, pitting producerists against market-oriented agriculturists, hinterlands vs. modernizers. This period saw the rise of what one historian called “social bandits:” Jesse and Frank James of Missouri are one example. The Farmers Alliance was founded originally in Texas in the 1870s. It started as a frontier vigilante organization in Lampasas County, in east Texas. It then expanded into something different in the early and mid-1880s in east Texas. The Alliance grew particularly strong across Texas in early and mid 1880s on anti-monopoly, Greenback, and anti-fencing platforms. It grew as a local association rather than an explicitly political organization. The Alliance developed a fairly elaborate system of recruitment, with lecturers fanning out to rural neighborhoods, spreading a producerist message of protest. Alliance appeal in Texas also lay in their economic program: they proposed a system to bypass the oppressive land and credit system of the cotton South: • •

Alliance economic system was to include joint-stock operations, Alliance stores, even an Alliance exchange system Alliance tried to create system to market cotton directly to manufacturers

By 1887, there was wider involvement of the Texas Alliance: there was a famous meeting at Cleburne, TX in August 1886, where the decision was made thereafter to expand beyond Texas. Texas was a meeting ground of different parts of the South, and in the Alliance it returned to its roots. In 1887-88, the Alliance sent lecturers to the far reaches of the South to organize a regional organization: • • • •

Veteran organizers such as S. O. Daws of Texas, mastermind of the expansion of the Texas alliance in the early 1880s, returned to organize Mississippi Buck Barry, former Texas Ranger and veteran of the Mexican and Civil Wars, returned to N.C. in 1887, his method was the targeting of local neighborhood leaders and establishment of local Alliance infrastructure Attracted middle stratum of rural South, not desperately poor but, in general, the very rich. Formed a segregated Colored Farmers Alliance which eventually attracted significant number of adherents

In the late 1880s, the Alliance grew very quickly in much of the South. Producerist appeal contributed, as did their various economic experiments: cooperative exchange

movements were very popular. Consider the experience in the jute bag boycott of 1888: in 1888, a cartel of producers of jute cotton bagging had combined to increase greatly the price. Alliance exchanges and cooperatives mobilized to get farmers in 1889 (too late for 1888) to use cotton bagging instead, forcing the surrender of the “jute trust.” This victory stimulated greater interest, and the peak of Alliance numbers and prestige occurred in 1890. Alliance in Politics, 1890-92 Nominally, the Alliance was a non-political organization, but that was never really true. Indeed, from the beginning it was actively involved in politics. From the beginning, Alliance leaders discovered that they and their members were drawn to political involvement. Successive national conventions at St. Louis in December 1889 led to the creation of a national Alliance organization, and ultimately to the creation of the Peoples’ Party, a major third party challenge to the status quo. But before this step was taken, the Alliance attempted about two years of participation as a pressure-group within the Democratic Party. At the state level, the Alliance attempted to obtain Democratic support for regulatory legislation over the railroads. Most of these attempts were unsuccessful. At the national level, efforts focused on the congressional enactment of the sub-treasury plan. Although this was introduced by Zebulon Vance of N.C., ultimately he himself helped to undermine its success. Creation of the Peoples’ Party It was out of the frustration of the Alliance’s political involvement that the most important third party in American history, the Peoples’ Party, came into existence. Alliances were diverse organizations, but among them were a vocal minority that favored a more direct political approach. Probably a majority of the organization favored remaining Democratic, but the third party advocates pressed forward nonetheless. There was a series of national conventions, culminating with the famous Omaha convention of July 1892: • •

Nominated a national ticket, composed of a Union general for president and a Confederate general for vice president Famous Omaha Platform

The presidential campaign of 1892 was generally a failure in the South. Democrats pulled out all the stops to defeat the Populist challenge. There was much use of the race issue, as well as voter fraud. White Populism remained pretty much exclusive of African-Americans, but there were various attempts at establishing a biracial coalition. Populists, though defeated in presidential elections of 1892, remained a major challenge: in several states, they attracted a large portion of the white vote. In some states, such as Alabama, they threatened to capture control of state government—a threat only beaten back through massive voter fraud.

In other states, such as North Carolina, Populists actually succeeded in capturing control over state government. In N.C., Populists won state elections in 1894 and the gubernatorial election in 1896. Populists worked to bring major changes to government and politics and challenge the status quo in a major way. The chief form of alliance with African-Americans came in attempts to establish “fusion” parties After the mid-1890s, Populism went into decline, for several reasons: • Economic crisis of 1890s demoralized rural South profoundly • Inability of Populists to create effective political coalition: confusion of fusion! • Success of Southern Democrats at mounting a fierce counterattack: use of race and, ultimately, suppression of vote to solidify control Ultimately, the demise of Populism led to distinct changes in the environment: • Rise of new generation of Democratic leaders, passing of Redeemer generation of leadership • Emergence of new, “progressive” style politicians • Establishment of one party control through constitutional changes and disfranchisement PART 4: INDUSTRIALIZATION Another major change in the history of the South—and of the emergence of the “New South”—was the rise of industrialization and industrialism. The South prior to the Civil War was known as a rural/agricultural region. The “New South” would be a place where northern-style manufacturing could occur. All of this was part of the larger “modernization” of the South during the 50 years after Reconstruction. With greater industrialization could come a more “northern” character. It could mean that the South would become more “American.” And it might mean that Southerners would become wealthier. However, there were clear costs accompanying this change, clear choices about the path it might take. Let us then explore some of the implications of industrialization: What was industrialization? Keep in mind that the advent of industrialization did not occur on a blank slate. There were already pockets of industrial activity throughout the South, such as in Richmond, Virginia. Also, in 1860 there was already a fairly extensive railroad system in existence, and there were cotton textiles in antebellum North Carolina. But there was something categorically different about what was happening here: if you look at the social landscape of the South at the turn of the 20th century, major changes have clearly occurred: • • • •

Growth of towns and cities, especially medium-sized cities Increased migrant work force Emergence of various types of manufacturing Development of merchants and mercantile activity

Behind all of this was a single large phenomenon: the rise of railroads. Railroads existed in the 1860s throughout the South, but it was a scattered, hastily assembled system. There were problems with difficulty of travel and compatibility of the system. This railroad system was largely devastated by the Civil War. Late in the 19th century there was a period of tremendous railroad construction throughout the United States, and especially in the South. This coincided with the infusion of capital investment into railroads, and the creation of highly capitalized railroad systems. What did railroads mean for the South? It is safe to say that they radically changed the Southern way of life. By the early 20th century, no community in the South was unaffected by railroads, and most now either had railroads coming through their community or had nearby access. This meant that Southerners could travel and move with greater ease—that they could conceive of their world beyond the village life that had dominated colonial and antebellum mindsets. It also meant that all this fundamentally changed the way that they did business. Markets had heretofore been local, now they were national and international. Much of this was good: it meant that Southerners had access to goods from around the globe. Even in isolated villages the little stores and nickel-and-dime merchants offered products from the North, Europe, even Asia. But it also meant that the locally-oriented economy of the prerailroad era was gone. One of the direct consequences of the railroad (and communication) revolution was a difference in where people lived. Southerners had been overwhelming rural, and they remained predominantly rural, but a perceptible, important change of this period (the post-Reconstruction era) was the shift toward towns and cities. An important thing to keep in mind: urban growth followed railroad growth. There was a real change in the pattern of urbanization The antebellum era followed patterns of colonial America in that the most significant urban growth occurred along coastal areas, or in cities with easy access to ports. The biggest concentrations of populations were port cities such as Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans. Interior towns depended on their position on waterways: examples of Memphis and Richmond. This all changed with railroads, which opened up the possibilities of urbanization. One of the remarkable phenomena of this era was the rise of cities out of nothing. Consider three examples: • •

Birmingham, Alabama: Prior to 1870, it did not exist even as a town. Because of the advent of railroads, and the development of coal mining and the iron and steel industry, Birmingham became one of the largest urban centers of the Deep South. Roanoke, Virginia: Prior to early 1880s, it was known as Big Lick. Roanoke became a major transportation center, with the spread of the Norfolk and Western railroad system

•

Finally—Greensboro, North Carolina

By the early 20th century, make no mistake about it—the South remained a very rural place. But urban areas, particularly towns, were developing an alternative view of what “the South” was. When Henry Grady visited the New England Club of New York City in 1886, he proclaimed a “New South.” A key ingredient of this “New South” was an industrial South, a South in which mass manufacturing, factories, and a widened proletariat existed. What were some of the key ingredients of this industrial South? • Reorganization of manufacturing into a compartmentalized, highly productive system • Division of labor • Use of machinery, especially power-driven machinery

Unit 1, Lesson 3- White Supremacy and Origins of Segregation Part 1: A Crisis in Race One of the biggest changes of the end of the 19th century: resolution of an ongoing crisis in race relations that led to disenfranchisement, segregation, and a new dark age in the history of the South. We want to look at that today—the origins of the triumph of white supremacy in the early 20th century. By the 1890s, a race crisis was gripping the South and, for that matter, much of the country. Across the country, white supremacy—an openly virulent variety of it, in fact— had come into fashion by the 1890s. The best (but not the only) indicator of this new racial environment was the prevalence of lynching, beginning during the late 1880s and peaking in the first decade of the 20th century. Between 1882 and 1927, 4,951 people were lynched in the United States. Of these, 3,513 were black, compared to only 1,438 who were white. The tendency during this period was that lynching became southern and racial. The leading states (1882-1927) were Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, S.C., Oklahoma, Missouri, Virginia, and N.C. Lynching was, for the most part, a rural and small town phenomenon. In cities, in contrast, there was the increasing appearance of race riots—or really race massacres. In 1906, in Atlanta, there was growing insecurity among whites in the city concerning the position of blacks. There was also a political connection though: Governor Hoke Smith campaigned in 1906, and during the campaign the white newspapers had focused on black crime, particularly sexual crimes. On September 22, 1906, a crowd of whites appeared after the evening paper had reported sexual assaults. The crowd turned into a mob that began attacking African Americans indiscriminately. At least 5,000 whites swarmed into the streets, most of them young and in their 20s. Within an hour, there were more than 10,000 roaming the streets. Police did little to restrain the rioters and this became a full scale massacre, with attacks occurring on storekeepers and innocent streetcar riders (12 streetcars were attacked, and by the end of the day, at least 20 blacks were dead). The next day, as the white mob prepared to attack “Darktown,” the African American community in Atlanta, black residents prepared to defend themselves. W.E.B. Du Bois stood with a shotgun to defend his house, as did others. When the white mob came, the blacks responded with gunfire and the mob was repulsed. The mob then turned to the middle-class black town of Brownsville, where many downtown blacks had taken refuge. After a white policeman was killed, police sealed off the neighborhood and arrested 300 blacks. Four blacks died, as the policemen took over the job of the mob. The total estimates of the riot were more than 100 black deaths, with one white death. Wilmington and Atlanta were not so much riots as they were racial massacres that arose out of rising racial tensions. In both cases, they coincided with the coming of a new era of

white supremacy. They were suggestive of a new racial atmosphere that existed across the South, and, to a certain extent, across the country. Disenfranchisement Between 1890 and 1906 the southern states made major changes in their political systems, with profound implications. Depending on the time and place, African Americans had enjoyed varying degrees of access to the voting franchise, but this changed in the 1890s. The development of what was known as the “Mississippi Plan” in 1890 provided for the invention of various constitutional devices targeting black voters for exclusion. Barriers were created, such as property or literacy restrictions, and later, “escape clauses” were developed to sell these restrictions to white voters—grandfather, understanding, or good character clauses. Additionally, many states adopted the poll tax. Still another safeguard of a whites-only electorate was the white primary. If a black voter could pass the literacy test and pay the poll tax, then he faced in many states the white primary. Background—the development of the primary was part of the reform of the political system, as was the introduction of the secret ballot. Statewide primaries were adopted in S.C. in 1896, Arkansas in 1897, Georgia in 1898, Florida and Tennessee in 1901, Alabama and Mississippi in 1902, Kentucky and Texas in 1903, Louisiana in 1906, Oklahoma 1907, Virginia in 1913, and N.C. in 1915. All of these measures virtually eliminated black voters: consider the case of Virginia, where there were 130,334 registered voters in 1896. This number declined to 1,342 in 1904. Part 2: Jim Crow Segregation Against this backdrop of political disempowerment, a new era of racism triumphed. We should note that much of what we remember as the segregated system was a product of this era. The earliest version of “Jim Crow” had appeared in the case of railroad transportation, but after 1900 a host of new laws appeared regulating the public spaces of white and black people. There were transportation laws regulating whites and blacks in streetcars. For the most part, the laws required separation in cars, although one law in Montgomery, Alabama, required blacks and whites to ride in separate cars. During this same period, these laws were extended to apply to steamboats as well. Through public places, most areas of life by the time of World War I were regulated by the obvious appearance of “whites only” or “colored” signs over entrances and exits, theaters and boarding houses, toilets and water fountains, waiting rooms and ticket counters. There were also laws regulating employment and work. A South Carolina law of 1915 prohibited textile mills from allowing workers of different races to work together or use the same facilities. These laws were reinforced by unions, where they existed in South, which worked hard to exclude blacks from skilled trades.

States required that public institutions be segregated. This was already true of primary, secondary, and higher education, but now applied to other institutions as well. There was separation and segregation of park facilities—this became important as these facilities grew in importance. Appearance of Residential Segregation A law in Baltimore in 1910 designated all white and all black residential blocks. This was imitated in Atlanta and Greenville, SC. Various other methods were tried elsewhere, but the most effective method of housing segregation became locally enforced, with explicit legislation. Part 3: The Impact of White Supremacy We have looked at the origins of white supremacy during the 1890s and early 1900s. Now, I want to examine how white supremacy and Jim Crow affected life at the everyday level. In particular, I am interested in the ways in which white supremacy shaped African American life, and the ways in which African Americans responded to it. To be sure, the advent of white supremacy decisively shaped life in the 20th century South. Blacks lived under an oppressive system of slavery, and Reconstruction brought a period of uncertainty and turbulence, but the key difference with what occurred after the 1890s was the advent of an overtly oppressive system that permeated the social, legal, and political system—this was the system that is collectively known as “Jim Crow.” It is important to reiterate the combination of factors that made this possible: • • • • •

Undeniably, politics was important: shifting political configurations of late 19th century Changing circumstances of the North, and northern attitudes toward African Americans; the importance of imperialism Advent of scientific racism: belief in innate racial differences, fused with Darwinism Emergence of aggressively racist point of view in the South; white consensus that there was a “negro problem” All this culminated in important developments, in the following sequence: disfranchisement, Jim Crow segregation, further system institutionalization of apartheid

What, then, was the impact of this? It should be emphasized that Jim Crow circumstances were part of a continuum of racism, but that qualitatively things were different after 1890. One of the most important characteristics of segregation was the closing off of public spaces and stamping of white supremacy on public spheres of activity. This was a public statement, at a variety of levels, of enforced inequality between the races.

African Americans now confronted a system that closed off options for them. Frequently, 20th century African Americans were confronted with humiliations. There were numerous instances of African Americans who confronted segregation in public transportation and refused to accept it: five-year-old Louis Armstrong was dragged by a friend of his mother’s to the back of a trolley car in New Orleans in 1905. He noticed that the sign indicated “For Colored Passengers Only” and asked what it meant. “Don’t ask so many questions,” was the response. “Shut your mouth, you little fool.” Many remembered the humiliation as part of a right of passage. Other forms of humiliation included whites forcing blacks to drink alcohol or to dance. This humiliation brought about a profound lack of self-worth and of frustration, and this was particularly true among black males. There was a sense of lack of redress, especially legal redress, in the Jim Crow system. It was a stark separation of worlds, between white and black. For those blacks with contact with the white world, they developed an elaborate sense of racial etiquette. Parents felt at least some need to educate children in the ability to “get along” in white world—whatever that might mean. An important overall theme was the conflict between feelings of frustration and striving toward resistance among black Southerners as a whole. Part 4: Education There were a number of indicators of the true meaning of Jim Crow, but none as important as Jim Crow education. Slaves had been deprived of education and forbidden literacy, yet somehow they acquired it. During Reconstruction, education (along with the acquisition of political and civil rights) was one of the cornerstones of the program of emancipation sponsored by African American leadership: one precondition for the readmission of southern states back into the Union during Reconstruction was the acknowledgement of the constitutional right of public education for all Southerners, black and white. However, let there be little question about the reality of Reconstruction Era public education systems: they were segregated from the start. Yet the race crisis of the late 19th and early 20th century profoundly shaped public education. This period saw the rise of common school education for blacks and whites during the1870s-1890s: both white and black schools expanded. The general pattern of rural education was isolated one-room schools. The school system was extremely decentralized and there was a great deal of autonomy to local schools. The schools grew in an environment of inequality and racism. There was a change after the 1890s: heightened attention toward public schools emerged, leading to the creation of the modern school system. This involved a conscious effort to upgrade and transform the curriculum of white schools, whereas there was a determined effort to do little for black schools. Between 1900 and 1920, disparities between white and black schools grew very wide indeed. A key difference was the development of an

early system of white high schools, whereas there was a lack of black high schools until later. Segregated pedagogy emerged with the rise of “industrial education.” For whites, industrial education became a metaphor for inferior black education, though for blacks it had a different meaning. Part 5: Black Response How did black respond to these changes? On the one hand, the assault of white supremacy was devastating. On the other hand, African Americans began to develop new strategies of resistance. One recent study, by Glenda Gilmore, has pointed out that white supremacy was particularly focused on black males. She argues that opportunities for black leadership narrowed, having a major impact on the character of black leadership. She also argues that black women stepped into the breach. We should emphasize that during this dark period of American history, there were strong responses from African Americans: there was a major gap between white and black understanding of the meaning of Jim Crow. White liberals generally accepted Jim Crow, at least until the 1940s. Black leaders, however, were agreed that a posture needed to be developed that could present a kind of “mask” toward the white power structure. In general, there were two sorts of responses: militancy, offered by William E.B. Du Bois, and accommodation, offered by Booker T. Washington. • Du Bois: in the early years of the 20th century, this meant working through the court system, organizing a political response—Du Bois was instrumental in the creation of the NAACP • Washington: believed that blacks should accommodate; best known for “Atlanta Compromise” speech of 1895, which called for separation of the races but joint alliance toward mutual progress; his emphasis was on education and self-help Ostensibly, the Washington-Du Bois debate was stark—a pull between resistance and accommodation. But really it was more complicated than this. Washington was very popular, with a message of independence, pride, and autonomy. His approach was one of “getting along” but also asserting black interests. He worked the system, and was particularly effective with northern philanthropy. Du Bois, on the other hand, was very elitist and appealed mainly to college-educated blacks, and not to masses. His was a message without significant meaning for black masses.