РефератыИностранный языкThThe Goals And Failures Of The First

The Goals And Failures Of The First

And Second Reconstructions Essay, Research Paper


The Goals and Failures of the First and Second Reconstructions


Some people say we’ve got a lot of malice some say its a lot of nerve. But, I


say we won’t quit moving until we get what we deserve. We have been bucked and


we have been conned. We have been treated bad, talked about as just bones. But


just as it takes two eyes to eyes make a pair. Brother we won’t quit until we


get our share. Say it loud- I’m Black and I’m Proud.


James Brown


The First and Second Reconstructions held out the great promise of rectifying


racial injustices in America. The First Reconstruction, emerging out of the


chaos of the Civil War had as its goals equality for Blacks in voting, politics,


and use of public facilities. The Second Reconstruction emerging out of the


booming economy of the 1950’s, had as its goals, integration, the end of Jim


Crow and the more amorphous goal of making America a biracial democracy where,


“the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave holders will be able to


sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” Even though both movements, were


borne of high hopes they failed in bringing about their goals. Born in hope,


they died in despair, as both movements saw many of their gains washed away. I


propose to examine why they failed in realizing their goals. My thesis is that


failure to incorporate economic justice for Blacks in both movements led to the


failure of the First and Second Reconstruction.


The First Reconstruction came after the Civil War and lasted till 1877. The


political, social, and economic conditions after the Civil War defined the goals


of the First Reconstruction. At this time the Congress was divided politically


on issues that grew out of the Civil War: Black equality, rebuilding the South,


readmitting Southern states to Union, and deciding who would control


government.1 Socially, the South was in chaos. Newly emancipated slaves wandered


the South after having left their former masters, and the White population was


spiritually devastated, uneasy about what lay ahead. Economically, the South was


also devastated: plantations lay ruined, railroads torn up, the system of slave


labor in shambles, and cities burnt down. The economic condition of ex-slaves


after the Civil War was just as uncertain; many had left former masters and


roamed the highways.2


Amid the post Civil War chaos, various political groups were scrambling to


further their agendas. First, Southern Democrats, a party comprised of leaders


of the confederacy and other wealthy Southern whites, sought to end what they


perceived as Northern domination of the South. They also sought to institute


Black Codes, by limiting the rights of Blacks to move, vote, travel, and change


jobs,3 which like slavery, would provide an adequate and cheap labor supply for


plantations. Second, Moderate Republicans wanted to pursue a policy of


reconciliation between North and South, but at the same time ensure slavery was


abolished.4 Third, Radical Republicans, comprised of Northern politicians, were


strongly opposed to slavery, unsympathetic to the South, wanted to protect newly


free slaves, and keep there majority in Congress.5 The fourth political element,


at the end of the Civil War was President Andrew Johnson whose major goal was


unifying the nation. The fifth element were various fringe groups such as,


abolitionists and Quakers. Strongly motivated by principle and a belief in


equality, they believed that Blacks needed equality in American society,


although they differed on what the nature of that should be.6


The Northern Radical Republicans, with a majority in Congress, emerged as the


political group that set the goals for Reconstruction which was to prevent


slavery from rising again in the South. At first, the Radical Republicans


thought this could be accomplished by outlawing slavery with the passage of the


Thirteenth Amendment. But Southern Democrats in their quest to restore their


rule in the South brought back slavery in all but name, by passing Black Codes


as early as 1865. Both Moderate Republicans and Radical Republicans in Congress


reacted. Joining together in 1866, they passed a bill to extend the life and


responsibilities of the Freedmen’s Bureau to protect newly freed slaves against


the various Black Codes. President Johnson vetoed the bill, but Radical and


Moderate Republicans eventually were able to pass it.7


The Black Codes and President Johnson’s veto of all Reconstruction legislation


that was unfavorable to the South caused Moderate and Radical Republicans to


change their goals from just ending slavery to seeking political equality and


voting rights for Blacks.8 The new goals, were based on humanitarian and


political considerations. Northerners had grown increasingly sympathetic to the


plight of the Blacks in the South following numerous well publicized incidents


in which innocent Blacks were harassed, beaten, and killed.9 The extension of


suffrage to Black males was a political move by the Republicans in Congress who


believed that Blacks would form the backbone of the Republican Party in the


South, preventing Southern Democrats from winning elections in Southern states,


and uphold the Republican majority in Congress after the Southern States


rejoined the Union. As one Congressman from the North bluntly put it, “It


prevents the States from going into the hands of the rebels, and giving them the


President and the Congress for the next forty years.”10


Until the 1890’s, this policy of achieving equality through granting political


rights to Blacks worked moderately well. During Reconstruction, newly freed


slaves voted in large numbers in the South. Of the 1,330,000 people registered


to vote under Reconstruction Acts 703,000 were Black and only 627,000 were


White.11 Even after 1877, when federal troops were withdrawn12, Jim Crow laws


did not fully emerge in the South and Blacks continued to vote in high numbers


and hold various state and federal offices. Between 1877 and 1900, a total of


ten Blacks were elected to serve in the US Congress.13 This occurred because


Southern Democrats forged a unlikely coalition with Black voters against White


laborers14. Under this paternalistic order Southern Democrats agreed to protect


Blacks political rights in the South in return for Black votes15.


But voting and election figures hide the true nature of Black political power


during and after Reconstruction. Few Blacks held elective offices in relation to


their percentage of the South’s population.16 And those in office usually did


not wield the power, which during Reconstruction continued to reside with


Moderate and Radical Republicans in Congress, whites who ran Southern state


governments, and federal troops. Emancipated slaves had little to do with either


fashioning Reconstruction policy or its implementation. Blacks political rights


were dependent upon alliances made with groups with conflicting interests White


Northern Republicans and White elites in the South.17 Though they pursued


political equality for Blacks, their goals were shaped more by self-interest


than for concern for Black equality.


By 1905 Blacks lost their right to vote. In Louisiana alone the number of Black


voters fell from 130,334 in 1896 to 1,342 in 1904.18 The number of elected Black


public officials dropped to zero. The disenfranchisement of Blacks was


accomplished through good character tests, poll taxes, White primaries, literacy


tests, grandfather clauses, and intimidation. By 1905, whatever success


politically and socially the Reconstruction had enjoyed had been wiped out.19


Following on the heels of disenfranchisement came implementation of


comprehensive Jim Crow laws segregating steamboats, toilets, ticket windows and


myriad of other previously non-segregated public places. 20


Two historians, C. Van Woodward and William Julius Wilson, both pin point


specific events such as, recessions, class conflicts, imperialist expansion to


explain the rise of Jim Crow. Wilson’s21 and Woodward’s22 analysis is lacking


because the United States has undergone many recessions and many times minority


groups such as Jews, Irish, and Eastern Europeans and have been blamed for


taking away the jobs of the lower-class; and yet these groups have not had their


votes stripped away from them and did not have an elaborate set of laws


constructed to keep them segregated in society as Blacks have. The only


community of people in the Untied States who have been victims of systematic,


long-term, violent, White Supremacy have been Native Americans. And Native


Americans, like Afro-Americans, have been predominately powerless economically


and politically. This points to the conclusion that the systemic demise of the


First Reconstruction stems from the failure of Reconstruction leaders to include


economic justice for Blacks as a goal; thus dooming the Reconstruction movement


from the outset. The failure of pursuing a policy of economic redistribution


forced Blacks into fragile political alliances that quickly disintegrated (as


can be seen in 1877 and 1896); Blacks were forced to rely on the Radical


Republicans and Federal troops to give them their rights and later their former


slave masters, the Southern Democrats, to safeguard their rights.23 The


disintegration of these agreements were caused directly by the events that


Woodward and Wilson point to, but these political agreements were inherently


fragile and would have inevitably unraveled because of their very nature. These


political alliances had conflicting interests. The poor sharecropper and the


White elites of the South were inherently unequal. The former slaves were looked


on not as equals, but as inferior.24 Whatever well meaning reforms were


instituted were done so paternalistically and for Southern Democrats own


interests. And when an alliance with Blacks no longer served the interests of


the whites they were easily abandoned. When the Blacks agreement with the


Southern Democrats unraveled Blacks were left economically naked except for the


loin cloth of political rights. But this loin cloth was easily stripped from


them, because lacking economic power, they were unable to make other political


allies, their economic position allowed them to be easily intimidated by White


land owners, they had no way to lobby the government, no way to leave the South,


few employment opportunities, and for many Blacks no education.25 The leaders of


the Reconstruction failed to understand that without economic justice Blacks


would be forced into a dependency on the White power structure to protect their


rights and when these rights no longer served the interests of this power


structure they were easily stripped away. Reconstruction Acts and Constitutional


Amendments offered little protection to stop this stripping away of Black


political rights.


The Reconstruction leaders failed to understand the relationship between


political rights and economic power, if they had they might not have rejected


measures that could have provided former slaves with the economic power to


safeguard their political rights. Two possibilities presented themselves at the


outset of the First Reconstruction. A Quaker and Radical Republican Congressman


from Pennsylvania, Thaddeus Stevens, proposed that the North seize the land


holdings of the South’s richest land owners as a war indemnity and redistribute


the land giving each newly freed Negro adult male a mule and forty acres.26


Thaddeus Stevens a bitter foe of the South,27 explained that a free society had


to be based on land redistribution:


Southern Society has more the features of aristocracy then a democracy….. It


is impossible that any practical equality of rights can exist where a few


thousand men monopolize the who landed property. How can Republican institutions,


free schools, free churches, free social intercourse exist in a mingled


community of nabobs and serfs, of owners of twenty-thousand-acre manors, with


lordly palaces, and the occupants of narrow huts inhabited by low White trash?


Stevens plan in the Republican Press though drew unfavorable responses. The plan


was called brash and unfair. Only one newspaper endorsed it and that was the


French paper La Temps which said, “There cannot be real emancipation for men who


do no possess at least a small portion of soil.”28 When the bill was introduced


in Congress it was resoundingly defeated by a majority of Republicans. Stevens


was alone in understanding the tremendous institutional changes that would have


to take place to guarantee the emancipation of a people. If the former slave did


not have his own land he would be turned into a serf in his own nation a


stranger to the freedoms guaranteed to him and a slave all but in name.


The other alternative the leaders of Reconstruction had was expanding the


Freedmen’s Bureau from a temporary to a permanent institution that educated all


former slaves and ensured that former slaves had a viable economic base that did


not exploit them. Instead, the Freedmen’s Bureau lasted merely five years, and


only five million dollars were appropriated to it. Its mission to educate and


protect the Freedmen was meet in only a small way in this short amount of time


and when the Freedmen’s Bureau shutdown it left the education of former slaves


to local governments which allocated limited if any funds.29 Although proposed


by a few Republicans the Freedmen’s Bureau also refused to set a minimum wage in


the South to ensure that former slaves received a fair wage from their former


slave masters. Instead, the Freedmen’s Bureau was instrumental in spearheading


the formation of sharecropping by encouraging both former slaves and plantation


owners to enter into sharecropping agreements.30 By the time the Bureau ceased


operations in 1870, the sharecropping system was the dominant arrangement in the


South. This arrangement continued the poverty and oppression of Blacks in the


South. As one Southern governor said about sharecropping, “The Negro skins the


land and the landlord skins the Negro.”31 The Freedmen’s Bureau missed a great


opportunity; had its mission been broadened, its funding increased, and its


power been extended, it could have educated the Black population and guaranteed


some type of land reform in the South. Because neither Thaddeus Stevens plan for


land redistribution or an expansion of the Freedmen’s Bureau took place, Blacks


were left after slavery much as they were before, landless and uneducated. In


the absence of an economic base for Blacks, three forces moved in during the


1890’s wiping out the political successes of Reconstruction: the white sheets of


White supremacy, the blue suits of politicians all too eager to unify whites


with racism, and the black robes of the judiciary in cases like Plessy vs.


Ferguson in 1896 stripped away Blacks’ social and political rights.


The Civil Rights movement came nearly ninety years after the First


Reconstruction. The goals of the Second Reconstruction involved at first tearing


down the legal Jim Crow of the South, but by the March on Washington in 1964 the


goals had changed to guaranteeing all Americans equality of opportunity,


integration both social and political, and the more amorphous goal of a biracial


democracy.32 But the goals did not include the need to transform the economic


condition of Blacks. Instead they emphasized the need to transform the political


and social condition of Blacks.33


At the beginning, the Civil Rights Movement sought solutions to racial injustice


through laws and used the Federal courts to secure them. The Supreme Court set


the stage in 1954 with Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas: the


Brown decision focused the attention of dominant Black institutions such as CORE


(Congress On Racial Equality) and the NAACP (National Association for the


Advancement of Colored People) on fighting the illegality of segregation in


Congress and courts. Subsequent organizations that came to play larger roles in


the Civil Rights Movement such as, SNCC (Students Non-violent Coordinating


Committee) and SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Council) fell into this same


pattern– combating mainly legal segregation. Although they pioneered different


tactics– sit-ins, boycotts, and marches, the goal was to focus attention on


getting rid of Jim Crow.34


The Civil Rights movement, successfully pressured Congress and the President to


enact the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Civil Rights


Movement also brought about a fundamental shift in public opinion; de jure


racial discrimination became a moral wrong for many Americans. The Civil Rights


Movement by 1965 had broken the back of legal Jim Crow in the South. However, in


the North, Blacks living under de facto segregation by economic and racist


conditions. Segregated schools and housing were unaffected by the progress of


the Civil Rights Movement.35 By the middle of 1965, the Civil Rights Movement


had stalled; never recovering its momentum.36


C. Van Woodward views the failure of the Civil Rights Movement to realize its


goals and its disintegration in the same myopic way he views the failure of the


First Reconstruction. He points to three different events, from 1965 to 1968, to


explain the disintegration of the Civil Rights Movement: riots in urban areas


which created a White backlash37, the rise of racial separatism and extremism


within the Civil Rights Movement and Black community, 38 and the Vietnam War


which diverted White liberals’ attention. Woodward’s analysis fails to provide a


broad perspective of why these events destroyed such a strong movement. There


had been riots in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, yet these riots neither spread


nor crippled the movement.39 Black separatism had been a vocal movement before


1965 in the form of the Nation of Islam.40 And mass opposition to the Vietnam


War among White liberals did not pickup momentum until the late 1960’s after the


Civil Rights Movement had stalled.


On the other hand, William Julius Wilson provides a more coherent explanation of


the demise of the Civil Rights Movement. Wilson says the movement failed because


it did not effectively address the economic plight of inner city Blacks living


in the North. This failure was caused by the leadership of the Civil Rights


Movement which had little connection with Blacks in the ghetto. The leaders of


the movement were from the Southern middle-class Blacks; who were either college


students, teachers, preach

ers, or lawyers.41 Like the leaders of the First


Reconstruction, the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement lacked understanding of


the economic needs of the Black lower-class. Instead of addressing the economic


plight of Northern Black ghettoes, the Civil Rights Movement continued to push


for broad political and civil rights. Inhabitants of Northern Ghettoes, were


trapped not by Jim Crow, but by poverty and de facto segregation. Nonviolent


protests, marches, pickets, and rallies did nothing to change poorhousing, lack


of employment, and inferior schools.


However, the Civil Rights Movement’s battles to end Jim Crow in the South and


obtain passage of Civil Rights acts in the 1960’s raised awareness of lower-


class Blacks in the ghetto to racism and increased their impatience with police


brutality and economic injustice. This heightened awareness of racism in their


community and desperation over their plight, turned poor urban Blacks into


matches and ghettoes into kindling. The Riots from 1965 to 1968 became a way to


raise economic issues the Civil Rights Movement had ignored. The Riots were


caused, not just by desperation, they had been desperate for years, not just by


a heightened awareness of racism, they had been aware of it before 1965, but


because they found no answers to their plight. Neither White politicians nor


civil rights leaders had solutions for their economic needs.42


Wilson’s analysis thus far provides as answer for the riots and subsequent White


backlash. However, Wilson’s explanation of the emergence and appeal of Black


Power is lacking. Wilson says Black Power’s emergence was caused by riots in the


summers from 1965 to 1968. But these riots occurred after Black Power had


emerged inside the Civil Rights Movement. In the spring of 1965 the leadership


of SNCC and CORE had expelled its White members, rejected integration as a goal,


and elected black separatists as presidents.43 Instead, I see the emergence of


the Black Power Movement as related to the failure of the Civil Rights Movement


to address lower-class frustration with economic injustice, and de facto racism


in the North. Black Power, as a movement, had many facets and leaders. Black


Power leaders were from the lower-class while the Civil Rights Movements leaders


were from the middle-class. Stokely Carmichael, a poor immigrant from Trinidad;


Eldridge Cleaver, the son of a Texas carpenter, and went to jail for rape44;


Huey Newton, before becoming a political leader, was a hustler. Other leaders


such as Angela Davis gravitated to the movement because of its mix of Marxist


and nationalist economic politics.45 The rise of these leaders was a result of


the Civil Rights Movement’s failure before 1965, to articulate a program of


racial justice for poor Blacks in the North; in this absence violent, vocal and


angry leaders emerged to fill this void. Leaders such as H. Rap Brown called for


“killing the honkies,” James Brown called for Black pride with his song “Say It


Loud- I’m Black and I’m Proud.”


Black Power provided poor Blacks with psychological and economic solutions to


their problems. Psychologically it brought about a shift in Black consciousness


a shift that made being Black beautiful, no longer as W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in


1905 were Blacks a “Seventh Son.” But equally important the Black Power Movement


tried to provide economic answers to urban Blacks with answers such as: racial


separatism, moving back to Africa, taking over the government, and taking “what


was theirs” from whites. Although these solutions ultimately proved unworkable


for solving economic problems, they tried, while the Civil Rights movement did


not attempt solutions.


The failure of the Civil Rights Movement in articulating and pursuing a plan of


economic justice for lower-class Blacks doomed the movement’s goal of


integration, furthering de facto segregation in housing and schools. The end of


Jim Crow did not end the income difference between Whites and Blacks. In 1954,


Blacks earned approximately 53% of what whites earned, and in 1980 they earned


57% what an average White earns. At this rate racial equality in average income


would come in 250 years.46 This racial inequality in income left unaddressed by


the Civil Rights Movement, forces poor Blacks to remain in deteriorating slums


in cities, while whites flee to the suburbs. The de facto segregation that has


emerged has shifted the good jobs to suburbs and relegated lower-class Blacks in


cities to diminishing job prospects. This has caused rising rates of


unemployment, economic desperation, and jobs predominantly in the low-wage


sector. This poverty cycle among lower-class Blacks remains after vestiges of


legal Jim Crow have disappeared.47 White flight to suburbs and the poverty trap


of the inner city for Blacks has been so great that in 1980 the number of


segregated schools surpassed the number of segregated schools before 1954.48


Both the First and Second Reconstructions left Blacks with no economic base,


dependent on others for their social and political power. And as in the First


Reconstruction, when those political alliances did not serve the needs of the


whites in power, Blacks were abandoned and their political and social goals


wiped out. In the 1990’s most political leaders have long given up on the plight


of the Black urban poor. Mandatory busing is fast being eliminated in major


cities, and Black leaders cry out for help to a President and Congress more


interested in balancing the budget, cutting welfare costs, and spending on the


military then dealing with the complicated cycle of urban poverty.


Though, the two Reconstructions held out great promise and hope to Blacks in


America, both failed to achieve their broad goals and in subsequent decades much


of their accomplishments washed away. Yet, both brought significant permanent


changes. The First Reconstruction ended slavery and the second ended legal


segregation. But just as the First Reconstruction disintegrated by the 1890’s


because of the failure of the federal government to create a viable economic


base for freed slaves, the Second Reconstruction did not result in a fully


integrated society because it too failed to fundamentally change the economic


condition of poor Blacks.


The Black experience in America is a contradiction for there is no one black


experience just as there is no one white experience. In the same way, the


failure of the First and Second Reconstructions was caused not by one event but


by many. The failings of these Reconstructions are not as simple as racism,


politics, or individual events; to single out one to explain such complicated


periods gives an incomplete picture of both history and the nature of racism.


The leaders of both the First and Second Reconstructions fell into this trap and


sought to solve racial inequality through political means. Their failure to see


the economic dimensions of racism was key to the demise of the First and Second


Reconstructions. While far from the movements only failing it is a factor that


has been ignored by historians such as C. Vann Woodward and William Julius


Wilson. America still has a long way to go to reach a place where “little Black


boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little White boys and White


girls as sisters and brothers.” We are still a divided society- economically if


not legally. We are divided between the inner city ghettoes of South Central LA


and the mansions of Beverly Hills; between Harlem’s abandoned buildings and the


plush apartments of Park Avenue. Racial injustice will never be solved with mere


politics and laws, anger and separatism. If we fail to bridge this divide the


question of the Twenty-First century like the Twentieth will be that of the


color line.


Endnotes


1 Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution (New York: Harper


and Row, 1988) p.228.


2 Ibid. pp.124-125.


3 Eli Ginzberg and Alfred S. Eichner, Troublesome Presence: Democracy and Black


Americans (London: Transaction Publishers, 1993) p. 148.


4 Ibid. p. 152.


5 Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution (New York: Harper


and Row, 1988) pp.229-231.


6 Daniel J. Mcinerney, The Fortunate Heirs of Freedom: Abolition and the


Republican Party (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994) p.151.


7 Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution (New York: Harper


and Row, 1988) pp.228-251.


8 The transformation of the goals of Reconstruction was caused by Johnson’s veto


of nearly every Reconstruction bill. This forced Moderates to join the Radical


Republicans in an alliance against President Johnson. Eli Ginzberg and Alfred S.


Eichner, Troublesome Presence: Democracy and Black Americans (London:


Transaction Publishers, 1993) p.153.


9 Ibid. p.159.


10 Ibid. p. 161.


11 A total of twenty-two Blacks served in the House of Representatives during


Reconstruction. C. Eric Lincoln, The Negro Pilgrimage in America (New York:


Bantam, 1967) p.65.


12 In the Presidential election of 1876, the Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, captured


a majority of the popular vote and lead in the electoral college results. But


the electoral votes of three Southern States still under Republican rule were in


doubt, as Ginzberg writes, “In all three states the Republicans controlled the


returning boards which had to certify the election results, and in all three


states they certified their own parties ticket. As the history books reveal, the


crisis was finally overcome when the Southern Democrats agreed to support the


Republican Candidate Rutherford B. Hayes, as a part of a larger compromise (The


Compromise of 1877). Hayes promised in return to withdraw Federal troops from


the South.” Eli Ginzberg and Alfred S. Eichner, Troublesome Presence: Democracy


and Black Americans (London: Transaction Publishers, 1993) pp. 182-183.


13 C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford University


Press, 1974) p. 54.


14 Southern Democrats were comprised of Southern elites and formed a coalition


with Blacks to prevent poor Whites from passing economic initiatives such as


free silver, the break up of monopolies, and labor laws. Gerald Gaither, Blacks


and the Populist Revolt: Ballots and Bigotry In the New South (Ann Arbor:


University Microfilms, 1972) p.299.


15 The Coalition between poor Whites was based on a paternalistic order as C.


Vann Woodward explains, “Blacks continued to vote in large numbers and hold


minor offices and a few seats in Congress, but this could be turned to account


by the Southern White Democrats who had trouble with White lower-class


rebellion.” C. Vann Woodward, Origins of a New South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana


State University Press, 1951) p.254.


16 Howard N. Robinowitz, Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (


Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982) p.396.


17 Ibid. p.398.


18 C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford University


Press, 1974) p. 85.


19 William Julius Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race (Chicago:


University of Chicago Press, 1980) p.63.


20 Until 1900, the only type of Jim Crow law (a law which legally segregates


races) prevalent in the South was one applying to passengers aboard trains in


the first class section. C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New


York: Oxford University Press, 1974) p. 67.


21 Woodward sees the failure of Reconstruction as related to three events. First,


it was brought about by the rise of racist theories and ideas in intellectual


circles around 1890. These ideas, such as eugenics and social Darwinism eroded


support among elite groups such as Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans


for political equality for Blacks. Second, the rise of United States imperialism


lead by the Republican party starting in 1898, undercut the ability and


willingness of Northern Republicans to be the moral authority on racial equality.


Third, the emergence of the populist movement in the late 1880’s and 1890’s


forced the White elites to abandon their alliance with Blacks. This was because


both the populists and the Southern Democrats sought the Black vote and when


neither could be assured of controlling it, both Parties realized that it would


be far better for them to disenfranchise the Black population than fight for its


votes. C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford


University Press, 1974) pp.82-83.


22 Wilson sees the emergence of Jim Crow and disenfranchisement of Blacks as


related to three major events. First, the recession of the 1890’s and the boll


weevil blight brought Blacks and Whites in the lower-classes in intense


competition for a shrinking pool of jobs. This intensification of competition


between these groups manifested itself in White supremacy. Second, the rise of


the labor movement in the 1890’s lead to the rise of lower-class Whites to power


this allowed them to codify into law Jim Crow which reflected their view of


Blacks as competition in the labor market. Third, the migration of Blacks to


urban areas in the North, and the use of Blacks as strike-breakers in Northern


factories, created racial hostility among lower-class Whites toward Blacks. This


forced Northern Republicans to no longer focus on racial equality because it


undermined their support among White labor. William Julius Wilson, The Declining


Significance of Race (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980) pp.59-60.


23 Howard N. Robinowitz, Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (


Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982) p.400.


24 Ibid. p.399.


25 Gerald Gaither, Blacks and the Populist Revolt: Ballots and Bigotry In the


New South (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1972) p. 302.


26 Eli Ginzberg and Alfred S. Eichner, Troublesome Presence: Democracy and Black


Americans (London: Transaction Publishers, 1993) p. 134.


27 Ibid. pp. 132-133.


28 Ibid. p.135.


29 W.E.B. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk (New York: Bantam Books, 1989) p.28.


30 Eli Ginzberg and Alfred S. Eichner, Troublesome Presence: Democracy and Black


Americans (London: Transaction Publishers, 1993) p. 201.


31 Ibid. p.203.


32 Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality (New York: Hill and Wang,


1989) pp.162.


33 Although the March on Washington was called a march for, “Freedom and Jobs”


the goals of the March were political and social and not economic. The reason


the March was called a march for, “Freedom and Jobs” was the idea for the march


came from A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.


Randolph first proposed the march in 1941 to get President Roosevelt to open up


defense jobs for blacks. But the march did not gather widespread support at the


time. Then in 1962 Randolph planed a march for economic justice for Blacks. The


idea was supported by CORE, SNCC, and SCLC. Martin Luther King’s SCLC then took


over organizing the march and downgraded Randolph’s economic demands. Ibid.


pp.159-161.


34 Ibid. p.96.


35 William Harris, The Harder We Run: Black Workers since the Civil War (New


York: Oxford University Press, 1982) p.153.


36 Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality (New York: Hill and Wang,


1989) p.199.


37 Between 1965 and 1968 there were over three hundred race riots in American


cities. Woodward concludes that these riots helped bring about the end of the


Civil Rights Movement by creating factions within the movement as different


groups pursued different policies to rectify injustice in the Northern ghettos.


The Riots also created a backlash among the White populace which manifested


itself in the defeat of the 1966 Civil Rights Act and the election of Richard


Nixon in 1968. Ibid. pp..222-223.


38 The rise of racial separatism and extremism manifested itself within SNCC and


CORE and the formation of Black Separatist groups such as the Black Panthers,


the Weathermen, and RAM. The rhetoric of extremists inside SNCC and in other


groups captured television camera’s and although Reverend Martin Luther King


continued to march and speak, the face of the Civil Rights Movement became that


of Angela Davis and Huey Newton; the song of the Civil Rights Movement changed


from Reverend Martin Luther King’s, “We Shall Overcome,” to Stokely Carmichael’s,


“We Shall Overrun.” Ibid. p..217.


39 Ibid. p.145.


40 In 1963, Malcolm X was the most quoted Black spokesman, “He played to the


media, conjuring fantasies of jet fleets, piloted by Blacks, someday bombing all


White neighborhoods.” Ibid. p.154.


41 These Blacks were from what E. Franklin Frazier calls, “the Black


Bourgeoisie.” E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie (New York: Free Press,


1957) pp.103-104.


42 Leaders have emerged such as Minister Louis Farrakhan and Colin Powell, who


either propose Black Capitalist, and nationalist solutions to the plight of the


urban poor, much like Marcus Garvey in the 1920’s, or they provide


accommodationist views of the Black struggle in America which meets with the


approval of White elites much like Booker T. Washington at the turn of the


century. Cornel West, Race Matters (New York, Random House, 1994) p.57.


43 Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality (New York: Hill and Wang,


1989) p.212.


44 Kathleen Rout, Eldridge Cleaver (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991) p.80.


45 Angela Davis, Frame Up (San Francisco: National Committee To Free Angela


Davis, 1972) p.7.


46 Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality (New York: Hill and Wang,


1989) p.234.


47 Civil Rights initiatives though have helped the Black middle-class who have


experienced unprecedented job prospects as they have been able to escape the


urban ghettos and take advantage of jobs in the corporate and government sector.


This points to what Wilson calls, “the declining significance of race in


determining poverty,” instead of race dictating someone’s economic status, the


status of their class is what determines their economic future; with the poor


Blacks getting poorer and middle-class Blacks becoming wealthier. Because of


this economic inequality in the Black community has grown more than inequality


in the White community. William Julius Wilson, The Declining Significance of


Race (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980) pp.151-154.


48 Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality (New York: Hill and Wang,


1989) p.231.

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