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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
Say it Loud- I'm Black and I'm Proud
Say It Loud- I'm Black and I'm Proud the Album
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, preachers, 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 poor housing, 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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