"To think, act, vote, and speak for ourselves": Black Democrats and Black "Agency" in the American South after Reconstruction
Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: the Democrats.In addition, the decision of the predominantly Republican Supreme Court's decision two years previously, which had declared the 1875 Civil Rights Act as unconstitutional, reflected the growing white counter-reaction to Reconstruction.This decision was met with widespread opposition from African Americans, who knew all-to-well how it significantly undermined the effectiveness of the Fourteenth Amendment in upholding civil rights in the South.The convention's address was an unambiguous statement in support of independent voting, for by the mid-1880s, any discussion of alternatives to the Republican Party was situated within a discourse of "independent voting".In practice, this meant embracing the Democratic option, yet the term "independent" was important because it implied (perhaps naively in the context of the American South) that African Americans could be agents of their own political destiny in the South.As the Lynchburg convention reveals, there were some African Americans who wished to end their "unqualified support" for the Republican Party and at least consider working with white (Democratic) southerners.ii This essay will offer some preliminary remarks regarding African Americans who supported the Democrats.I argue that a study of black Democrats after Reconstruction forces us to reconsider what we mean by African American "agency" in the post-bellum South.iii We need to know much more about black conservative men who chose to support the Democrats, and situate any analysis in terms of the broader issues of race, class, gender and region.Local concerns determined the level of support, and whether support for the Democrats would come as a political bargain (usually in the form of a "fusion" ticket) or from direct political affiliation (in some cases with the promise of patronage).iv The Lynchburg convention came at a highwater point for black "independent" voting in the Old Dominion, and in the South
Source: Journal of Social History
DOI: 10.1093/jsh/shu076
Author: S. Robinson
Institution: Oxford University Press (United Kingdom)
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2147919108