I finished reading C. Vann Woodward’s The Strange Career of Jim Crow. It’s a historic book, truly. It brought home to me, as never before, that absolute segregation did not start, at least to the degree imposed by Jim Crow, until the late 1890s and early 1900s. Yes, there was racism and a lack of acceptance of social equality. But even after the Compromise of 1877, Blacks continued to vote, to hold office, and to be together with Whites in many forms of transportation. In fact, Dejure segregation in many ways was stronger in the North than in the South in the period leading up to the turn of the century.
As Woodward writes, “The South’s adoption of extreme racism was due not so much to a conversion as it was to a relaxation of the opposition. All the elements of fear, jealousy, prescription, hatred, and fanaticism had long been present, as they are present in various degrees of intensity in any society. What enabled them to rise to dominance was not so much cleverness or ingenuity as it was a general weakening and discrediting of the numerous forces that had hitherto kept them in check. The restraining forces included not only Northern liberal opinion in the press and the course of the government, but also internal checks imposed by the prestige and influence of the Southern Conservatives, as well as by the idealism and zeal of the Southern Radicals.”
So what changed? Woodward does not provide a totally convincing answer. One element which I had never considered was the impact of the acquisitions we made in the late 19th century in the Pacific and the Caribbean. They suddenly brought under the jurisdiction of the United States some eight million people of the colored races, “a varied assortment of inferior races which, of course, could not be allowed to vote” as many in the country saw them. As Woodward writes, “As America shouldered the White Man’s Burden, she took up at the same time many Southern attitudes on the subject of race.”
Here was meat for the White supremacy movement. At the very time that Imperialism was sweeping the country, the doctrine of racism reached a crest of acceptability and popularity among respectable scholarly and intellectual circles. It became part of the national sentiment.
Woodward’s history reveals once again the push and pull of history, how progress almost inevitably results in pushback and fatigue on the part of those who had pushed for change. We saw that following the three Amendments and enabling civil rights laws of the late 1860s and early 1870s. We saw it again post the civil rights and voting act bills of 1964 and 1965. It was accelerated by President Nixon’s “Southern strategy.” We see it again post the election of President Obama and post the Black Lives movement.
A personal reaction to this book is summed up by this question: “Where was I?” That’s what I wrote in the margin as I read about the violence that took place in Watts in 1965 and the violence, flaming cities and looting, which took place between 1965 and 1968. Of course, I know where I was, recently employed at P&G and just married. How ignorant I was of the seminal change around us.
In so many ways, history repeats itself. The Brown vs. Board of Education decision rested on the conviction that “separate is not equal.” Yet, the separation remains, in some ways more in schools than it was at the time of that decision.
It’s striking how the grievances of the “alienated” Whites have continued to be one source of racism. As Woodward writes, “Unlike upper class Whites, who often sympathized with Black aspirations, the alienated class of Whites resented such advances as Blacks made, opposed government and philanthropic measures on their behalf and denounced the tactics and especially the violence of the Black movement. They were the neglected, the forgotten. They bitterly rejected President Johnson’s war on poverty as another handout to Blacks.” Their champion back in the 1960s was Governor George C. Wallace. President Trump became the champion in the modern era. Nixon had his own response, saying: “It is time for those who make massive demands on society to make minimal demands on themselves.” It was time for the hysteria to cool, time to appease the South.
We are seeing such sentiment today in the reaction to overreaction by the Left. Words matter. Calls to “defund the police” come to haunt. So does the loosely thrown-about term “Critical Race Theory” which, drawn to its originating roots back in 1996, has treacherous linkage with Marxists, all of this making it hard to argue for a truthful and not honor-bashing narrative of our nation’s history.
History is filled with ironies. One told clearly in this great book is how members of the Black leadership themselves became Separatists, lobbying against the very notion of integration. It reminds me of the blog I wrote recently celebrating the ability to recognize and capitalize on the strength of individual interests without losing sight of a common, united good.
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