The Black New South: a study of local black leadership in Virginia and Alabama, 1874-1897

Abstract

This is a study of local black leadership in Alabama and Virginia in the 1880s. It is both an Intellectual and Social History - comparing the thinking and social setting of the local black elite in these two states using both a biographical and thematic approach. It explores how a protest tradition among local leaders remained strong in the South beyond the end of Reconstruction - a result of the relative ‘flexibility’ in southern race relations in the 1880s. Through a series of case studies, issues such as civil rights and the participation in party politics will be explored along with those of education and emigration. All of these subjects were significant to the local elite studied here; however, civil rights and education dominated discussion throughout the 1880s. Moreover, a comparative approach will provide a means of studying change and continuity in the thinking of the local black elite over the course of the 1880s; highlighting, for example, how one issue could be more prominent in one state over another, and how this might change over time.

As well as exploring the local context, a comparison will also be made with the national black elite - in particular, with Frederick Douglass. How the thinking of Douglass influenced, and was influenced by, local black leaders, will form part of this study. In addition, this study will determine how representative Booker T. Washington was as a local black leader, arguing that his relationship with other southern leaders in the 1880s was much closer than has been assumed. Above all, this thesis will assess how the local black elite treaded the fine, often difficult, line between whites on the one hand, and the southern blacks they represented on the other, in the years following Reconstruction.

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