A Nation under Our Feet : Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration

Rating:
Summary: A historical work of major importance
Review: Every now and then one reads that political history has fallen on hard times. And there is some truth to this. Much political history seems awash in a sea of detail, accounts of endless intrigues and bureaucratic machinations whose overall significance is unclear, while regression coefficients run amuck. Surely, a reader may be tempted to think, Michael Holt's 1296 page history of the Whig Party tell us more than anyone would possibly want to know about the subject. Steven Hahn's new book is very different. Twenty years ago he published "Roots of Southern Populism," a brilliant monograph on postbellum white Southern farmers. Now after two decades this new book fully confirms the promise of his first book. It helps, of course, that Hahn cares about his subject and makes sure that we care as well. Hahn tells the story of black Southern politics from the last decade of slavery to the civil war through Reconstruction. Then he goes on about the next two decades before disfranchisement when African-Americans sought to maintain their positions with alliances with the Virginia Readjusters in the 1880s and the Populists in the 1890s.

But surely we already know the basic contours of the story. Do we really need to be told that African-Americans were not just passive subjects but actively sought their own political ends? But Hahn provides much more than this. For a start he provides a much larger definition of politics than other writers might. He looks at the kinship networks, the importance of church and school, the significance of labor, and the value of community. Notwithstanding the wide unity of African-Americans he takes special care to discuss differences over region, strategy and especially class. He notes the rise of more successful blacks, those who benefited from military service, literacy, earlier freedom and access to land. He starts off by discussing slavery and he gives an excellent discussion of the system of petty production which allowed slaves limited access to markets and money. We then read up to date accounts of slave families and slave religion as well as a pioneering discussion of the networks of information that slaves had. The next chapter deals with the now familiar tale of how hundreds of thousands of slaves fled plantations, 150,000 joined the union army to defeat the Confederacy, while many of the rest engaged in "sulkiness, demoralization, insolence and outright insubordination." There is then a chapter based on much original and new material about the wave of rumours that ran through the south in the fall of 1865 that much Southern land would be divided up and given to the freedpeople. We learn about the freedmen conventions that made noticeable efforts to attract the rural black majority, as well as the routes and circuits of rumours.

The next three chapters deal with Reconstruction. Hahn points out the scope of political mobilization and the rise of Black militias. He points out the tremendous feat of registering a largely illiterate population once they achieved the vote, a feat rarely matched in American history. He discusses the difficulties of interracial cooperation in the Union League and how officials had to yield to popular wishes and sensibilities. We are reminded of the scope of black office-holding, and especially of the importance of holding local posts during Reconstruction. Not simply governors, senators or state legislators, but also sheriffs, magistrates, registrars and tax collectors, were vital to hold. We are also reminded how unprecedented it was for such a deprived class to achieve such power after emancipation. We are reminded of the constant pressures of vigilantism and economic pressure directed against African-Americans and we also learn about the use of intimidation to counter this. Associational life boomed with black burial clubs, saving banks, firefighting clubs and mutual aid societies being formed. We learn of more subtle checks on democracy, such as the widespread use of bonds. A lowly court clerk might have to post $3,000, while a sheriff might have to post as much as $90,000. Naturally this only encouraged people to place their dependence on the wealthy who stood as surety for them. And of course we learn about the Ku Klux Klan, and how they especially targeted schools for their murder and assassination raids.

Part three looks at the "Redemption period." On the one hand blacks were still able to make alliances with Readjusters and Populists. But the intense hostility whites had to voting for black officials or living in communities run by black officials undermined every alliance. Hahn points out that this hostility was not simply racism; there were intense ideological prejudices within American ideology that looked down at any underclass, there were few areas such as churches and school where poor blacks and whites could meet, and kinship ties and economic dependence blunted class differences with the Democratic ruling class. But this hostility existed nevertheless and it was not overcome. Hahn also discusses such movements as Exodusters to Kansas and colonization of Liberia. Although they attracted only 25,000 or so in the late 1870s, they had a larger constituency of people who would have liked to move but lacked either the money to do so or were cowed by white opposition. Hahn points out that emigration was particularly weak in those areas of South Carolina and Louisiana had blunted the worst of redemption, and he also notes that the threat of emigration helped blunt the first round of anti-black Redemption measures in the 1870s. Hahn also points out these nationalist tendencies lasted well into the twenties, where most of Marcus Garvey's supporters were in the countryside. Especially noteworthy is Hahn's interest in gender and the importance of women as mothers, political advocates, community organizers and anti-lynching advocates. With 101 pages of notes, papers from at least fifteen different archives and a thorough grasp of the secondary literature, "A Nation Under Our Feet," confirms Hahn's status as one of the leading American historians.

Rating:
Summary: A historical work of major importance
Review: Every now and then one reads that political history has fallen on hard times. And there is some truth to this. Much political history seems awash in a sea of detail, accounts of endless intrigues and bureaucratic machinations whose overall significance is unclear, while regression coefficients run amuck. Surely, a reader may be tempted to think, Michael Holt's 1296 page history of the Whig Party tell us more than anyone would possibly want to know about the subject. Steven Hahn's new book is very different. Twenty years ago he published "Roots of Southern Populism," a brilliant monograph on postbellum white Southern farmers. Now after two decades this new book fully confirms the promise of his first book. It helps, of course, that Hahn cares about his subject and makes sure that we care as well. Hahn tells the story of black Southern politics from the last decade of slavery to the civil war through Reconstruction. Then he goes on about the next two decades before disfranchisement when African-Americans sought to maintain their positions with alliances with the Virginia Readjusters in the 1880s and the Populists in the 1890s.

But surely we already know the basic contours of the story. Do we really need to be told that African-Americans were not just passive subjects but actively sought their own political ends? But Hahn provides much more than this. For a start he provides a much larger definition of politics than other writers might. He looks at the kinship networks, the importance of church and school, the significance of labor, and the value of community. Notwithstanding the wide unity of African-Americans he takes special care to discuss differences over region, strategy and especially class. He notes the rise of more successful blacks, those who benefited from military service, literacy, earlier freedom and access to land. He starts off by discussing slavery and he gives an excellent discussion of the system of petty production which allowed slaves limited access to markets and money. We then read up to date accounts of slave families and slave religion as well as a pioneering discussion of the networks of information that slaves had. The next chapter deals with the now familiar tale of how hundreds of thousands of slaves fled plantations, 150,000 joined the union army to defeat the Confederacy, while many of the rest engaged in "sulkiness, demoralization, insolence and outright insubordination." There is then a chapter based on much original and new material about the wave of rumours that ran through the south in the fall of 1865 that much Southern land would be divided up and given to the freedpeople. We learn about the freedmen conventions that made noticeable efforts to attract the rural black majority, as well as the routes and circuits of rumours.

The next three chapters deal with Reconstruction. Hahn points out the scope of political mobilization and the rise of Black militias. He points out the tremendous feat of registering a largely illiterate population once they achieved the vote, a feat rarely matched in American history. He discusses the difficulties of interracial cooperation in the Union League and how officials had to yield to popular wishes and sensibilities. We are reminded of the scope of black office-holding, and especially of the importance of holding local posts during Reconstruction. Not simply governors, senators or state legislators, but also sheriffs, magistrates, registrars and tax collectors, were vital to hold. We are also reminded how unprecedented it was for such a deprived class to achieve such power after emancipation. We are reminded of the constant pressures of vigilantism and economic pressure directed against African-Americans and we also learn about the use of intimidation to counter this. Associational life boomed with black burial clubs, saving banks, firefighting clubs and mutual aid societies being formed. We learn of more subtle checks on democracy, such as the widespread use of bonds. A lowly court clerk might have to post $3,000, while a sheriff might have to post as much as $90,000. Naturally this only encouraged people to place their dependence on the wealthy who stood as surety for them. And of course we learn about the Ku Klux Klan, and how they especially targeted schools for their murder and assassination raids.

Part three looks at the "Redemption period." On the one hand blacks were still able to make alliances with Readjusters and Populists. But the intense hostility whites had to voting for black officials or living in communities run by black officials undermined every alliance. Hahn points out that this hostility was not simply racism; there were intense ideological prejudices within American ideology that looked down at any underclass, there were few areas such as churches and school where poor blacks and whites could meet, and kinship ties and economic dependence blunted class differences with the Democratic ruling class. But this hostility existed nevertheless and it was not overcome. Hahn also discusses such movements as Exodusters to Kansas and colonization of Liberia. Although they attracted only 25,000 or so in the late 1870s, they had a larger constituency of people who would have liked to move but lacked either the money to do so or were cowed by white opposition. Hahn points out that emigration was particularly weak in those areas of South Carolina and Louisiana had blunted the worst of redemption, and he also notes that the threat of emigration helped blunt the first round of anti-black Redemption measures in the 1870s. Hahn also points out these nationalist tendencies lasted well into the twenties, where most of Marcus Garvey's supporters were in the countryside. Especially noteworthy is Hahn's interest in gender and the importance of women as mothers, political advocates, community organizers and anti-lynching advocates. With 101 pages of notes, papers from at least fifteen different archives and a thorough grasp of the secondary literature, "A Nation Under Our Feet," confirms Hahn's status as one of the leading American historians.

Rating:
Summary: A magnificent new view of the development of black politics
Review: This book is a monumental and sweeping history of African American politics in the rural South in the decades between the 1850s and the 1910s. Such a brief description, however, conceals the monumental scale of Hahn's project, which - it appears to me, at least, as an admitted nonspecialist in southern black history - is to wholly revamp how we conceptualize the relationship of African Americans to politics in this period. Drawing on the so-called "new political history" and its expanded conception of what politics, especially of subaltern groups, might consist of, Hahn offers a sweeping portrait of a continuously surviving and effective southern black political culture, hitherto invisible to historians partly because it was forged under slavery and remained a local, grassroots political infrastructure. Hahn's study is really a series of linked studies of specific places in times, but woven carefully and elegantly into a complete argument that the roots of early 20th century black nationalism must be sought in a set of grassroots political institutions, networks, skills, talents, and circuits - in short, an entire political culture - that African Americans had begun building under slavery.

A telling indication of this book's revolutionary quality is that Hahn's title does not include the word "Reconstruction." While he does consider the career of Presidential and Radical Reconstruction crucial to the development of black politics, he argues that grassroots black political culture shaped and responded to Reconstruction in ways that demand telling the story from a completely different angle. He argues that blacks sought, perhaps above all, self-governance - a desire that has been invisible in what he calls liberal-integrationist accounts of late 19th century race politics. And although he is almost too modest to come right out and say it, this book essentially argues that what we call "black nationalism," as it exploded onto northern white consciousness with Garveyism, has a complex genealogy going back to the grassroots political thoughts, formations, and actions of rural Southern blacks - going all the way back to slavery. The concept of "a nation under our feet" conveys, beautifully and subtly, the way in which Hahn is arguing for a new genealogy of black nationalism.

The effect is breathtaking. In place of Andrew Johnson, Hahn offers us such figures as the Louisiana freedperson Henry Adams, whose "education" as the organizer of a Liberia colonization scheme made him a predecessor of Garveyism and a critical figure in black politics. And he argues that local political officeholders - sheriffs, policemen, clerks - were just as important to black political culture as the better-known Reconstruction Congressmen. "Reconstruction" is, in effect, radically de-centered in Hahn's account. While scholars have examined grassroots black politics in particular places in the urban South - I am especially familiar with the work of Elsa Barkley Brown and Tera Hunter - no one has yet attempted (1) to focus on rural places, which Hahn argues persuasively remained crucial sites for political formation and activism even as blacks weighed a variety of schemes for "grassroots emigrationism" to cities, the north, or Africa, or (2) to claim that grassroots politics is so significant that it could possibly be placed at the center of the story of this period, eclipsing the national and state-level politics - i.e., "Reconstruction" - with which historians are already familiar.

The book is organized chronologically. It begins with political culture and activism under slavery, which Hahn argues was much more coherent, organized, and sophisticated than the subtle acts of defiance against individual masters that we usually think of as black politics. For instance, rumors that Abraham Lincoln's inauguration would lead to immediate emancipation, but that state and local officials had blocked its implementation, constitute, in Hahn's very well supported view, a form of politics. Moreover, he does an incredible job of tracing the circulation of these rumors, and other forms of politics that are hard for us to trace because they were, of necessity, secret and hidden. Next, he argues that black flight from plantations, behind Union lines, and into the Union army, should be seen as "the largest slave rebellion in modern history" (7) - at first a completely outlandish claim, but one that also makes a great deal of sense upon even a moment's reflection. In the book's excellent midsection, he repositions the Union Leagues within the context of southern (mostly white) vigilantism more generally; he re-reads the disruption and reorganization of southern agriculture in ways that highlight the political acumen and strategies, deeply rooted in African American kinship, family, and religion, that animated blacks' decisions; etc., etc., etc.

Some critics might say that this book emphasizes "agency" so much that oppression becomes invisible. But the contours of Jim Crow are among the topics best-known to U.S. historians, and if other forms of politics were going on, it is time for us to know about them! I could go on for pages about every single, brilliant chapter of this magnificent book. He pieces together his stories using an astonishing array of primary sources (many of them local) and, to excellent effect, on existing scholarship. He attends thoughtfully and systematically to the place of women and gender in black political culture, though he does not engage as directly as I personally might have liked with Glenda Gilmore's GENDER AND JIM CROW (I mention this only because it is one of the few related studies that I know well). Whatever significant weaknesses the book has are not apparent to me (again, as a nonspecialist). Its prose style is gorgeous, its significance profound.

Rating:
Summary: A magnificent new view of the development of black politics
Review: This book is a monumental and sweeping history of African American politics in the rural South in the decades between the 1850s and the 1910s. Such a brief description, however, conceals the monumental scale of Hahn's project, which - it appears to me, at least, as an admitted nonspecialist in southern black history - is to wholly revamp how we conceptualize the relationship of African Americans to politics in this period. Drawing on the so-called "new political history" and its expanded conception of what politics, especially of subaltern groups, might consist of, Hahn offers a sweeping portrait of a continuously surviving and effective southern black political culture, hitherto invisible to historians partly because it was forged under slavery and remained a local, grassroots political infrastructure. Hahn's study is really a series of linked studies of specific places in times, but woven carefully and elegantly into a complete argument that the roots of early 20th century black nationalism must be sought in a set of grassroots political institutions, networks, skills, talents, and circuits - in short, an entire political culture - that African Americans had begun building under slavery.

A telling indication of this book's revolutionary quality is that Hahn's title does not include the word "Reconstruction." While he does consider the career of Presidential and Radical Reconstruction crucial to the development of black politics, he argues that grassroots black political culture shaped and responded to Reconstruction in ways that demand telling the story from a completely different angle. He argues that blacks sought, perhaps above all, self-governance - a desire that has been invisible in what he calls liberal-integrationist accounts of late 19th century race politics. And although he is almost too modest to come right out and say it, this book essentially argues that what we call "black nationalism," as it exploded onto northern white consciousness with Garveyism, has a complex genealogy going back to the grassroots political thoughts, formations, and actions of rural Southern blacks - going all the way back to slavery. The concept of "a nation under our feet" conveys, beautifully and subtly, the way in which Hahn is arguing for a new genealogy of black nationalism.

The effect is breathtaking. In place of Andrew Johnson, Hahn offers us such figures as the Louisiana freedperson Henry Adams, whose "education" as the organizer of a Liberia colonization scheme made him a predecessor of Garveyism and a critical figure in black politics. And he argues that local political officeholders - sheriffs, policemen, clerks - were just as important to black political culture as the better-known Reconstruction Congressmen. "Reconstruction" is, in effect, radically de-centered in Hahn's account. While scholars have examined grassroots black politics in particular places in the urban South - I am especially familiar with the work of Elsa Barkley Brown and Tera Hunter - no one has yet attempted (1) to focus on rural places, which Hahn argues persuasively remained crucial sites for political formation and activism even as blacks weighed a variety of schemes for "grassroots emigrationism" to cities, the north, or Africa, or (2) to claim that grassroots politics is so significant that it could possibly be placed at the center of the story of this period, eclipsing the national and state-level politics - i.e., "Reconstruction" - with which historians are already familiar.

The book is organized chronologically. It begins with political culture and activism under slavery, which Hahn argues was much more coherent, organized, and sophisticated than the subtle acts of defiance against individual masters that we usually think of as black politics. For instance, rumors that Abraham Lincoln's inauguration would lead to immediate emancipation, but that state and local officials had blocked its implementation, constitute, in Hahn's very well supported view, a form of politics. Moreover, he does an incredible job of tracing the circulation of these rumors, and other forms of politics that are hard for us to trace because they were, of necessity, secret and hidden. Next, he argues that black flight from plantations, behind Union lines, and into the Union army, should be seen as "the largest slave rebellion in modern history" (7) - at first a completely outlandish claim, but one that also makes a great deal of sense upon even a moment's reflection. In the book's excellent midsection, he repositions the Union Leagues within the context of southern (mostly white) vigilantism more generally; he re-reads the disruption and reorganization of southern agriculture in ways that highlight the political acumen and strategies, deeply rooted in African American kinship, family, and religion, that animated blacks' decisions; etc., etc., etc.

Some critics might say that this book emphasizes "agency" so much that oppression becomes invisible. But the contours of Jim Crow are among the topics best-known to U.S. historians, and if other forms of politics were going on, it is time for us to know about them! I could go on for pages about every single, brilliant chapter of this magnificent book. He pieces together his stories using an astonishing array of primary sources (many of them local) and, to excellent effect, on existing scholarship. He attends thoughtfully and systematically to the place of women and gender in black political culture, though he does not engage as directly as I personally might have liked with Glenda Gilmore's GENDER AND JIM CROW (I mention this only because it is one of the few related studies that I know well). Whatever significant weaknesses the book has are not apparent to me (again, as a nonspecialist). Its prose style is gorgeous, its significance profound.

Rating:
Summary: A Nation under Our Feet : Black Political Struggles in the R
Review: This is yet another feeble attempt at passing the knowledge of lesser people in the same light as arian knowledge. The author clearly has an alterior motif to this sham. Since the arian knowledge is so far supperior to that of other races and to read this one wonders aloud if it is a joke or the author is simply that stupid. Not Recommended.