Populist Dreams And Negro Rights : East Texas As A Case Study

The emancipation proclamation was what seemed like the beginning of freedom for African Americans. African Americans fought hard and valiantly in the American Civil war and with the Unions win freedom and peace for blacks seemed to be assured. As most people would quote," Freedom isn 't free." It almost always has a cost. Africans Americans since the origin of this country have literally laid down their lives for the cost of freedom and opportunity in the US. One of the most coveted freedom 's both past and present is the right to suffrage. My paper discusses the many factors leading to and the trials and tribulations involving black 's right to vote. In this paper, I will discuss the constitutional amendments as well as the landmark supreme court cases that affected both the lives and voting rights of African Americans during the time period of 1865 through 1900.

During the era of Andrew Jackson’s presidency, the nation seemed to be split down the middle in terms of its citizens. Obviously this is not meant to be taken literally, as the citizens of the United States were divided in terms of political views, morals, and other very important topics. One of these topics happened to be the act of expanding suffrage to people other than rich landowners. Both arguments in this debate were represented with a number of different types of evidence as to why each side was the correct way to go about shaping the way people voted in the United States and why the opposing opinion was not to be trusted. There were both pros and cons of expanding suffrage in the United States, but some were more valid than others.

This article focuses on the rise and fall of the “black-white coalition” of populist advocates in Grimes County, TX. The period of Reconstruction gave black people opportunities and power. For instance, during this time, blacks in Grimes County successfully formed a Republican organization. Despite white-supremacists of the Democratic party seeking to end the group, black Republicans managed to retain local power and send legislators to Austin, even after the period of Reconstruction ended. A few years later, a meeting was held in Grimes County in which candidates from black and “lily-white” Republican groups, and Independent Greenbackers were nominated for county offices. Among the candidates was Independent Greenbacker Garrett Scott. Unlike other candidates, Scott had a willingness to publicly associate with blacks. In fact, the article mentions that Scott undermined the idea of white solidarity. After winning the election for county sheriff, Scott became political allies with black district clerk, Jim Kennard. The two worked together to create the black-white coalition that became the People’s Party. The People’s party did well up until 1898. However, the coalition did not sit well with the men of the democratic party. The Democrats, led by J.G. McDonald, came together and held a covert meeting in which they planned to take back county offices that populists filled. This was the first of many meetings of the White Man’s Union. The union made their debut once the spark of

The African American population had acquired notable ranks prior to the revolt, such as mayors, firemen, City Hall janitors, positions on the Board of Aldermen, etc. Black and white neighbors resided amongst each other. This was considered normal in Wilmington unlike any other place in North Carolina up until the Republican Party won the election of 1894 . According to Robertson of Wilmington there was “40 negro magistrates in the count” and “the custom house officers are negroes” and also the Republican representative from New Hanover was African American. He nagged about the state that the eastern part of North Carolina was in. He did this so much

The stats mentioned above demonstrate that a significant number of non-slaveowners resides in Angelina. Due to the lack of financial resources to purchase slaves, they relied on their own labors to sustain a livelihood for their homestead creating a different economy not associated with the plantation system. The large population of non-slaveholders, “small” farms, translates to economic and political power within this county. McCaslin argues that since the slave population had declined to less than half of the regional average the propaganda tactics utilized in the other counties had little effect on this county. Voters instead listened to attorney James W. Guinn chooses “to follow the ‘voice of reason,’ rather than that of anarchy.” Although Angelina County shared cultural ties with other Gulf southerners they “acted within the parameters set by their environment and by their economic system.” Finally, McCaslin challenges scholars seeking understanding of Unionism they need to study the “environment and economics, that shape political allegiances.”

Voters in 1828 celebrated election day because all white males, no matter how much money or education they had could vote. His campaign told people to vote for him if they believed the people should govern. (Document 1) This evidence helps explain how Andrew Jackson is a democratic supporter of the people because this document shows how Jackson taking away property requirements for voting made there be more voters, the vote being given to the “common man”. Jackson believed in the type of government where the people

Texas Revolution, a rebellion in late 1835 and early 1836 by residents of Texas, then a part of northern Mexico, against the Mexican government and military. The rebellion led to the establishment of the independent Republic of Texas. The short-lived republic was annexed by the United States as a state in 1845. These events were among the causes of the Mexican War between the United States and Mexico, after which Mexico relinquished all claims to Texas and much of the present-day southwestern United States.

Texas, a southern state that had a deeply rooted sense of racial hatred and discrimination, barred blacks from voting in the Democratic Primary since 1903. Race equality was objected as a rule in the state, and African Americans involved in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People fought against all white primaries to change the race-based segregation, in which the Texas All White Primary became to be known. The fight against the All-White Primary lead to precedents in which exemplify that equality and public power are connected all while fighting the drive for a discrimination-free ballot on the surface. The ideals of Reconstruction that had once been introduced to Blacks were diminished, and legal separation in almost every aspect of public life was of a reality in the South, including Texas.

Throughout the semester we have touched upon many instances for which the legal history of America effects the life of a black America, especially in “We Shall Overcome” Alexander Tsesis takes on the task of looking at civil rights through the “lens of legal history’. “The Ballot or The Bullet” displays the political message that the ‘ballot’ is freedom, and thus power through the freedom to vote. Malcom X hounds in on the political idea that the white man preys on the black man for votes, but then allows filibustering to happen in the Senate so nothing gets passed to promote equality for black Americans. Alexander writes frequently through the book how skewed politics become for blacks once their vote is legalized. That although, they can

The college students tried to get enough voters to put African Americans into the governing house of congress. They educated voters and formed a party for those people in Mississippi. “The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party waited in the wings. The MFDP’s bold challenge at the Democratic National Convention was still seven weeks away. To unseat Mississippi’s all-white delegation, Freedom Democrats would need as many registration forms as possible for their parallel party”(Watson

During reconstruction the United States was divided on social issues, presidential campaigns were won and loss on these issues during this period. The struggle for development of African Americans and how they initiated change in political, economic, educational, and social conditions to shape their future and that of the United States. (Dixon, 2000) The South’s attempts to recover from the Civil war included determining what to do with newly freed slaves and finding labor to replace them. The task of elevating the Negro from slave to citizen was the most enormous one which had ever confronted the country. Local governments implemented mechanisms of discrimination to combat citizenship

During the 1856 governor’s race Morton especially gained popularity among the Republican Party in Indiana for his speeches against slavery. The vast majority of Indiana took the antislavery position. The antislavely position was essentially a “big umbrella” that a majority of northerners came to agreement

By the 1980s, there was a steady increase in Republican voting for state level offices. Figures 1.11 and 1.12 show that there were major differences in presidential voting between the states, with the Deep South/Peripheral South divide becoming evident. Figure 1.8 shows that in the 1990s, for the first time, Republicans outnumbered Democrats in the South. After the 1994 election, for the first time since Reconstruction, a majority of the South’s members of Congress were Republicans. Republican candidates were receiving a greater percentage of the votes for state level offices as well. While in some states, the Republican Party still did not have a majority of party identifiers, the South had experienced a dramatic shift by the end of the 1990s.

The Columbian University journalism professor Nicholas Lemann’s aim of writing this book is to look at the brutal campaign of fraud and violence during the mid-1870s that ultimately led to the restoration of conservative, white governments in some southern states. The author focuses on the reconstruction of Mississippi. He stirs memories of the murderous Southern resistance and to civil rights movements 90 years later. Lemann writes at an era when neo-Confederate sympathies have cropped up again in southern politics, and amid several reports of the suppression of the minority voting throughout the country. Mr. Lemann presents the last battle of the Civil War.

It was a time of conflict, excitement, and confusion in the United States. And this was also “Black Power” of the Civil Rights Movement. Moody at that time was a member of NAACP. She was involved in her first sit-in, and her social science professor, John Salter, who was in charge of NAACP asked her to be the spokesman for a team that would sit-in at Woolworth’s lunch counter (Moody 1968, 286). Although she could go to jail for this, but she still agreed. After that, she joined CORE and continued to fight for the voting rights (Moody 1968, 311). Following passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, the struggle for racial justice moved to the next battleground: voting rights in the Deep South. The campaign was already under way in places like Selma, Alabama, where local activists, facing intense white resistance, asked Martin Luther King, Jr., and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference for support (Ayers 2010, 780). Black voter registration in the South was one of the great accomplishments of the civil rights movement. Within months of its passage, more than 2 million black southern were registered to vote. Most supported the Democratic Party of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, which had endorsed the cause of civil rights (Ayers 2010, 782).