Racial Violence and the Politics of Innocence: from the Postwar South to Post-Racial America
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Racial Violence and the Politics of Innocence: From the Postwar South to Post-Racial America Kirstine Taylor A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2015 Reading Committee: Michael McCann, Chair Jack Turner III, Chair Naomi D. Murakawa Megan Ming Francis Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Political Science ©Copyright 2015 Kirstine Taylor ii University of Washington Abstract Racial Violence and the Politics of Innocence: From the Postwar South to Post-Racial America Kirstine Taylor Chairs of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Michael McCann Professor Jack Turner III Political Science In 1962, James Baldwin identified racial innocence as the “crime” of being willfully untouched by the racial injustices of American life: “But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.” Beginning with that critical insight, this dissertation argues that racial innocence exists not only in the mind, where Baldwin and contemporary scholars who take up his critique tend to locate it, but also in the very fabric our political rhetoric, policy formations, and political institutions. Applying American political development methods of tracking changes in political authority over time to the ideological production of “racial innocence,” this project offers a study of a major tributary of racial innocence today: the lineage of liberal law-and- order politics in post-WWII southern political discourse and state policy. Beginning in the 1940s, northern liberals began to spotlight the problem of “lawless” southern white violence, iii viewing it as deeply inconsistent constitutional guarantees and national principles. The following decade, in the context of Brown v. Board of Education and the black civil rights movement, the language of “law and order” traveled south, where it became an important rhetoric of various white resistance movements dedicated to hindering the impact of Brown. In a departure from scholarship that investigates law-and-order politics’ southern conservative origins, I highlight instead its centrality in the rhetoric and policies of southern moderates. Fighting to shore up economic and political power in the corporate-capitalist metropolises of the “New South” and maintain racial stratification in that transition, white moderates turned to the liberal and race-neutral language of “law and order.” Capturing the language of postwar racial liberalism enabled southern moderates to contain black protest on ostensibly “colorblind” grounds, preserve racial stratification in schools without the coarseness of Jim Crow violence, and entrench punitive law-and-order logic in a broadening range of state-level policy and practices. In the process, “law and order” became a defining political rhetoric, a heightened state interest, and emergent policy formation. In moving the region from the lawless Jim Crow violence to New South law-and-order New South, moderates durably impacted American racial formation around racial innocence. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements vi Chapter One Introduction: Racial Violence and the Politics of Innocence 1 Chapter Two Postwar Liberalism and the Contested Ground of Law-and-Order 48 Chapter Three “The Way of the New South”: The Case of North Carolina 93 Chapter Four “The Striving of Atlanta”: The Racial Imagery of Class and Capitalism in Georgia 141 Chapter Five “Without Fear or Fervor”: The Case of Georgia 168 Chapter Six “A New Kind o Prestige”: The Violence and Innocence of Law-and-Order in Georgia 210 Chapter Seven Performing the Racial State: Rituals in Law, Order, and Policing in the New South 256 Conclusion The Political Structure of Racial Innocence from the Postwar South to Post-Racial 296 America v Acknowledgements A dissertation always comes with debts. These debts are ones of deep gratitude to the community of scholars I have encountered in my academic life so far, and to the family and friends who have supported me along the way. This dissertation began not in the halls of University of Washington, but in the classrooms and offices of Scripps College, where I encountered a set of intellectually brave professors and students to whom I will be forever grateful. Thomas P. Kim was the first to prompt me to think critically about the relationship between liberalism and structural racial inequality in the American political landscape. It was the initial strangeness of this proposition, the pairing of two things often kept delicately but steadfastly separate, that won me over to the study of politics and eventually led me to ask the questions I ask in my dissertation. His insistence to not accept easy dyads or simple explanations, to always ask the harder question, remains with me today. This dissertation would not have been possible without the mentorship of my committee chairs, Michael McCann and Jack Turner, and the guidance of committee members Naomi Murakawa and Megan Francis. Michael McCann’s energy and knowledge have been indispensible. He read draft after draft of this dissertation, promptly and with great care, and never failed to give detailed and critical guidance on everything from big questions about power to the relative minutia of each chapter’s methodology. His encouragement has allowed me to ask big questions – even, and perhaps especially, when these defied disciplinary norms. Jack Turner’s mentorship has been unwavering from beginning to end. He is both the reason I came to University of Washington to study political theory and why I leave it eager to do the vi same. His ability to push me on the toughest of questions, and his obvious delight in doing so, has been my greatest source of criticism and confidence as a scholar. From the moment I first entered her office Naomi Murakawa has been a guide. She offered early encouragement to pursue this research, and her instinct for historically grounded treatments of American racial formation made her an important advisor as the project developed. Megan Francis, although she arrived on faculty toward the end of my time at University of Washington, has been a great fount of historical and methodological knowledge, and her enthusiasm has rallied me to finish. Other faculty members at University of Washington have been wonderful advocates both up close and from afar, including George Lovell, Becca Thorpe, Jamie Mayerfeld, Christopher Parker, and the incomparable Christine DiStefano, I have been incredibly lucky to find intellectual compatriots in the academic community beyond my home institution. Daniel HoSang has been a welcome source of encouragement and intellectual support. Wherever I have encountered him, he has provided astonishingly thoughtful feedback on written work, and his guidance has given me confidence that my combination of critical race theory and American political development can find a home in political science. Short but impactful conversations with Joseph Crespino, Lawrie Balfour, Robert Mickey, Marek Steedman, Neil Roberts, Melvin Rogers, and Andrew Dilts have also left positive imprints on my thinking and research. Mark Golub is a singularly inspiring scholar and remarkable friend. Forever thinking alongside me, he is equal parts political theorist and legal scholar, equal parts Marx and Foucault (yes please!), and equal parts intellectual confidant and friend. From reading and re-reading my work to always pushing me on precisely the right question, Mark has taught me more about the heady joys of scholar- friendships than any other. vii Two financial sources, University of Washington Camden Hall Graduate Research Grant and the University of Washington Graduate School Presidential Dissertation Fellowship, helped me complete this dissertation. The former allowed me to visit archives in Georgia and North Carolina, and the latter provided writing support as I finished. My research benefitted immensely from the resources and knowledgeable staff at the Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Room at Emory University; the Russell Library for Political Research and Studies and the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at University of Georgia; the Wilson Library at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and the State Archives of North Carolina. A special thanks goes to stacks specialist Jerrold Brantly, whose knowledge is vast and whose stories about black politics in Atlanta kept me riveted as I scanned page after page of microfilm in the basement of Emory’s Woodruff Library. Finally, I give an extra special thanks to Gail and Roy Smith for providing me with a home away from home on my two trips to visit Emory. Their knowledge, stories, and cooking made these archive adventures a true delight. Arriving at University of Washington, I found a community of graduate students whose friendships I could not have done without. The women of my cohort, Milli Lake, Amanda Clayton, Hyo Won Lee, Betsy Cooper, Hind Ahmed Zaki, Anne Greenleaf, and Sijeong Lim, brought a stability and camaraderie to everyday life. I was lucky to find myself in the company of other brilliant graduate students that enriched my intellectual life, including Allison Rank, Heather Pool, Hannah Walker, Tania Melo, Sergio Garcia, Loren Collingwood, Erin Adam, Vanessa Quince, Paige Sechrest, Nora Williams, and Adam Goch. I particularly thank Milli Lake and Daniel Berliner, with whom I traveled on my first trip to the South and who tolerated and sustained my endless curiosity on these travels.