Mclemore Preliminary Pages DISSERTATION NOVEMBER 2012
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The Second Reconstruction in Local Politics: Alabama Grassroots Activists Fulfilling the Promise of the Voting Rights Act, 1960-1990 by Lawrence Underwood McLemore A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Auburn University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Auburn, Alabama December 8, 2012 Keywords: Voting Rights Act, political activists, black suffrage, Alabama, Alabama Democratic Conference Copyright 2012 by Lawrence Underwood McLemore Approved by David C. Carter, Chair, Associate Professor of History Charles A. Israel, Associate Professor of History Kelly Kennington, Assistant Professor of History Abstract In arguing that historians expand the timeline for what is considered the modern civil rights movement, this dissertation examines how grassroots Alabama activists affiliated with the Alabama Democratic Conference carried the struggle for political equality forward on the local level after the enactment of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. This dissertation also argues that Alabama voting rights activists understood that change begins at the local level, and employed the Voting Rights Act in dismantling a variety of racially discriminatory laws and customs that governed political and electoral practices in their state. Many narratives of civil rights struggles have focused on national figures and institutions, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, President Johnson, the Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court. This dissertation focuses, instead, on the local citizen-activists in Alabama who won hard-fought victories in voting rights by collaborating and utilizing connections with powerful leaders and institutions. Between 1960 and 1990, Alabama Democratic Conference activists succeeded in enfranchising most black citizens of Alabama. In the process, these political activists transformed Alabama’s politics and the state electorate. This dissertation is the first narrative history of Alabama Democratic Conference activists’ work to promote voting rights. The study of voting rights activism in Alabama between 1960 and 1990 demonstrates that the Second Reconstruction has achieved more successes than the First Reconstruction in sustaining voting rights for black Americans, while offering a context for understating how far yet the struggle for political equality in the South has to go. ii Acknowledgments In the course of research and the process of writing a dissertation, I have become deeply indebted to many people for their help and encouragement. First and foremost, I thank Josie. She has been a loving, devoted, and supportive partner since I began my studies for the Ph.D. less than three months after our wedding day. Josie’s love and friendship have profoundly enriched my life. A number of outstanding teachers and scholars have inspired me and through their lives have led me to deeper inquiry. Fred Draper and David Rudd were excellent history teachers who furthered my interest in human culture and institutions and the past. In college, I was most fortunate to take several courses in history with Dr. Donna Whitley Manson and Dr. John R. Williams. Not only did they model what a wonderful teacher should be, but they have introduced me to the historical profession and encouraged my interests in it. Both Dr. Manson and Dr. Williams influenced the areas of interest in American and European history that I pursued in the Ph.D. program. In political science, Dr. Jeremy R. T. Lewis opened the way to the critical study of southern and American politics and has been a true mentor to me. I also thank Dr. Kari Frederickson who guided me in the initial research for a portion of this dissertation. Her insights and teaching in modern South and political history initiated many important questions that shaped the early directions of my research. At Auburn, it has been a pleasure to study with and learn from several outstanding historians. Auburn’s History Department offers a stimulating and supportive environment for historians-in-training. Dr. David C. Carter is an advisor and mentor who I cannot sufficiently thank. Dr. Carter encouraged the expansion of some of my early research, while offering insightful questions and directions to guide the iii process of research and writing. I cannot imagine a kinder or wiser advisor than David Carter. I also want to thank the other professors who so ably trained me as a historian and with whom I concentrated my studies. In American and southern history, Dr. Charles A. Israel asked me questions that elevated my understanding of the past to a higher level. Also, Dr. Kelly Kennington has taught me a great deal about race, slavery, legal history, and historical writing. In European history, I had the distinct pleasure of studying with Dr. Donna Bohanan. Dr. Bohanan ignited my interests in the early modern period and taught me the ways in which social history can expand our horizons in grappling with the past. While researching, I received help from so many archivists and staff members at the Alabama Department of Archives and History and elsewhere. I thank the Archives staff, and many others at the Auburn University Draughon Library, the University of Alabama Library, Alabama State University Library, the National Archives and Dr. Gwen Patton and her associates at the Trenholm State Technical College Library. Also, I want to thank the Clerk of the U. S. Middle District Court of Alabama, Debra Hackett, and especially Kalandra Haynes, who so graciously helped me locate numerous court documents. In the process of writing, I thank the best English teacher I know, Dr. Cliff Browning, for his advice and my mother-in-law, Joan Mitchell, whose careful eye strengthened the final version of this dissertation. Last, I’d like to say thanks to my family. My mother, Lucie, was perhaps my first true teacher; she always encouraged me to read, think, and enjoy literature and history. I also thank my grandparents the late Kenneth W. Underwood, Jr. and Rena Alice Pope Underwood, who discussed history with me since I was a child and gave me my first iv “history lessons.” I also thank my father and stepmother, Larry and Emily, who have supported me in all my educational endeavors. I must say that not only is Josie a blessing to my life, but also her parents, Dr. Bill and Joan Mitchell, are the best in-laws a man could have; I greatly appreciate their love and encouragement. v Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................ iii Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Fighting for the Promise: The Struggle for Fifteenth Amendment Rights, 1960-1975 ................................................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 2: Still Waiting At Canaan’s Edge: New Trials in the Quest for Political Equality, 1975-1980 .................................................................................................................... 42 Chapter 3: Alabama Politics and Local Activists’ Role in Shaping the Voting Rights Act Renewal Debate, 1980-1981 ....................................................................................................... 67 Chapter 4: Renewing America’s Commitment to Political Equality: Alabama’s Role in Shaping the Voting Rights Act in the Age of Reagan, 1981-1983 ........................................... 109 Chapter 5: Leveling the Playing Field: Equal Access to the Local Voting and Election Process, 1984-1986 ................................................................................................................... 147 Chapter 6: Winning Political Equality on the Grassroots Level and the Emergence of the Second Reconstruction in Local Politics, 1985-1990 ............................................................... 176 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 208 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 213 vi Introduction From 1863 to 1877, Reconstruction was a national effort to preserve one of the central achievements of the Civil War: the principle that all American citizens possessed equal rights. Following the total abolition of slavery in the Thirteenth Amendment (1865), the Fourteenth (1868) and Fifteenth (1870) Amendments were the twin pillars of America’s commitment to equal national citizenship and equal political rights for Americans no matter their race, color, or any other arbitrary factor.1 On the local level in Alabama and other states of the former Confederacy, the national commitment to equal civil and political rights was largely stripped away following the period of so-called “Redemption” when the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist Democratic Party politicians took control of state and local politics between the 1870s and 1890s. Beginning with the cumulative poll tax laws in the 1870s, white southern Democrats began crafting laws in their states in a piecemeal fashion that J. Morgan Kousser describes as “a panoply of restrictive measures.” White supremacist politicians devised these laws to