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University of Southampton Research Repository ePrints Soton Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", University of Southampton, name of the University School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination http://eprints.soton.ac.uk UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON FACULTY OF HUMANITIES Department of History The Black New South: A study of local black leadership in Virginia and Alabama, 1874-1897 by Stephen Robert Robinson Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 2010 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON ABSTRACT FACULTY OF HUMANITIES Doctor of Philosophy The Black New South: A study of local black leadership in Alabama and Virginia, 1874-1897 by Stephen Robinson 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 trod 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. Table of Contents Introduction………..……………………………………………………………………1 Part I Chapter 1: The Post-Redemption South: Alabama and Virginia, 1870-1883…………19 Part II Chapter 2: The Louisville Convention of 1883………………………………………..93 Chapter 3: Black Virginian Voices from the 1880s………………………………….141 Chapter 4: Black Alabamian Voices from the 1880s………………………………...177 Part III Chapter 5: The Mind of William Gaston……………………………………………..215 Chapter 6: James H. Hayes and the Negro Protective Association of 1987………….239 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………255 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….261 List of Illustrations ‘The Lynchbug [sic] Convention’, Shenandoah Herald, 16 October 1885………….159 Acknowledgments First of all, I wish to thank my supervisor, Professor John Oldfield, for his support and advice throughout this project. I would like to thank the States of Jersey Department for Education, Sport and Culture for providing funding for this degree – this project would not have been possible otherwise. I would also like to thank the following for providing financial assistance to enable me to conduct research in the United States: School of Humanities, University of Southampton; the British Association for American Nineteenth Century History (BrANCH); the Royal Historical Society, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute. Many people have assisted me in locating material at various libraries. I wish to thank the inter-library loan staff at the Hartley Library, University of Southampton, for dealing with my numerous requests. Thanks must also go to the staff at the University Library, Cambridge; the Vere Harmsworth Library, University of Oxford; Queen’s University Library, Belfast; and the British Library. In the United States, I wish to thank staff at the Library of Congress; the Moorland-Spingarn Center, Howard University; the Schomburg Center in New York; the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia; the Library of Virginia; the Virginia Historical Society; and the Alabama Department of History and Archives. Finally, I wish to thank all my family and friends for their support and encouragement. Introduction This thesis is a comparative study of local southern black leadership in the 1880s, drawing on the experiences of leaders in Alabama and Virginia. Through a biographical and thematic approach, it will argue that local context played a key role on the ideologies of black leaders in these two states, and reveal that a protest tradition continued from the Reconstruction era. Such continuity took on many forms. For example, participation in party politics continued at a local level in these two states throughout the 1880s. This was not simply through involvement with the Republican Party. Political alternatives, including support for the Democratic Party, remained an ever-present reality among southern black leaders throughout this period. In addition, Frederick Douglass played a key role in the thinking of local black leaders, with his advocacy of political and civil rights, as well as pushing for self-help and racial solidarity. What ‘protest’ meant for these different leaders did vary at the local level, and changed over time depending on local circumstances and the individual. Indeed, the philosophy of Booker T. Washington was embraced by a number of local leaders, especially in Alabama. Whilst Washington became a nationally-known leader, the extent to which he was, first and foremost, a local black leader speaking for rural blacks in Alabama, will be assessed in this study. Washington was different from many of the local black elite because he was a leader in the rural South, as opposed to the majority who were urban based. Even so, on a broader level, was Washington simply voicing in the 1890s a widespread belief already common among the local black elite that African Americans had to accept the status quo for the time being, and focus, instead, on self-help and racial solidarity? Virginia and Alabama have been chosen because they represent the Upper and Lower South (as well as an older seaboard state with a state less than a century old). However, despite this difference in age, the black elite in both states was urban based, largely in the state capitals. Both Montgomery, Alabama, and Richmond, Virginia, ! 1 developed black districts that became from the end of the Civil War onwards, the centres of black political activity in these states.1 The rapid industrialisation of some areas of the South largely bypassed Virginia, whereas Birmingham, Alabama, became a quintessential New South city, rather like Atlanta, Georgia.2 Of course, in order to understand the 1880s, what preceded and then followed this decade must be considered. Perhaps the key difference between the two states was how Reconstruction unfolded and the way in which Redemption came about. Reconstruction in Alabama followed a course similar to other southern states. The state’s constitution was amended in 1867, enfranchising more than 90,000 African Americans.3 The Republican Party was founded in the state that same year, made up of a coalition of African Americans, northern whites and also those from the Tennessee Valley. Most African Americans were Republican supporters, through their involvement with the Union League.4 However, Union League activity was short-lived – it lasted barely 12 months – due to violence towards its members by the Ku Klux Klan, and loss of interest by the state Republican Party.5 ! However, a legacy of the Union League movement was to unite white opposition to the dominance of politicians in the Black Belt, who were largely Democrats.6 The Black Belt was the political and economic centre of the state. Cotton continued to be the predominant industry, with Montgomery as a centre for the cotton !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 The black population in Richmond grew from 27,835 in 1880 to 32,330 in 1890 (although this was a drop in the percentage of the city’s population by 4 per cent). In Montgomery, the black population remained at 59 per cent of the city’s population throughout the 1880s, rising from 9,931 in 1880 to 12,987 by 1890. Howard N. Rabinowitz, Race Relations in the Urban South, 1865-1890 (Urbana, 1980), p. 19. 2 Edward Ayers notes that Birmingham was regarded as ‘a dreamed-of Southern industrial city’. The expansion of the state’s railroads was a catalyst for the city’s growth as well as heavy investment from industrialists, who were supported by the state government. The city’s prosperity was demonstrated by its explosion in population. In 1880, the city’s population stood at 3,000. This rose dramatically to 26,000 by 1890, and 38,000 by 1900. Edward L. Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction (Chapel Hill, 1992), p. 59 3 Sarah Woolfolk Wiggins, The Scalawag in Alabama Politics, 1865-1881 (Alabama, 1977), p.25 4 Ibid., p. 21 5 Peter Kolchin, First Freedom: The Responses of Alabama’s Blacks to Emancipation and Reconstruction (Westport, CN, 1972), pp.