Mark R. Schneider. Boston Confronts Jim Crow, 1890-1920. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997. xiii + 262 pp. $45.00, library, ISBN 978-1-55553-296-3.

Reviewed by Michael Sokolow

Published on H-Urban (November, 1998)

The dawn of the twentieth century represent‐ In Boston Confronts Jim Crow, 1890-1920, ed one of the historical low points of the African- Mark Schneider seeks to illuminate how the resi‐ American experience. The changes wrought by dents of Boston, a city with a long antislavery tra‐ the Republican Reconstruction of the South had dition and a historical commitment to improving collapsed and faded into memory, and the many the welfare of African-Americans, reacted to this black Americans who remained there now faced phenomenon. Boston's long-standing antiracist the loss of their hard-won civil rights. As the nine‐ reputation stemmed from the antebellum eforts teenth century gave way to the twentieth, south‐ of abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Wen‐ ern blacks contended with disfranchisement, seg‐ dell Phillips, politicians John Andrews and regation, economic repression, and a rise in racial Charles Sumner, and reform-minded idealists violence and lynchings. With the hardening of the Harriet Beecher Stowe and Ralph Waldo Emerson. color line in the South, northern whites also re‐ Late-nineteenth century Bostonians professed to treated from their dedication to the principles of honor this antislavery legacy through statues and racial equality that had brought about the passage monuments that depicted the antiracist heroes of of the fourteenth and ffteenth amendments to the past. Yet this myth of Boston as a "bastion of the Constitution. During this period the U.S. freedom" was not always consistent with the ways Supreme Court legitimized segregation in Plessy turn-of-the-century Bostonians viewed the Jim vs. Ferguson, American political leaders aban‐ Crow South. doned blacks and black civil rights, and racist cur‐ Schneider's study is divided into seven the‐ rents pervaded even popular culture as the flm matic chapters, each examining a diferent aspect Birth of a Nation became a national sensation. In of the relationship between prominent Bostonians the words of historian Rayford Logan, the ad‐ and the rise of Jim Crow. Thus the opening chap‐ vance of Jim Crow in the New South betokened a ter's discussion of the failed Federal Elections Bill "nadir" for African-Americans. of 1890, which sought to protect black sufrage in H-Net Reviews the South, revolves around the Boston Brahmins This trend afected Boston's black community, afliated with the measure, Republican congress‐ as well. The city's leading African-Americans did men Henry Cabot Lodge and George Frisbie Hoar. very little to counter the rising tide of racism. Elite Ensuing chapters examine Booker T. Washington's blacks, already rendered inefectual by their lack support network among elite black Bostonians, of economic and political clout, mostly took white sufragist Lucy Stone, black militant refuge in the accommodationist camp of Booker T. William Monroe Trotter, the leadership cadre of Washington and his Tuskegee Machine. Even Boston's branch of the NAACP, the Irish-born black militant William Monroe Trotter undercut Bostonian John Boyle O'Reilly, and fnally the ca‐ his own activist eforts through his divisive and reers of three highly prominent "Boston jurists" inconsistent behavior. For Schneider, the one (p. 187), U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wen‐ bright spot in this dim picture was the creation dell Holmes, black attorney William Henry Lewis, and growth of the NAACP, a biracial organization and NAACP president and co-founder Moorfeld whose supporters included key black fgures Storey. As Schneider states in his Preface, these W.E.B. DuBois and Butler and Mary Wilson, as disparate subjects serve as "representative types well as white "neo-abolitionists" Moorfeld Storey who acted on the race problem in this period" (p. and Francis Garrison, scion of William Lloyd Gar‐ xi). Together, these individual portrayals show rison. "the political and intellectual lives of activists as Author Mark Schneider (who teaches Ameri‐ they looked outward at the race relations of the can History not in Boston itself, but in nearby nation as a whole, and how they relied on their Cambridge at Lesley College) writes in a clear, fu‐ sense of the past" (p. xiii). id prose. His detailed depictions of the book's par‐ In its entirety, Boston Confronts Jim Crow is a ticular "representative types" creates a sense of tale of decline and retreat. Bostonians had played inclusion, in which the attitudes of Boston Brah‐ leading roles in abolitionism and Reconstruction, mins can be examined alongside those of elite fghting for and attaining black emancipation and blacks, immigrants, and feminists. There are mo‐ civil rights. But in the face of the discriminatory ments, however, when this works to the book's policies of the New South, the heirs to this tradi‐ detriment. While chapters on elite white and tion failed to live up to the model of earlier gener‐ black Bostonians are entirely relevant to Schnei‐ ations. Boston's wealthy Brahmin class gave up der's argument, the lengthy chapter on Irish- the fght for African-American equality early on, Americans is less germane. Much of its focus is as leading political fgures and newspaper editors the experience of two Irish-born activists, neither abandoned black causes after their abortive ef‐ of whom was even alive during the period under forts to pass the elections bill in 1890. Bostonian discussion (Catholic Emancipator Daniel leaders of the women's sufrage movement not O'Connell, referred to as "the Martin Luther King only ignored black women in their eforts, but of Irish politics" on p.163, never even came to even embraced white supremacy as a means of America prior to his death sometime around expanding their popularity in southern states. 1850--Schneider does not furnish the specifc Whites in positions of power, including both a year--and immigrant John Boyle O'Reilly died in new cadre of Irish-American politicians and 1890). The full chapter devoted to these men and prominent legal personalities such as Oliver Wen‐ later generations of Irish-Americans, who had lit‐ dell Holmes showed little inclination to use their tle apparent reason to concern themselves with infuence on behalf of black advancements. the race question and thus essentially ignored it, seems superfuous.

2 H-Net Reviews

Some of the author's other individual chapter American Magazine; the history of a second black choices are also questionable. The book's fnal Bostonian publication, Alexander's Magazine, chapter, which examines three of Boston's best- which lasted from 1905 through 1909; the story of known legal fgures, is one such example. Each of the Bookerite National Negro Business League be‐ these men had a story that could easily be sub‐ ginning back in 1900 up until 1915; and fnally the sumed within the fow of earlier, broader chap‐ white Bostonian supporters of Washington from ters: Oliver Wendell Holmes' racial inaction fts 1895 through Washington's death in 1915. Schnei‐ squarely into the Boston Brahmin class examined der's piece on William Monroe Trotter shares this in Chapter One, African-American attorney disjointed approach toward chronology. After dis‐ William Henry Lewis is a prime example of Chap‐ cussing Trotter's life and career from his birth in ter Two's discussion of the inefectiveness of elite 1854 through 1920, the chapter backtracks to ex‐ blacks, and Moorfeld Storey, co-founder of the amine the period from 1902-1907 in greater de‐ NAACP, could and should have been incorporated tail. A chronologically-arranged narrative might into the chapter devoted to the early history of have mitigated some of the confusion created by that organization. A separate chapter on the suf‐ the book's thematic structure. frage movement, subtitled "The Legacy of Lucy Furthermore, despite its inclusiveness Boston Stone," begins with a feminist and former aboli‐ Confronts Jim Crow is notable for some of its ex‐ tionist who actually died in 1893, at the outset of clusions. That two marginal Irish fgures merit the period covered in the book. While much of the their own chapter while W.E.B. DuBois, regarded chapter ofers an informative discussion of how as a linchpin in Schneider's discussions of Wash‐ later sufragists came to embrace white suprema‐ ington, Trotter, and the NAACP, does not is inex‐ cy, that argument is not advanced by the juxtapo‐ plicable. The chapter on Trotter, "perhaps the sin‐ sition of two black elite women, neither of whom gle most important fgure in all of Boston's were active sufragists, with Lucy Stone and her African-American history" (p. 109), is unaccount‐ heirs. While these female fgures had their gender ably the shortest in the book at only twenty-one in common, there is little other reason to lump pages. In it, Schneider gives only a perfunctory them together in a chapter on sufrage. Although examination of the "Boston Riot," which he identi‐ its attempt at inclusiveness is admirable, Boston fes as a seminal event in the history of race rela‐ Confronts Jim Crow sufers from its desire to tions in Boston; such important details as the date leave no one out of the story. of the "Riot," an explicit description of Trotter's At times, the author's decision to structure the disruptive behavior and the ensuing melee, and book in self-contained thematic chapters proves some indication of Trotter's intentions in precipi‐ to be less than ideal. The frst chapter on the Fed‐ tating the "Riot," are all omitted. eral Elections Bill of 1890 begins with a tight focus Boston Confronts Jim Crow also restricts itself on the last decade of the nineteenth century. Yet in terms of its historiographical approach. Follow‐ subsequent chapters encompass the entire era of ing the example of Rayford W. Logan, Schneider 1890-1920, while some individual chapters jump examines the topic of Bostonians and race strictly back and forth in time. The chapter on Booker T. within the contexts of politics and the law. Yet this Washington, for example, begins with a brief re‐ holds the book back from contributing to a wider capitulation of Washington's famed Atlanta Com‐ discussion of the meanings of race at the turn of promise speech of 1895. After a feeting mention the century. The book's Bibliography leaves out of a speech Washington delivered in Boston in several works on nineteenth-century conceptions 1899, the chapter examines, in order, the of race that would have grounded and enriched 1900-1904 tenure of the black-published Colored

3 H-Net Reviews

Schneider's presentation, including Eric Lott's background for a short summary of the history of provocative Love and Theft, Ronald Takaki's Iron blacks in Boston, his Bibliography neglects to cite Cages, and David Roediger's Wages of Whiteness. two other recent books on the subject by Carol Without taking deeper issues of social construc‐ Buchalter Stapp and George Levesque.[2] tions of race into consideration, Boston Confronts In fact, the history of black Boston is vital to Jim Crow passes on the opportunity to demon‐ understanding the broader historical context of strate the larger signifcance of its subjects.[1] Boston Confronts Jim Crow, most notably with re‐ Finally, the near-total absence of most of gard to the exceptional traditions of antiracism black Boston from this book is a serious defcien‐ and antislavery that Schneider ascribes to the city. cy. In his Preface, author Mark Schneider cautions While Boston surely was a hotbed of antebellum that "much is left out here that pertains to Bos‐ abolitionism, it would be inaccurate to ignore the ton's African-American history in this period" (p. counterbalances of racism and discrimination xiii). This proves to be true, as the thousands of that were also a part of the city throughout the black Bostonians consigned by Schneider to the nineteenth century. In the 1800's blacks did dwell "rank and fle" make only rare appearances in this in "the Copp's Hill area of the North End" and the book devoted to the history of their leaders. This "north and west slopes" of Beacon Hill, as Schnei‐ undermines many of the points Schneider seeks der notes (p. 5); but the popular names for these to make. Assertions of the infuence of William neighborhoods, "New Guinea" and "Nigger Hill," Monroe Trotter and the NAACP rest on their sup‐ suggest a racial intolerance that Schneider is re‐ port among the masses of blacks; yet this support luctant to identify. Black Bostonians celebrating is often assumed without direct proof. If leader‐ the 1808 ban on importing slaves endured the at‐ ship in black Boston is to be judged by the num‐ tacks of derisive spectators and journalists heck‐ ber of attendees at a mass meeting or by member‐ ling their "Bobalition" parades. It was in Boston, ship fgures, it is crucial to show that most of the "the home of abolition" (p. ix), where mobs gath‐ people involved were in fact from Boston. What ered in opposition to abolitionist speeches, and were the circulation fgures for black newspapers where William Lloyd Garrison was dragged in Boston, especially Trotter's Guardian, which is through the streets at the end of a rope in 1835. held up as evidence of Trotter's leadership (p. And less than a decade before the Civil War, Bos‐ 125-127)? Who were the black members of Bos‐ ton remained the only community in all of Massa‐ ton's NAACP, and how active were they within the chusetts to maintain the legalized segregation of organization? black high-school students. Schneider asserts While Schneider rarely deals with ordinary from the outset that Boston had a great "invest‐ black Bostonians, when he does so he uses the ment in its past" (p. ix). Yet there were many as‐ conclusions ofered by Elizabeth Hafkin Pleck in pects to that past, and all of them contributed to her 1979 study Black Migration and Poverty: Bos‐ the way Bostonians viewed race at the turn of the ton 1865-1900. This is understandable, as Pleck's century.[3] is the only comprehensive work yet published on Boston Confronts Jim Crow, 1890-1920 deliv‐ black Boston during this period; nevertheless, his‐ ers a basic introduction to some of the major per‐ torian Elliott Rudwick's detailed critique of Black sonalities, events, and issues surrounding turn-of- Migration and Poverty suggests that caution must the-century Boston's attitudes toward race. How‐ be taken with some of her fndings. While Schnei‐ ever, the scope and structure of this book will lim‐ der does use one other historical work, James O. it its usefulness to scholars seeking a broader un‐ Horton and Lois E. Horton's Black Boston, as derstanding of the subject and the period.

4 H-Net Reviews

Notes thor and the list. For other permission, please con‐ [1]. Rayford W. Logan, The Negro in American tact [email protected]. Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877-1901 (New York: Dial Press, 1954); Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (New York: Verso Press, 1991); Ronald T. Takaki, Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth-Centu‐ ry America (New York: Knopf, 1979). [2]. Elizabeth Hafkin Pleck, Black Migration and Poverty: Boston, 1865-1900 (New York: Aca‐ demic Press, 1979); James O. Horton and Lois E. Horton, Black Bostonians: Family Life and Com‐ munity Struggle in the Antebellum North (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1979); Carol Buchalter Stapp, Afro-Americans in Antebellum Boston: An Analysis of Probate Records (New York: Garland Press, 1993); George Levesque, Black Boston: African-American Life and Culture in Urban America, 1750-1860 (New York: Garland Press, 1994). Elliott Rudwick is sharply critical of both Horton and Pleck in his review essay, "Black Ur‐ ban History in the Doldrums," Journal of Urban History 9, 2 (February 1983), 251-260. [3]. For white hostility toward "Bobalition," see Shane White, "'It Was a Proud Day': African Americans, Festivals, and Parades in the North, 1741-1834," Journal of American History 81, 1 (June 1994), 13-50; anti- abolitionism among Bos‐ ton whites, including elite Brahmins, is described in Liva Baker, The Justice from Beacon Hill: The Life and Times of Oliver Wendell Holmes (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), 57 and 95; see the ffth chapter of Levesque's Black Boston and Arthur O. White, "Salem's Antebellum Black Community: Seedbed of the School Integration Movement," Es‐ sex Institute Historical Collections 108, 2 (April 1972), 116-118 for segregation in Boston schools. Copyright (c) 1998 by H-Net, all rights re‐ served. This work may be copied for non-proft educational use if proper credit is given to the au‐

5 H-Net Reviews

If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-urban

Citation: Michael Sokolow. Review of Schneider, Mark R. Boston Confronts Jim Crow, 1890-1920. H- Urban, H-Net Reviews. November, 1998.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=2478

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

6