Urban Emancipation: Popular Politics in Reconstruction Mobile, 1860--1890 Contributor(s): Fitzgerald, Michael W. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0807128376 ISBN-13: 9780807128374 Publisher: LSU Press OUR PRICE: $25.60 Product Type: Paperback Published: September 2002 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - Social Science | Minority Studies - Political Science |
Dewey: 976.122 |
LCCN: 2002009885 |
Series: Southern Biography |
Physical Information: 0.89" H x 6.1" W x 9.16" (1.07 lbs) 320 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - 1851-1899 - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Ethnic Orientation - African American - Geographic Orientation - Alabama |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Scholars of Reconstruction have generally described Republican party factional conflicts in racial terms, as if the Radical agenda evoked unified black support. As Michael W. Fitzgerald shows in the first major study of black popular politics in the urban South in the years surrounding the Civil War, that depiction oversimplifies a contentious and often overlooked intraracial dynamic. Republican political power, he argues, heightened divisions within the African American community, divisions that were ultimately a major factor in the failure of Reconstruction. Focusing on Mobile, the Confederacy's fourth largest city, Fitzgerald traces how the rivalry between longtime black residents and destitute freedmen fleeing the countryside yielded a startlingly antagonistic political scene. He demonstrates that the Republican factionalism that helped doom Reconstruction went beyond competing cliques of white officeholders. Boldly challenging reigning theories about the nature of post-Civil War politics, Urban Emancipation will spark historical debate for years to come. |