The progressive era and race : reaction and reform, 1900-1917 / David W. Southern.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Southern, David W.

Series:

American history series (Arlington Heights, Ill.)

The American history series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Americans--Politics and government--20th century.

African Americans.

African Americans--Politics and government.

African Americans--Social conditions--To 1964.

African Americans--Social conditions.

African Americans--Economic conditions--20th century.

African Americans--Economic conditions.

United States--Politics and government--1901-1909.

United States.

Politics and government.

United States--Politics and government--1909-1913.

United States--Politics and government--1913-1921.

Progressivism (United States politics)--History.

Progressivism (United States politics).

History.

United States--Race relations.

Race relations.

Racism--United States--History--20th century.

Racism.

Physical Description:

xi, 239 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits ; 21 cm.

Place of Publication:

Wheeling, Ill. : Harlan Davidson, [2005]

Summary:

In this comprehensive, unflinching account, David W. Southernpersuasively argues that race was the primary blind spot of theProgressive Movement. Based on the voluminous secondary worksproduced over the last forty years and his own primary research,Southern's synthesis vividly portrays the ruthlessexploitation, brutality, and violence that whites inflicted onAfrican Americans in the first two decades of the twentiethcentury. In the former Confederate states, where almost 90 percentof blacks resided, white progressives followed the lead of racistdemagogues such as "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman and JamesVardaman by consolidating the Jim Crow system of legal segregationand the disfranchisement of blacks, resulting in the emergence ofthe one-party Democratic South. When legal discrimination did notsufficiently subordinate blacks, southern whites resorted liberallyto fraud, intimidation, and violence--most notably in ghastlylynchings and urban race riots. Yet, most northern progressives were either indifferent to thefate of southern blacks or actively supported the social system inthe South. Yankee reformers obsessed over the concept of race andbecame ensnared in a web of "scientific racism" thatconvinced them that blacks belonged to an inferior breed of humanbeings. The tenures of both Theodore Roosevelt, who wrote moreabout race than any other American president, and Woodrow Wilson,who was reared in the Deep South, proved disastrous for AfricanAmericans, who reached their "nadir" even as Wilson ledthe United States on a crusade to make the world safe fordemocracy. Southern goes on to persuasively reveal that African Americanscourageously fought to change the implacably racist system in whichthey lived, against overwhelming odds. Indeed, it was the rise ofthe militant "New Negro" during the Progressive Erathat provoked much of the anti-black repression and violence. Dr.Southern further examines how the origins of the modern civilrights movement emerged in the wake of the rivalry between BookerT. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, going beyond an analysis of theirleadership to illuminate other important African American activistswho held strong views of their own. Finally, an epilogue assesses the malignant racial heritage ofthe progressives by looking at the discrimination against AfricanAmericans, both those in and newly returned home from the armedforces, during World War I and the numerous race riots in northerncities that were in part occasioned by the large-scale migration ofsouthern blacks.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 194-221) and index.

ISBN:

088295234X

OCLC:

57507131