Movement also brought about a fundamental shift in public opinion; de jure
racial discrimination became a moral wrong for many Americans. The Civil Rights
Movement by 1965 had broken the back of legal Jim Crow in the South. However, in
the North, Blacks living under de facto segregation by economic and racist
conditions. Segregated schools and housing were unaffected by the progress of
the Civil Rights Movement.35 By the middle of 1965, the Civil Rights Movement
had stalled; never recovering its momentum.36
C. Van Woodward views the failure of the Civil Rights Movement to realize its
goals and its disintegration in the same myopic way he views the failure of the
First Reconstruction. He points to three different events, from 1965 to 1968, to
explain the disintegration of the Civil Rights Movement: riots in urban areas
which created a White backlash37, the rise of racial separatism and extremism
within the Civil Rights Movement and Black community, 38 and the Vietnam War
which diverted White liberals’ attention. Woodward’s analysis fails to provide a
broad perspective of why these events destroyed such a strong movement. There
had been riots in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, yet these riots neither spread
nor crippled the movement.39 Black separatism had been a vocal movement before
1965 in the form of the Nation of Islam.40 And mass opposition to the Vietnam
War among White liberals did not pickup momentum until the late 1960’s after the
Civil Rights Movement had stalled.
On the other hand, William Julius Wilson provides a more coherent explanation of
the demise of the Civil Rights Movement. Wilson says the movement failed because
it did not effectively address the economic plight of inner city Blacks living
in the North. This failure was caused by the leadership of the Civil Rights
Movement which had little connection with Blacks in the ghetto. The leaders of
the movement were from the Southern middle-class Blacks; who were either college
students, teachers, preachers, or lawyers.41 Like the leaders of the First
Reconstruction, the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement lacked understanding of
the economic needs of the Black lower-class. Instead of addressing the economic
plight of Northern Black ghettoes, the Civil Rights Movement continued to push
for broad political and civil rights. Inhabitants of Northern Ghettoes, were
trapped not by Jim Crow, but by poverty and de facto segregation. Nonviolent
protests, marches, pickets, and rallies did nothing to change poorhousing, lack
of employment, and inferior schools.
However, the Civil Rights Movement’s battles to end Jim Crow in the South and
obtain passage of Civil Rights acts in the 1960’s raised awareness of lower-
class Blacks in the ghetto to racism and increased their impatience with police
brutality and economic injustice. This heightened awareness of racism in their
community and desperation over their plight, turned poor urban Blacks into
matches and ghettoes into kindling. The Riots from 1965 to 1968 became a way to
raise economic issues the Civil Rights Movement had ignored. The Riots were
caused, not just by desperation, they had been desperate for years, not just by
a heightened awareness of racism, they had been aware of it before 1965, but
because they found no answers to their plight. Neither White politicians nor
civil rights leaders had solutions for their economic needs.42
Wilson’s analysis thus far provides as answer for the riots and subsequent White
backlash. However, Wilson’s explanation of the emergence and appeal of Black
Power is lacking. Wilson says Black Power’s emergence was caused by riots in the
summers from 1965 to 1968. But these riots occurred after Black Power had
emerged inside the Civil Rights Movement. In the spring of 1965 the leadership
of SNCC and CORE had expelled its White members, rejected integration as a goal,
and elected black separatists as presidents.43 Instead, I see the emergence of
the Black Power Movement as related to the failure of the Civil Rights Movement
to address lower-class frustration with economic injustice, and de facto racism
in the North. Black Power, as a movement, had many facets and leaders. Black
Power leaders were from the lower-class while the Civil Rights Movements leaders
were from the middle-class. Stokely Carmichael, a poor immigrant from Trinidad;
Eldridge Cleaver, the son of a Texas carpenter, and went to jail for rape44;
Huey Newton, before becoming a political leader, was a hustler. Other leaders
such as Angela Davis gravitated to the movement because of its mix of Marxist
and nationalist economic politics.45 The rise of these leaders was a result of
the Civil Rights Movement’s failure before 1965, to articulate a program of
racial justice for poor Blacks in the North; in this absence violent, vocal and
angry leaders emerged to fill this void. Leaders such as H. Rap Brown called for
“killing the honkies,” James Brown called for Black pride with his song “Say It
Loud- I’m Black and I’m Proud.”
Black Power provided poor Blacks with psychological and economic solutions to
their problems. Psychologically it brought about a shift in Black consciousness
a shift that made being Black beautiful, no longer as W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in
1905 were Blacks a “Seventh Son.” But equally important the Black Power Movement
tried to provide economic answers to urban Blacks with answers such as: racial
separatism, moving back to Africa, taking over the government, and taking “what
was theirs” from whites. Although these solutions ultimately proved unworkable
for solving economic problems, they tried, while the Civil Rights movement did
not attempt solutions.
The failure of the Civil Rights Movement in articulating and pursuing a plan of
economic justice for lower-class Blacks doomed the movement’s goal of
integration, furthering de facto segregation in housing and schools. The end of
Jim Crow did not end the income difference between Whites and Blacks. In 1954,
Blacks earned approximately 53% of what whites earned, and in 1980 they earned
57% what an average White earns. At this rate racial equality in average income
would come in 250 years.46 This racial inequality in income left unaddressed by
the Civil Rights Movement, forces poor Blacks to remain in deteriorating slums
in cities, while whites flee to the suburbs. The de facto segregation that has
emerged has shifted the good jobs to suburbs and relegated lower-class Blacks in
cities to diminishing job prospects. This has caused rising rates of
unemployment, economic desperation, and jobs predominantly in the low-wage
sector. This poverty cycle among lower-class Blacks remains after vestiges of
legal Jim Crow have disappeared.47 White flight to suburbs and the poverty trap
of the inner city for Blacks has been so great that in 1980 the number of
segregated schools surpassed the number of segregated schools before 1954.48
Both the First and Second Reconstructions left Blacks with no economic base,
dependent on others for their social and political power. And as in the First
Reconstruction, when those political alliances did not serve the needs of the
whites in power, Blacks were abandoned and their political and social goals
wiped out. In the 1990’s most political leaders have long given up on the plight
of the Black urban poor. Mandatory busing is fast being eliminated in major
cities, and Black leaders cry out for help to a President and Congress more
interested in balancing the budget, cutting welfare costs, and spending on the
military then dealing with the complicated cycle of urban poverty.
Though, the two Reconstructions held out great promise and hope to Blacks in
America, both failed to achieve their broad goals and in subsequent decades much
of their accomplishments washed away. Yet, both brought significant permanent
changes. The First Reconstruction ended slavery and the second ended legal
segregation. But just as the First Reconstruction disintegrated by the 1890’s
because of the failure of the federal government to create a viable economic
base for freed slaves, the Second Reconstruction did not result in a fully
integrated society because it too failed to fundamentally change the economic
condition of poor Blacks.
The Black experience in America is a contradiction for there is no one black
experience just as there is no one white experience. In the same way, the
failure of the First and Second Reconstructions was caused not by one event but
by many. The failings of these Reconstructions are not as simple as racism,
politics, or individual events; to single out one to explain such complicated
periods gives an incomplete picture of both history and the nature of racism.
The leaders of both the First and Second Reconstructions fell into this trap and
sought to solve racial inequality through political means. Their failure to see
the economic dimensions of racism was key to the demise of the First and Second
Reconstructions. While far from the movements only failing it is a factor that
has been ignored by historians such as C. Vann Woodward and William Julius
Wilson. America still has a long way to go to reach a place where “little Black
boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little White boys and White
girls as sisters and brothers.” We are still a divided society- economically if
not legally. We are divided between the inner city ghettoes of South Central LA
and the mansions of Beverly Hills; between Harlem’s abandoned buildings and the
plush apartments of Park Avenue. Racial injustice will never be solved with mere
politics and laws, anger and separatism. If we fail to bridge this divide the
question of the Twenty-First century like the Twentieth will be that of the
color line.
Endnotes
1 Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution (New York: Harper
and Row, 1988) p.228.
2 Ibid. pp.124-125.
3 Eli Ginzberg and Alfred S. Eichner, Troublesome Presence: Democracy and Black
Americans (London: Transaction Publishers, 1993) p. 148.
4 Ibid. p. 152.
5 Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution (New York: Harper
and Row, 1988) pp.229-231.
6 Daniel J. Mcinerney, The Fortunate Heirs of Freedom: Abolition and the
Republican Party (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994) p.151.
7 Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution (New York: Harper
and Row, 1988) pp.228-251.
8 The transformation of the goals of Reconstruction was caused by Johnson’s veto
of nearly every Reconstruction bill. This forced Moderates to join the Radical
Republicans in an alliance against President Johnson. Eli Ginzberg and Alfred S.
Eichner, Troublesome Presence: Democracy and Black Americans (London:
Transaction Publishers, 1993) p.153.
9 Ibid. p.159.
10 Ibid. p. 161.
11 A total of twenty-two Blacks served in the House of Representatives during
Reconstruction. C. Eric Lincoln, The Negro Pilgrimage in America (New York:
Bantam, 1967) p.65.
12 In the Presidential election of 1876, the Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, captured
a majority of the popular vote and lead in the electoral college results. But
the electoral votes of three Southern States still under Republican rule were in
doubt, as Ginzberg writes, “In all three states the Republicans controlled the
returning boards which had to certify the election results, and in all three
states they certified their own parties ticket. As the history books reveal, the
crisis was finally overcome when the Southern Democrats agreed to support the
Republican Candidate Rutherford B. Hayes, as a part of a larger compromise (The
Compromise of 1877). Hayes promised in return to withdraw Federal troops from
the South.” Eli Ginzberg and Alfred S. Eichner, Troublesome Presence: Democracy
and Black Americans (London: Transaction Publishers, 1993) pp. 182-183.
13 C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1974) p. 54.
14 Southern Democrats were comprised of Southern elites and formed a coalition
with Blacks to prevent poor Whites from passing economic initiatives such as
free silver, the break up of monopolies, and labor laws. Gerald Gaither, Blacks
and the Populist Revolt: Ballots and Bigotry In the New South (Ann Arbor:
University Microfilms, 1972) p.299.
15 The Coalition between poor Whites was based on a paternalistic order as C.
Vann Woodward explains, “Blacks continued to vote in large numbers and hold
minor offices and a few seats in Congress, but this could be turned to account
by the Southern White Democrats who had trouble with White lower-class
rebellion.” C. Vann Woodward, Origins of a New South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University Press, 1951) p.254.
16 Howard N. Robinowitz, Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982) p.396.
17 Ibid. p.398.
18 C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1974) p. 85.
19 William Julius Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1980) p.63.
20 Until 1900, the only type of Jim Crow law (a law which legally segregates
races) prevalent in the South was one applying to passengers aboard trains in
the first class section. C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1974) p. 67.
21 Woodward sees the failure of Reconstruction as related to three events. First,
it was brought about by the rise of racist theories and ideas in intellectual
circles around 1890. These ideas, such as eugenics and social Darwinism eroded
support among elite groups such as Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans
for political equality for Blacks. Second, the rise of United States imperialism
lead by the Republican party starting in 1898, undercut the ability and
willingness of Northern Republicans to be the moral authority on racial equality.
Third, the emergence of the populist movement in the late 1880’s and 1890’s
forced the White elites to abandon their alliance with Blacks. This was because
both the populists and the Southern Democrats sought the Black vote and when
neither could be assured of controlling it, both Parties realized that it would
be far better for them to disenfranchise the Black population than fight for its
votes. C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1974) pp.82-83.
22 Wilson sees the emergence of Jim Crow and disenfranchisement of Blacks as
related to three major events. First, the recession of the 1890’s and the boll
weevil blight brought Blacks and Whites in the lower-classes in intense
competition for a shrinking pool of jobs. This intensification of competition
between these groups manifested itself in White supremacy. Second, the rise of
the labor movement in the 1890’s lead to the rise of lower-class Whites to power
this allowed them to codify into law Jim Crow which reflected their view of
Blacks as competition in the labor market. Third, the migration of Blacks to
urban areas in the North, and the use of Blacks as strike-breakers in Northern
factories, created racial hostility among lower-class Whites toward Blacks. This
forced Northern Republicans to no longer focus on racial equality because it
undermined their support among White labor. William Julius Wilson, The Declining
Significance of Race (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980) pp.59-60.
23 Howard N. Robinowitz, Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era (
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982) p.400.
24 Ibid. p.399.
25 Gerald Gaither, Blacks and the Populist Revolt: Ballots and Bigotry In the
New South (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1972) p. 302.
26 Eli Ginzberg and Alfred S. Eichner, Troublesome Presence: Democracy and Black
Americans (London: Transaction Publishers, 1993) p. 134.
27 Ibid. pp. 132-133.
28 Ibid. p.135.
29 W.E.B. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk (New York: Bantam Books, 1989) p.28.
30 Eli Ginzberg and Alfred S. Eichner, Troublesome Presence: Democracy and Black
Americans (London: Transaction Publishers, 1993) p. 201.
31 Ibid. p.203.
32 Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality (New York: Hill and Wang,
1989) pp.162.
33 Although the March on Washington was called a march for, “Freedom and Jobs”