Description
Book SynopsisDavis concentrates on the two issues that African Americans in the North considered most essential: black male suffrage rights and equal access to the public schools.
Trade ReviewBuilding upon literature focusing on local movements, Davis makes a strong case for the ability of northern African American activists to overcome internal divisions and significant external challenges (especially tepid support from white Republicans) to champion male suffrage and civil rights legislation. Davis argues persuasively that despite comprising but 2 percent of the northern population during Reconstruction, African American organizations placed 'relentless pressure on the white power structure at all levels of government,' and as a result were able to achieve universal male suffrage and some important civil rights gains, especially greater access to public education. Recommended.
* Choice *
Davis contributes significantly to intensifying interest in moving beyond misplaced regionalism to understand the embedded power of racism nationwide in America.... Davis nicely connects blacks' postwar activism with their antebellum abolitionism and their wartime military service.
* Journal of American History *
With this book, Hugh Davis demonstrates the importance of including the North, and especially northern African Americans, in any account of the Reconstruction era. It concisely and persuasively charts northern black activism on behalf of campaigns for universal male voting rights, access to public education, and the abolition of all racial and caste discrimination.... Among the insights that Davis offers is the continuity in tactics and ideology that connected black northern activism before the Civil War with black activism later in the century.... Written in crisp and clear prose, this book is a valuable addition to the crowded field of Reconstruction scholarship.
-- W. Fitzhugh Brundage * Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography *
Table of ContentsPrologue
1. Launching the Equal Rights Movement
2. Toward the Fifteenth Amendment
3. The Crusade for Equal Access to Public Schools, 1864–1870
4. The Equal Rights Struggle in the 1870s
5. The Republican Retreat from Reconstruction
EpilogueNotes
Bibliography
Index
