Title: Reaping the Whirlwind: The Civil Rights Movement in Tuskegee
Author: Robert J. Norrell
Year of Publication: 1985
Thesis:
Norrell argues that African Americans in Tuskegee in the 100-year period between 1870 and the 1970s demonstrated how political power could not engender economic power, even though he sees evidence of the reverse. Booker T. Washington's efforts to get Tuskegee Institute off the ground created an unstable peace built on white anxiety and violence in contrast to Black political acquiescence. As Black elites encroached into the political realm, whites responded with a combination of violence, repression, and concessions to keep Black populations subordinated but to keep them from leaving. Norrell offers excellent examples of how whites tried to exploit Black elites' favorable relationships with the Federal Government to further their own racially exclusive goals, such as the decision to build the Veterans Administration Hospital for Black veterans in Tuskegee and whites' failed attempt to hire only white clinical staff. Charles Gomillion features prominently as an integrationist as well as a stern advocate for justice, evidenced by his suit against gerrymandering. As elite African Americans continued to gain economic concessions in exchange for political ones (such as Black mayor Ford's support of Richard Nixon and George Wallace), a newer generation of African Americans sought to decenter integrationism as a goal and emphasize Black political power, which, according to Norrell led to white flight and did not lead to the wide economic gains sought.
Time: 1870s-1970s, more weight from 40s on
Geography: Tuskegee, Alabama
Organization:
Acknowledgments
Foreword
- Civil Rights Movement begins in 1870 (at least, the origins)
1. Perfect Quiet, Peace, and Harmony
- This chapter describes what a paternalistic compromise looks like in the Jim Crow South, with education and economic advancement (for some African Americans) in exchange for the abdication of political power.
- James Alston's house shot up, protected by freedmen; he is run out of town and his defenders jailed and put into convict leasing
- Whites' fear is strong - they burn out and shoot other Black folk (then act surprised when they want to leave)
- Uneasy peace rises as policy and legislation kick in (crop liens and convict leasing)
- Tuskegee Institute as a compromise on education but also as attempt to keep Black folk from emigrating
- Washington's speech the most powerful assuager of white fears
2. The Model Community
- Disfranchisement is huge (they force re-registration - Black voters go from 2k to 65)
- University creates outward appearance of harmony
- Educational disparities remain huge, regardless
- Poor Black sharecroppers forced to cash their federal aid checks and give to their landlords (at least one example of this).
3. Keep Everlastingly At It
- Focuses on Gomillion's story
4. The Voice of Jacob, the Hand of Esau
5. Something Good from Nazareth
6. More Ways Than One to Kill a Snake
7. Sop in your Own Damned Gravy
8. The Invasion of Injustice
9. Hardboy Prepares
10. The End and the Beginning
11. Let the Children Lead
12. The Grass Roots Take Hold
13. Civic Memory in Macon County
- See critique below
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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Critiques:
The last chapter is a catalogue of corruption and violence carried out by African Americans with little context, so even in Norrell's attempts to offer a balanced reading, the reader is left with an interesting early acknowledgment of the long Civil Rights Movement with an aftertaste that the Black Power Movement crushed these integrationist efforts, and therefore engendered missed opportunities.
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