bshmr
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 22 Aug 2006
Posts: 4004
Location: Central USA, Earth
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 Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 3:21 pm Post subject: Some Black Political History |
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Excellent precis, which points to resources. Also, a tidbit giving Wilson his due (tarnish).
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081103/foner
Rooted in Reconstruction: The First Wave of Black Congressmen
By Eric Foner; This article appeared in the November 3, 2008 edition of The Nation.
October 15, 2008
| Quote: | A few months ago, an article in The New York Times Magazine portrayed Barack Obama's presidential candidacy as marking the "end" of traditional black politics and the emergence of a new generation of black leaders whose careers began after the civil rights struggle, and who strive to represent not simply black voters but the wider electorate. "For a lot of younger African- Americans," wrote Matt Bai, "the resistance of the civil rights generation to Obama's candidacy signified the failure of the parents to come to terms, at the dusk of their lives, with the success of their own struggle--to embrace the idea that black politics might now be disappearing into American politics in the same way that the Irish and Italian machines long ago joined the political mainstream."
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None of these men fit the old stereotype of Reconstruction officials as ignorant, incompetent and corrupt. All were literate, most were seasoned political organizers by the time of their election and nearly all were honest. One who does fit the image of venality was Governor Pinchback of Louisiana, whose career combined staunch advocacy of civil rights with a sharp eye for opportunities to line his pockets. Pinchback grew up and attended school in Cincinnati. In the 1850s he worked as a cabin boy on an Ohio River steamboat. He fell in with a group of riverboat gamblers and learned their trade. He turned up in New Orleans in 1862 and expertly navigated the byzantine world of Louisiana's Reconstruction politics. Pinchback was undoubtedly corrupt (he accumulated a small fortune while in office) but also an accomplished politician.
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