ELECTIVE NS2244

AMERICAN INSURGENCIES: THE STRUGGLE FOR BLACK LIBERATION IN THE SOUTH, 1865-1965

Instructor: Dr. Mark Grimsley
Harold K. Johnson Chair of Military History
U.S. Army War College

Department of History
Ohio State University

Overview

This course focuses on the nature and dynamics of the struggle between the forces of white supremacy and black liberation in the American South from the end of the Civil War through the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In broad outline, this struggle took the form of two insurgencies: first, the combination of political, economic, and paramilitary action that restored white supremacy during Reconstruction, 1865-1877; and second, the interplay between nonviolent resistance and armed self-defense groups that overthrew the segregationist order during the Civil Rights Movement of 1954-1965.

In the past 25 years, military historians have paid increasing attention to the extensive violence of Reconstruction, which often claimed over a thousands lives per year. Most would concur with retired Army colonel James Hogue that “the dynamics of revolution and counterrevolution during the period can be seen as a protracted civil war after the Civil War, whose ultimate prize was … the re-establishment of power over local and state governments across the former Confederacy.” Because it is strongly associated with nonviolent tactics, they have given far less attention to the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. But these tactics should be understood as part of a strategy consciously chosen as the most promising means by which to defeat entrenched segregationist state governments that did not hesitate to employ violence. Nor was nonviolence the only method chosen by southern Blacks. Some adopted a strategy predicated on armed self-defense, and Civil Rights historians have begun to understand the importance of armed self-defense groups to the movement's ultimate success.

Through examination of several case studies from 1865-1877 and 1954-1965, students will expand their understanding of insurgencies, particularly complex insurgencies in which there is no single directing brain, but rather an organic relationship among many groups with common attitudes, enemies, and objectives.

Synopsis of Sessions

COT-1. Course Introduction and Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW), Southern Style. This period introduces the course and addresses the purpose, resources, study, and evaluation requirements. The seminar structure also reviews components of collaborative learning methodology with discussion of the complex task being undertaken in the seminar; acquisition and application of knowledge, skills, and attitudes; level of anticipated interaction; and peer assessment of individual level of performance.

Students will discuss the utility of Reconstruction violence and the Modern Civil Rights Movement through the lens of insurgency. We will accept, provisionally, the premise that these were indeed insurgencies as an intellectual strategy by which to explore, and perhaps challenge, current military thought concerning the nature of insurgency. What can this approach add to our understanding of insurgency as a form of warfare? How might it be useful in understanding the contemporary challenges of insurgency and counterinsurgency?

COT-02. The New Orleans Street Battle, 1866. This period introduces the political and social questions that set the stage for Reconstruction violence and examines the early emergence of a white insurgency. Until the Civil War, nearly all white Americans—North and South—regarded the United States as a “political community of white persons.” The war destroyed slavery but the contours of a post-emancipation society remained very much in flux. Within a year of the war's conclusion, conservative white southerners began to see the possibility of violence as a key tool for gaining control over the terms of the post-emancipation. We will discuss two concepts central to the war for the South: the nature of white racism, which is usually thought of as race hatred but is more usefully thought of as an ideology that protects a system of white privilege; and the idea of racial formation; that is to say, historical moments in which the strategy for retaining white privilege changes. We will then examine the 1866 New Orleans street fight that marked the first major attempt by conservative whites (mostly former Confederate soldiers) to regain political control and restore white supremacy through violence.

COT-03. The Emergence of White Conservative Insurgency. The advent of Radical Reconstruction in 1867 entrenched Republican-dominated state governments throughout the former Confederacy and gave male African American southerners full access to political power. The urgent task for conservative southern whites became the re-acquisition of control over the state governments. During this period we will discuss the emergence of widespread terrorism and paramilitary violence as tools by which to accomplish this objective. What were the weaknesses in the Republican state governments that southern insurgents could exploit? What are the parallels between the southern insurgent strategy and 20th century insurgency (especially Vietnamese dau tranh , or people's war) and 21st century insurgency (especially Fourth Generation Warfare)?

COT-04. The Colfax Massacre, 1873. This period tracks the intensification of the conservative insurgency and the emergence of well organized paramilitary groups. In most years between 1868 and 1876, political violence claimed over a thousand lives each year. We will discuss the worst single instance of that violence: a two-week confrontation between African Americans, mostly Union veterans, and white conservatives, mostly Confederate veterans, in the wake of a hotly disputed election in Louisiana.

COT-05. “Ballot and Bullet”: The Mississippi Plan, 1875. By the mid-1870s, most former Confederate states had returned to conservative control through normal political activity leveraged by terrorism. Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina remained under Republican control and contained so many African American voters that victory through ordinary politics was impossible. In this period, we will examine the winning formula discovered by Mississippi conservatives that became the template for the “redemption” of the remaining southern states. What were the elements of this formula? Why was the Republican state government unable to respond to it effectively? Why did the Grant administration refuse to intervene despite the scale of the insurgent campaign?

COT-06. The Struggle for South Carolina, 1871-1876 . In this period we will examine the repression of the Ku Klux Klan in upcountry South Carolina in 1871-1872, the principal instance in which the Federal government intervened to block the conservative insurgency. How did southern insurgents adapt? We will also explore the successful importation of the “Mississippi Plan” to overthrow the Republican state government in 1876, and perform a post mortem on the failure of the Republicans in the Reconstruction era to discover a viable counterinsurgency strategy. How well did Republicans discern the nature of the conservative insurgency? What were the major impediments to the creation of an effective counterinsurgency? What accounts for the collapse of the Republican will to continue the struggle after 1876? Was the victory of the conservative insurgency inevitable?

COT-07. Defending the Segregationist Order, 1877-1954 In the decades following the “redemption” of Southern states, white conservatives imposed a nearly impregnable system of racial control based on political/legal exclusion and economic dominance, the basic objective of which was the maintenance of a passive African American labor force. This system was reinforced as necessary by state-sanctioned mob violence and terrorism, most notably in the form of over 3,000 lynchings and massive attacks upon the few organized attempts by African Americans to assert economic independence. In this period we will discuss this system, the means by which it successfully established a claim to legitimacy, and the ways in which it maintained the de facto support of the federal government.

COT-08. Birmingham, 1963: The Power of Nonviolence . In this period we will begin exploration of the African American insurgency of the 1950s and 1960s, usually called the Civil Rights Movement, a full-scale assault on the segregationist order that quite self-consciously avoided the appearance of insurgency through the studied use of nonviolence coupled with a rhetoric that attempted as far as possible to conform to the exercise of the right of citizens to petition for a redress of grievances. This has created an instance of a war hiding in plain sight. The use of nonviolence was presented as a matter of principle, but it was also the insurgent strategy best adapted to assail a segregationist order that itself did not hesitate to use violence—violence legitimized as law enforcement and violence carried out by paramilitary groups and individual vigilantes tacitly encouraged, and often protected, by segregationist state and local governments. The key task of the African American insurgency was to “capture” the federal government, which for a century had tolerated if not supported the segregationist order, and turn its power against the segregationist order. What shifts in American society made insurgency possible in the 1950s and 1960s? How important was the international environment—specifically decolonization and the Cold War competition for influence over the Third World—in creating an opportunity for insurgency? What was the role of mass media? What were the basic tactics of nonviolence? As a case study we will focus on the campaign in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, often considered the most pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement.

COT-09. The Deacons for Defense, 1964-1965: The Power of Credible Threat The ability of the Civil Rights Movement to attract favorable domestic and international attention—and thereby the support of the federal government—depended on the scrupulously maintaining a public face of nonviolence. This produced the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, events that in popular memory are celebrated as a triumph for American freedom and the overthrow of segregation. During the Reconstruction Act the federal government had passed not only substantial civil rights legislation but also adopted two constitutional amendments. Conservative southern whites had nonetheless found ways to discourage enforcement and effectively ignore this legislation. Continued segregationist resistance after 1965, and the readiness of most white Americans to regard the civil rights issue as settled, suggested the limits of nonviolence. The willingness of local and state governments to actually dismantle the segregationist order derived in significant measure from the understanding that the African American insurgency could still adopt the time-honored tactics of violence. This understanding, in turn, stemmed from the emergence of a militant Black Power movement underlined by the organization of African American self-defense groups throughout the Deep South. These groups distrusted the “mainstream” Civil Rights Movement. The mainstream movement, in turn, regarded these groups with deep disquiet. Nonetheless, the African American armed resistance and nonviolent camps, while organizationally and ideologically disconnected, functionally operated as a more effective insurgency than either group could have done in isolation. During this period we will explore this relationship through examination of the largest, best-known, and most heavily documented self-defense group, the Deacons for Defense and Justice.

COT-10. Triumph Without Victory: The Destruction of White Supremacy, the Persistence of White Racism. During this period we will discuss the achievements and limitations of the African American insurgency, which reached its culminating point in the mid-1960s. The insurgency's most obvious success lay in gaining substantial access to the normal political process. It banished overt white supremacy in the South and yet failed to achieve the political, social, and economic equality that was assumed to be the fruits of victory. Arguably, the structures that protect white privilege managed to survive, adapting to this second moment of racial re-formation in the same way that white privilege had adapted to the destruction of slavery. This development is still so recent that it remains part of the political landscape and is, in the nature of the case, controversial. It therefore offers a opportunity to explore a difficult issue in an irenic fashion. What light can this historical experience shed on the challenge of achieving settlements in other racial and ethnic conflicts? We will also return to the question with which we began the course: What lessons can be learned from the examples of these two American insurgencies overall? Do they really count as insurgencies? If so, why? If not, why not?

Complete course syllabus, including readings (In Word format)

The War for the American South, 1865-1965: A Working Bibliography (in Word format)