2
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
Abridged Syllabus
SECTION I
COURSE DESCRIPTION
1. OBJECTIVES
a. Analyze the techniques used to restore white supremacy during Reconstruction (1865-1877) and overthrow it during the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1965).
b. Synthesize strategic thought, theory and history, and apply the insights gained from the Southern case studies to the problem of 21st century insurgency and counterinsurgency.
2. SCOPE. Course Description: 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 in the South 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 thousand 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, military historians 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.
SECTION II
CLASS DESCRIPTIONS
COT-01. 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. Unless distributed ahead of time, all readings are found on the reserve shelf in the library or online via the databases licensed to the library.
Students will study the Required Resources below and discuss the utility of Reconstruction violence and the Modern Civil Rights Movement through the lens of insurgency. The guiding principle of the course is to 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?
Required Readings
a. Syllabus for Elective “NS22XX AMERICAN INSURGENCIES: THE STRUGGLE FOR BLACK LIBERATION IN THE SOUTH, 1865-1965.”
b. Clausewitz, Carl von. “What is War?” in On War. Edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), 75-89 [Bk 1, ch. 1] (14 pages)
c. Hammes, Thomas X. "Characteristics of Fourth Generation Warfare," in The Sling and the Stone: On War in the Twenty-first Century (Zenith Press, 2004), 207-223. (16 pages)
d. Hogue, James K. “The Problem of War and Politics in Reconstruction,” in Hogue, Uncivil War: Five New Orleans Street Battles and the Rise and Fall of Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006), 1-13. (13 pages)
e. Leavey, Christopher F. “Reconstructing Iraq: Lessons from the American Reconstruction Era.” Unpublished student paper, Air War College, Air University, April 2006. (24 pages)
Supplemental Readings
a. Cordesman, Anthony H. “Iraq, Grand Strategy, and the Lessons of Military History.” S.T. Lee Lecture on Military History, October 2004. (10 pages)
b. Perman, Michael. “Counter Reconstruction: The Role of Violence in Southern Redemption” in Eric Anderson and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., The Facts of Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of John Hope Franklin (1991), pp. 121-140. (19 pages)
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 order. 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.
Required Readings
a. Foner, Eric. “The Challenge of Enforcement” in A Short History of Reconstruction (New York: Harper & Row, 1990), 180-198. (18 pages)
b. Hogue, James K. “The Street Battle of 1866: A Massacre of Union Veterans” in Hogue, Uncivil War: Five New Orleans Street Battles and the Rise and Fall of Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006), 31-52. (21 pages)
c. Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. “Racial Formation” in Racial Formation in the United States From the 1960s to the 1990s 2nd ed. (New York and London: Routledge, 1994), 53-94. (41 pages)
Supplemental
a. Foner, Eric. “Reconstruction” in Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, eds. The Reader’s Companion to American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991), 917-924. (7 pages)
b. Grimsley, Mark. “‘A Very Long Shadow’: Race, Atrocity, and the American Civil War” in Gregory J. W. Urwin, ed., Black Flag Over Dixie: Racial Atrocities and Reprisals in the Civil War (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004), 231-241. (10 pages)
c. McPherson, James M. “War and Peace in the Post-Civil War South,” unpublished paper. (31 pages)
d. Perman, Michael. Emancipation and Reconstruction, 2nd Edition. (Wheeling, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 2003), 1-144 (144 pages). [Note: This is background for Lessons 2-6.]
e. Rable, George C. “The Memphis Race Riot” and “New Orleans and the Emergence of Political Violence” in But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), 33-58 (25 pages)
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)?
Required Readings
a. Rable, George C. “The Origins of the Counterrevolution” in But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), 81-121. (40 pages)
b. Taber, Robert. “Inception and Evolution of an Insurgency” in War of the Flea: The Classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare (1965; rpt. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2002), 25-38. (13 pages)
c. Tilly, Charles. “Violence as Politics” in The Politics of Collective Violence ( New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 26-54. (28 pages)
d. Lind, William S. et al. “The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation,” Marine Corps Gazette (October 1989), 22-26. (4 pages)
Supplemental Readings
a. Gates, John M. “People’s War in Vietnam.” Journal of Military History vol. 54, no. 3 (July 1990), 325-344. (19 pages)
b. Hogue, James K. “The Street Battle of 1872: Carpetbaggers Under Siege” in Uncivil War: Five New Orleans Street Battles and the Rise and Fall of Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006), 53-90. (21 pages)
c. Kydd, Andrew H., and Barbara F. Walter. “The Strategies of Terrorism,” International Security Vol. 31, No. 1 (Summer 2006): 49-80. (31 pages)
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.
Required Readings
a. Hogue, James K. "The 1873 Battle of Colfax: Paramilitarism and Counterrevolution in Louisiana," unpublished paper. (29 pages)
b. Lane, Charles. “Wholesale Murder,” “War,” and “Blood on the Red” in The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, The Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction (New York: Henry Holt, 2008), 9-15, 63-109. (52 pages)
Supplemental Readings
a. Hogue, James K. "The Louisiana Coup d'Etat of 1877: Rethinking the Uses of Military Force After the American Civil War," unpublished paper. (30 pages)
b. Rable, George C. “The Search for a Strategy” and “Counterrevolution Aborted: Louisiana, 1871-1875” in But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), 101-121.
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?
Required Readings
a. Lemann, Nicholas. “Vicksburg Troubles,” “The Peace Conference,” and “Revolution” in Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2006), 63-169. (105 pages)
Supplemental Readings
a. Budiansky, Stephen. “‘Vote the Negro Down or Knock Him Down’” in The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox (New York: Viking, 2008), 177-218. (41 pages)
b. Rable, George C. “Counterrevolution Triumphant: Mississippi, 1873-1876” in But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), 144-162. (18 pages)
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?
Required Readings
a. Zuczek, Richard. “Introduction,” “ ‘A Perfect Reign of Terror,’” “Truth and Consequences: Federal Retreat and the Conservative Resurgence,” and “‘It Is in Every Sense a Military Campaign’” in State of Rebellion: Reconstruction in South Carolina (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996), 1-9, 88-134, 159-211. (107 pages)
Supplemental Readings
a. Budiansky, Stephen. “‘The Half Has Not Been Told You,’” and “‘The Passion-Stirring Event at Hamburg’” in The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox (New York: Viking, 2008), 107-146, 219-254. (74 pages)
b. Gillette, William. “Reconstruction in Retrospect” in Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869-1879 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), 363-380. (17 pages)
c. Kantrowitz, Stephen. "One Man's Mob Is Another Man's Militia: Violence, Manhood and Authority in Reconstruction South Carolina" in Jane Dailey, Glenda Gilmore and Bryant Simons, eds., Jumpin' Jim Crow: Southern Politics from Civil War to Civil Rights (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 67-87. (20 pages)
d. Rable, George C. “1876: The Triumph of Reaction” and “Epilogue: On the Inevitability of Tragedy” in But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), 163-185, 187-191. (26 pages)
e. Woodward, C. Vann. “Reconstruction: A Counterfactual Playback” in The Future of the Past (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 183-200. (17 pages)
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.