Independent Black Voices from the Late 19th Century

Black Populists and the Struggle Against the Southern Democracy

Bibliographic Data

ID4272248
AuthorsOmar H Ali (0009-0000-6619-4248, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume7
Issue2
Pages4-18
Publication date2005-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSouls (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1099-9949 • E-ISSN: 1548-3843
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10999940390936214
OpenAlexW2001626165
LanguageEN
References cited8

Fueled by religious and secular conviction, grounded by political reality, and limited by grinding poverty, African Americans in the 1880s would not allow Democratic Party rule to go unchallenged following the collapse of Reconstruction. Between 1886 and 1898 southern African Americans most of whom had been born into slavery, gained their freedom, but were being stripped of their newfound rights as citizens organized an independent movement for economic and political reform: Black Populism. Black farmers, sharecroppers, and agrarian laborers collectively produced a new generation of leaders. Together they carried out a range of tactics through grassroots organizations formed out of the networks established by the churches and benevolent associations at the heart of the African American community. At its height, the independent movement comprised over one million men and women through its two principal organizations, the Colored Farmers Alliance and the People's Party, giving mass political expression to the demands of ordinary African Americans across the southern political landscape

Agrarian society · Democracy · Grassroots · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Populism · Poverty · Sociology · Gender Studies · History · Law · Race, History, and American Society

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