Luis-Alejandro Dinnella-Borrego. The Risen Phoenix

In The Risen Phoenix: Black Politics in the Post–Civil War South, Luis-Alejandro Dinnella-Borrego examines the careers of six post–Civil War black congressmen: John Mercer Langston of Virginia; James Thomas Rapier of Alabama; George Henry White of North Carolina; Robert Smalls of South Carolina; Josiah Thomas Walls of Florida; and John Roy Lynch of Mississippi. Their life experience and periods of public service varied considerably. Smalls, Lynch, and probably Walls were born as slaves, only gaining their freedom during the Civil War. White’s origins are uncertain, but Langston and Rapier were born free, were from prosperous family backgrounds, and had good educations. Walls served in Congress as early as 1870, but White was only elected to the first of his two terms in the House of Representatives in 1896. Given this, the extent to which the six can be considered as a group is open to debate. They were selected by the author to reflect the diversity of black leadership during this era, although the reasons why these particular individuals were chosen are not fully explained. Their differing backgrounds effectively highlight the breadth of the black experience, but they also make it difficult to engage in any comparative analysis of their achievements. The racial climate in South Carolina was not the same as that in Mississippi, and the political possibilities and opportunities in the 1890s were not those of the 1870s.

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