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A few years ago I wrote about a radical experiment undertaken by some idealistic Yankees during reconstruction where they tried to replace the pre-war system of county courts in NC, VA, and SC with a town hall government modeled on New England. 1
I've been thinking a lot in the last few days about the end of that experiment as Redemption swamped Reconstruction and self-proclaimed white supremacists began the long struggle to "take back" power, disfranchise black voters, and impose Jim Crow. 2
Here's why: in NC, where the experiment was most robustly implemented, the new local governments became vehicles for a real shift away from white elite power and toward a real political voice for black citizens. 3
Black sheriffs and magistrates were elected and black voters worked in coalition with white Republicans to reshape local politics. This was horrifying to the old planter elites and the white supremacists whose resentment they weaponized politically. 4
They identified the robust democratic participation of black citizens at the local level as oppression and pleaded for "relief" from the state government. By 1876, Redemption had progressed in NC to the extent that the state legislature was controlled by white supremacists. 5
Their solution to the problem of local democracy was not simply to disfranchise black voters. It was to erase local democracy altogether. Not only were the new towns shut down, the legislature also essentially ended elections for county officials as well. 6
This was paired with a policy of radical retrenchment at the state level where states across the South radically cut government services (schools, etc.). It was Sam Brownback's Kansas 125 years in advance. 7
I say all of this because the echoes of Redemption politics (reactive, anti-democratic, anti-government sentiment fueled by racial resentment) are so loud in the present. This feels like a depressingly familiar threat to democracy rather than a new one. 8
If you are interested in the full article: https://works.bepress.com/daniel-farbman/10/
