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Review
| The Reconstruction Desegregation Debate: The Politics of Equality and the Rhetoric of Place, 1870–1875, by Kirt H. Wilson. East Lansing, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2002. 276 pp. $54.95, cloth.
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| The Reconstruction era that spanned the years 1865–1877 has been considered one of the most critical times in American history. Clearly, the end of the Civil War was the beginning of unification for the entire country. But for the freedmen, those who had been subjected to the institution of slavery, the concept of freedom held different meanings and was welcomed with mixed feelings. This book provides a comprehensive treatment of the politics of Reconstruction that addresses the issues of equality, its implementation into law, and the manner in which "Congress fought to control the scope of black civil rights by contesting the definition of black equality, and the expediency and constitutionality of desegregation" (xiv). Wilson's preface indicates his desire to place his work between the revisionist and post-revisionist histories of the Reconstruction. Rhetoric being his field of expertise, the book is an analysis of rhetoric's power to raise the hopes and aspirations of a community while simultaneously affecting the political judgments that narrow opportunity. The book is not a full accounting of the Reconstruction era, nor is it an attempt to reconcile the tensions that exist in the period's historiography" (xiv). |
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Through the technique called "rhetorical criticism," Wilson's book closely examines the Civil Rights Acts of 1875, the first national desegregation law in the United States. Although the act was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1883, "the act represents the kind of egalitarian revolution that the revisionist historians both see and desire for the period, representing a fatal compromise that post-revisionists view as an exemplar of the era's hypocrisy." (xv). Professor Wilson looks at the act as "representing the culmination of the work of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, being a more 'honest' document than the Emancipation Proclamation by articulating the principles of equality with words meant to teach and inspire (p. 16). Wilson's work also tells of the contributions of the first African-American senators and representatives to be seated in Congress following the Civil War. All argued for equality and became outspoken advocates of desegregation. According to one representative, "a foreigner visiting the United States could see a man legislating for a free people, while his own chains of civil slavery hang about him" (p. 25). |
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The heart of Kirt Wilson's rhetorical study is contained in chapter four. Here, the reader learns of the different interpretations of "equality" as they were expressed during 1874–1875 and how those interpretations were expressed rhetorically. Equality becomes the central issue as members of Congress determine "whether and to what degree the former slaves were now equal citizens" (p. 78). The author places equality in the context of three different views: 1) Republican discourse that "represented a serious threat to the political culture of the South and the nation as a whole" (p. 119); 2) the rhetoric of those who argued for complete black equality, one that Democrats found disturbing (p. 119): and 3) the rhetoric of moderate Democrats, those who advocated "a more egalitarian spirit of the Fourteenth Amendment and who opened the door for a reformulation of America's identity" (p. 120). According to Wilson, "the equality theme was the central issue of the 1870s civil rights controversy because it had the greatest potential to alter the public discourse about race" (p. 118). |
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Professor Wilson's book represents a valuable contribution to the study of the Reconstruction era. In addition to the superb narrative and illustrations, the author provides forty-two pages of detailed endnotes and a fourteen-page selected bibliography that guides students and teachers to additional source materials. It can serve as a wonderful supplement to the classic works on the Reconstruction era such as Eric Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877. Wilson's book might also contribute as the foundation work for a specialized course or seminar at the community college or university undergraduate level on the civil rights movement, or in survey courses such as American Federal Government. |
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| Pasco-Hernando Community College, Florida |
Michael E. Long |
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