Congress and the first civil rights era, 1861-1918 /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Jenkins, Jeffery A., author.
Imprint:Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2021.
©2021
Description:viii, 332 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Language:English
Subject:United States. -- Congress.
United States. -- Congress.
Civil rights movements -- United States -- History.
African Americans -- Civil rights -- History.
HISTORY / United States / General.
African Americans -- Civil rights.
Civil rights movements.
United States.
History.
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/12703479
Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:Peck, Justin, author.
ISBN:9780226756226
022675622X
9780226756363
022675636X
9780226756530
Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:"This book tells the story of the rise and fall of the first civil rights era, viewed through the lens of action in the US Congress. The first civil rights era, as we define it, extends from 1861 through 1918, or from the Civil War through the First World War. During that time the formal status of African Americans shifted from slave to citizen and then to something in between. This distinctive path was largely determined by laws and, later, failed laws in Congress. Many books tell the story of African Americans during these years. Our book is explicitly about how the arc of civil rights was determined by Congress over these five decades and more. While there are some excellent accounts for particular periods, such as the Civil War or Reconstruction, we believe ours is the most systematic examination of congressional decision making on civil rights during this long and crucial period"--
Review by Choice Review

This concise work focuses narrowly on the rise and fall of the first civil rights era through the prism of the US Congress. The authors traverse the exhaustively studied history of the period from the emancipation age through the age of Jim Crow. Jenkins (Univ. of Southern California) and Peck (Wesleyan Univ.) underscore the role of congressional Republicans in establishing a multiracial democracy--creating and enforcing legal reforms and extending freedom, citizenship, and voting rights to formerly enslaved persons. In the 1870s, however, Republicans' political weakness in the South, simultaneous with shifting political programs among northerners, allowed conservative white southerners to deprive Black southerners of their civil rights. The Republicans' civil rights agenda continued to decline thereafter. Into the new century state-level enforcement failed to protect the hard-won civil rights gains of Reconstruction. Although much of this subject appears in major historical works, the authors nonetheless raise a significant point questioning the salience of the Panic of 1873 and its ensuing depression in impeding civil rights legislation for the former freed people. Had the Panic not occurred, they ask, could the moderate two-party system in the South have continued and succeeded? It did not, of course, and Jim Crow soon hovered over the South. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and faculty. --John David Smith, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review