In 1894, a coalition of the Republican and Populist parties took control of the North Carolina General Assembly, ending 20 years of Democratic rule and becoming the first post-Reconstruction Southern state to elect a predominantly Republican legislature. At the next election in 1896, the coalition extended its majority and put Daniel Russell in the Governor's mansion, shutting the Democrats completely out of power in the state. The fusion government - again, uniquely in the post-Reconstruction South - enlarged the franchise and instituted protections for minority voters. More than 1000 black officeholders served during this period, including the last of the Reconstruction-era Republican congressmen, George Henry White.
In the 1898 election, the Democrats united behind the banner of white supremacy. Through a combination of demagoguery and Red Shirt electoral terrorism, they took a commanding majority in the 1899-1901 General Assembly, winning 93 of 118 House seats and a substantial majority in the Senate. A few days after the election, white supremacists violently overthrew the city government of Wilmington. The incoming legislature enacted Jim Crow laws and drafted a new constitution which effectively disenfranchised African-American voters (and many poor whites). Some black officeholders such as White survived the 1898 election, but they were all gone by 1901.
Is there any way to reverse the 1898 election result and keep the fusion government in power? One possible POD is suggested here:
I'm not sure. On the one hand, the article pushed almost every Southern Redeemer button it's possible to push, and seems to have had a genuinely catalytic effect. On the other hand, if the editorial didn't run, the Democrats would probably have ginned up another outrage - their election team, which included such master demagogues as South Carolina's Pitchfork Ben Tillman, was well up to the challenge - and they had the Red Shirts to create facts on the ground. I suspect that what would really be necessary is for the Populists and/or Republicans to have their own self-defense organizations capable of standing up the Red Shirts.
Anyway, if the fusion government can hang onto power in 1898 and survive the probable rematch in 1900, would this result in white supremacy being regarded as a failed electoral tactic, at least in North Carolina? Would the black middle class in Wilmington be able to establish itself? Would a long-lasting electoral alliance between black and poor white voters emerge, enabling state politics to at least partially transcend race? Would the Populist Party survive as a political force in NC, somewhat like Minnesota's Farmer-Labor party? It seems that a North Carolina for which 1894 rather than 1898 was the watershed would have changed the political and social history of the South profoundly.
In the 1898 election, the Democrats united behind the banner of white supremacy. Through a combination of demagoguery and Red Shirt electoral terrorism, they took a commanding majority in the 1899-1901 General Assembly, winning 93 of 118 House seats and a substantial majority in the Senate. A few days after the election, white supremacists violently overthrew the city government of Wilmington. The incoming legislature enacted Jim Crow laws and drafted a new constitution which effectively disenfranchised African-American voters (and many poor whites). Some black officeholders such as White survived the 1898 election, but they were all gone by 1901.
Is there any way to reverse the 1898 election result and keep the fusion government in power? One possible POD is suggested here:
One of the most significant events of the campaign was the appearance of an editorial in the Wilmington Daily Record on August 18, 1898. The Daily Record was an African American newspaper published by Alex Manly. The editorial was a response to a speech by a Georgia woman who had called for the widespread lynching of African American men in order to protect white women. The Daily Record suggested that consensual relationships between African American men and white women were common and that often the man was accused of rape only after the relationship was discovered. Once the Democratic papers got hold of the editorial there was an uproar. Under headings such as "Vile and Villainous" and "A Horrid Slander," the editorial was reprinted throughout the state. Some Democratic papers continued to run it in almost every single issue up to election day.
So let's assume this galvanizing event never happens - either the Georgia woman (identified as "Mrs. Felton") never makes that speech, or Alex Manly decides the time isn't right to write something so provocative. Would this be enough?
I'm not sure. On the one hand, the article pushed almost every Southern Redeemer button it's possible to push, and seems to have had a genuinely catalytic effect. On the other hand, if the editorial didn't run, the Democrats would probably have ginned up another outrage - their election team, which included such master demagogues as South Carolina's Pitchfork Ben Tillman, was well up to the challenge - and they had the Red Shirts to create facts on the ground. I suspect that what would really be necessary is for the Populists and/or Republicans to have their own self-defense organizations capable of standing up the Red Shirts.
Anyway, if the fusion government can hang onto power in 1898 and survive the probable rematch in 1900, would this result in white supremacy being regarded as a failed electoral tactic, at least in North Carolina? Would the black middle class in Wilmington be able to establish itself? Would a long-lasting electoral alliance between black and poor white voters emerge, enabling state politics to at least partially transcend race? Would the Populist Party survive as a political force in NC, somewhat like Minnesota's Farmer-Labor party? It seems that a North Carolina for which 1894 rather than 1898 was the watershed would have changed the political and social history of the South profoundly.