Radicalism for Southern Conservatives

In this lecture Woodward explores the South’s response to the Military Reconstruction Act (1867). Some southern conservative leaders flirted with the idea of courting African American voters. Though it gained many adherents the plan was short-lived, in large measure because freedpeople asserted their rights to organize, staged demonstrations for integrated schools, and protested racial discrimination on street cars, among other actions. The freedpeople were fully invested in the political process, participating in constitutional conventions, casting votes, and holding office. Woodward then turns to voting patterns in the 1872 election in order to determine the social and economic background of the white southern Republican base. According to Woodward one of the most important things that united white southern Republicans was their animosity toward the former planter class.