Greenbackers, Knights of Labor, and Populists: Farmer-Labor Insurgency in the Late-Nineteenth-Century South (review)

460Southwestern Historical QuarterlyApril account, census records, or an interview with a descendant of the community or the black survivors—to piece together a story of die expulsion ofseveral hundred blacks from their homes and communities. Jaspin is less successful in attempting to place his story in its larger historical context. His knowledge of history and his selection ofsources is flawed, and he occasionally overgeneralizes, misinterprets, or relies on dated or less than reliable secondary sources. There is also the question of die use of the term "racial cleansing." This term conjures up images of Bosnia or Darfur where hundreds of thousands were systematically resettled or slaughtered in a human tragedy of immense proportions. Jaspin's editors at the Austin American -Statesman, where he first ran his story, ultimately rejected the term, substituting instead "racial expulsion." They also eliminated references to his charges that the AtlantaJournal-Constitution was complicit in covering an episode of racial cleansing in nearby Forsyth County, Georgia. In spite ofJaspin's occasional flaws of scholarship and his digression into his personal struggles with his employer, this is a book that cannot be ignored. Whether it is racial cleansing or expulsion, the story that unfolded in scattered rural communities , North and South, in the decades that followed emancipation is important and deserves our attention.Jaspin should be commended for bringing it to us. Texas Southern UniversityGary D. Wintz Greenbackers, Knights ofLabor, and Populhts: Farmer-Labor Insurgency in the Late-Nineteenth -Century South. By Matthew HiId. (Athens: The University ofGeorgia Press, 2007. Pp. 344. Maps, appendices, bibliography, index. ISBN 978-0-82032-8973 - $42-95. cloth.) Matthew Hild's Greenbackers, Knights ofLabor, and Populists addresses the previously neglected subject of biracial farmer-labor-political collaboration across the South during die last three decades of the nineteenth century. These tumultuous decades witnessed great conflicts between labor and capital over the meaning of democracy, which in the South culminated in the Populist movement. HiId hits redefined Soudiern Populism as not a farmers' revolt but instead a farmer-labor movement with a continuity dating from die Greenback Party of the 1870s. HiId backs his assertions tiirough an analysis of the proceedings of numerous Grange, Knights of Labor (KOL), and other labor organizations, as well as newspapers of die era, and by drawing upon die previous historiography of populism and agrarian protest in the South. HiId traces the continuity offarm-labor insurgency beginning widi the Greenback -Labor Party (GLP) of the 1870s by demonstrating die commonality of the KOL's Reading platform of 1 878 along with the GLP's Toledo platform ofthe same year, the Texas Farmers' Alliance Cleburne demands of 1886, and the Populists' Omaha platform of 1 892. HiId contends that in states where farm-labor insurgency held the greatest amount ofcontinuity, for instance Texas, Arkansas, and Alabama, Populists had greater success in building a strong party backed by both farmers and laborers. While HiId acknowledges that a history of farm-labor collaboration was not necessary for a strong People's Party, Nordi Carolina and Georgia each had 2??8Book Reviews461 large parties with minimal labor support, it was necessary to attract die support of labor to populism. Previous historians have acknowledged the continuity ofagrarian protest from the GLP to the People's Party; however, Hild's analysis of the primacy of labor's involvement in this continuity differs gready from the current historiography. The stark difference comes through in Hild's interpretation of the Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1 886. While historians have argued that the defeat ofrail workers at the hand ofJay Gould served as a hindrance that prevented future farmer-labor collaboration due to blows suffered by die KOL, HiId states "the strike actually served as a catalyst for farmer-labor third party insurgency" (48) . The strike, according to HiId, fostered direct political collaboration between farmers and laborers against tiieir common enemy in the railroad corporations. For HiId diis collaboration laid the groundwork for future farmer-labor insurgency through the populist revolt. Some readers may argue that the KOL's declining numbers through the 1 890s prevented any potential labor supportfor populism. HiId suggests the KOL's influence persisted despite its decline in actual members. He...