Defying Disfranchisement: Black Voting Rights Activism in the Jim Crow South, 1890-1908

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

Defying Disfranchisement This page intentionally left blank Defying Disfranchisement Black Voting Rights Activism in the Jim Crow South, 1890–1908 R . V O L N E Y R I S E R Louisiana State University Press Baton Rouge Published by Louisiana State University Press Copyright © 2010 by Robert Volney Riser II All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America First printing Designer: Laura Roubique Gleason Typeface: Adobe Caslon Pro Printer and binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc. library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Riser, R. Volney. Defying disfranchisement : Black voting rights activism in the Jim Crow South, 1890–1908 / R. Volney Riser. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8071-3638-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. African Americans—Suffrage—Southern States. 2. Voter registration—Southern States. 3. African American political activists. 4. African Americans—Civil rights—Southern States— History—19th century. 5. African Americans—Civil rights—Southern States—History—20th century. 6. Southern States—Politics and government—1865–1950. I. Title. JK1929.A2R57 2010 324.6'208996073075—dc22 2009048364 Portions of chapters 3 and 4 appeared previously, in different form, as “ ‘The Milk in the Cocoanut ’: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Fear of Conspiracy in Alabama’s 1901 Constitutional Ratification Referendum,” Southern Historian 26 (Spring 2005): 30–54; and “Disfranchisement , the U.S. Constitution, and the Federal Courts: Alabama’s 1901 Constitutional Convention Debates the Grandfather Clause,” American Journal of Legal History 48, no. 3 (August 2006): 237–79. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. ∞ For my grandmothers Myrtle Breland Hollifield and Lucille Childers Riser This page intentionally left blank ...