Charles N. Hunter and Race Relations in North Carolina by John H. Haley (review)

Shorter Book Reviews 271 example, just what sort of education he had in mind for black students. The author notes the importance of recent critiques of Northern educational philosophy by such scholars as Ronald Butcher and Robert Morris, but pauses only briefly to assess Bryant's views in the context of such work. Indeed throughout the book, the depth of Bryant's conscience remains elusive. Currie-McDaniel's ample circumstantial evidence and the direct quotations she provides convince us of his liberal credentials, but it would be helpful to have had more from Bryant himself on these important questions. Furthermore, some nagging doubts-fully identified by the author-remain. Our hero seems to have been as preoccupied with his own political status as.he was with ideological concerns. On several occasions, he faced accusations and investigations into his political and financial behavior. On each occasion he escaped, but not with his reputation intact. And finally, in intriguing counterpoint to the professed loftiness of his ideals, he contrived to be away from his wife, Emma Spaulding Bryant. Currie-McDaniel's fascinating account of the couple's coITespondence and of Bryant's lame efforts to explain the need for such separation, as well as his wife's increasingly feminist determination to make some sort of life for herself, may add nothing to our understanding of his Republican princi pies, but raise doubts about his credibility. Richard Paul Fuke Department of History Wilfrid Laurier University John H. Haley. Charles N. Hunter and Race Relations in North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987. xii + 352 pp. The life of Charles N. Hunter (1851-193 I) spanned a crucial eighty years in the history of race relations in North Carolina. From the era of slavery to the Great Depression, whites and blacks confronted each other over the competing ideologies of white supremacy, black protest and accommodation. John H. Haley's fascinating book charts the progress on all sides of the debate, but deals especially with protest and accommodation, through the eyes of one of its most observant participants. Born a slave, Charles Hunter grew up during the upheavals of the Civil War and Reconstruction. The divisive issues of the era remained implanted in him for life, as the sometime educator, writer, editor and behind-the-scenes politician groped for the most effective means to win for blacks their civil and political rights. 272 Shorter Book Reviews Although he never served in public office, Hunter's ideas played a prominent role in shaping black political opinion in North Carolina for more than a generation. Painfully aware of the power of racial prejudice, Hunter supported white conservatives who promised to respect the efforts of "leading black men" to present the cause of their race in respectful and modest terms. A thorough accommodationist, Hunter shared with his white patrons the conviction that black political participation during Reconstruction had set this cause back for decades. Nevertheless, he constantly reminded whites of their responsibility to the law and Constitution, and of the fact that the Reconstruction amendments guaranteed blacks their eventual place as fully-qualified citizens of their state and country. The strength of Haley's book lies in its close documentation of the dilemma which confronted accommodationists with a conscience. In the face of whites' steady detennination to maintain blacks' second-class citizenship, Hunter, and others like him, waged a constant battle within themselves. At no point could they afford to abandon the white leaders who protected them from the violence of the red shirts and Ku Klux Klan. But neither could they abide the steady refusal of these best of friends to lead Nmth Carolina into a new era of racial toleration. Hunter remained impaled on the horns of this dilemma throughout his active life and as a consequence wavered between obseqiousness and outrage. In the end, Haley believes, the task proved impossible. Given the circumstances, Hunter's approach was pragmatic and practical, but these same circumstances doomed it to failure. Without a white commitment to racial equality, accommodation could never work. Haley might have done more, however, to integrate such analysis with the main body of his work. The bulk of this book consists...