River of Hope: Black Politics and the Memphis Freedom Movement, 1865–1954

1. "To Regain the Lost Rights of a Growing Race"

13 1 “To Regain the Lost Rights of a Growing Race” Black Political Mobilization, 1865–1916 W. Herbert Brewster grew up in a community “with very little opportunity ” in rural West Tennessee near the small village of New Castle.1 Until a life-changing night in 1916, he had never been in an auditorium before and did not even know what one was. When he and his fellow black students pressed their way into Memphis’s crowded Church’s Auditorium that evening, they looked up and saw a beautiful place. After the singing of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Brewster remembered, “there strode out to . . . the platform a young man of great personal carriage and personality. We had never seen a man who charmed us like he did.” The man was Robert Reed Church Jr. Church introduced Roscoe Conkling Simmons, the nephew of Booker T. Washington and a prominent journalist and civil rights leader in his own right. Simmons gave a rousing address. “When I heard that speech and saw [Church Jr.], [I] resolved that night to be somebody someday,” Brewster said. “That determination . . . was inspired by Bob Church and that crowd of people in that black auditorium. I never knew before that I had a chance.”2 Brewster went on to work with Church in political efforts and, eventually, became a prominent minister in local and national Baptist circles, the head of a ministerial school, and one of the most influential gospel songwriters of the twentieth century.3 Brewster’s meeting with Church Jr. occurred at a rally of the Lincoln League on the night before election day. Church had formed this mass-based Republican organization in order to mobilize African Americans politically, press for civil rights, and support the Grand old 14 RIVER oF HoPE Party. During Reconstruction, the Republican-controlled federal government had granted African Americans citizenship rights and black men voting rights. White Republicans took charge of southern state governments, and black men registered to vote and occupied public office in Memphis and elsewhere in the region. But the alliance between white Republicans and African Americans was tenuous; most white Republicans were not committed to ensuring black equality. Former white Confederates resumed control of southern state governments , and Reconstruction ended in 1877. A surge of white activism , compounded by white extralegal violence, led to the removal of black officeholders, the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans, and the enactment of legal segregation across the South by the early twentieth century. Although black Tennesseans retained the right to vote more than most other black southerners, the number of black officeholders in the state and in Memphis declined to zero. The number of Republicans in the South also decreased; a sizable proportion of the remaining whites joined “lily-white” factions that largely excluded African Americans. African Americans mainly stayed involved in the Republican Party in “black-and-tan” factions that included a few whites and often competed with the lily whites for control of local party organizations, while white Democrats monopolized southern politics and excluded African Americans from their party organizations. In 1916, the lily-white faction was the most prominent Republican group in Memphis. Church wanted his black-and-tan faction to displace it as the dominant party organization. For the November election, he organized a Lincoln League ticket of black candidates to run against the white Republican slate for state and national positions. If the black office seekers polled more votes, the black and tans would become the “regular Republicans” and, consequently, exert more political influence, bettering their chances for racial advancement. With the backing of many of the city’s black leaders, the Lincoln League mobilized ordinary black Memphians in support of the candidates. League leaders portrayed the Republican Party as the vehicle that had delivered African Americans from slavery and as their best hope for wielding political influence in the two-party system.4 While historians have emphasized the ideology and programs of individual African Americans during the post-Reconstruction years and the community building that African Americans engaged in to protect themselves “To Regain the Lost Rights of a Growing Race” 15 from the prevailing environment, the story of Memphis reveals how black southerners mobilized politically. Elsewhere in the South, a small but significant number of African Americans continued to participate in the political process after the end of Reconstruction, particularly in urban areas. Hundreds voted in some cities, including Atlanta...