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2. Black Politics and Violence Conflicts over land and labor helped reshape gender roles and led to racial violence in post–Civil War South Carolina, but other forces were at work as well. The politicization of the black community enraged and terrified white South Carolinians. A politically active black community in South Carolina violated not only long-standing southern racial traditions, but also the gendered traditions embodied by the master-slave relationship, honor and violence, and southern politics. In conjunction with the changing roles of women, southern white manhood and its privileges continued to lose ground. The confluence of black politics, the gradual liberation of southern women, and changes in gender definitions would have a dramatic effect, inspiring periods of racial violence from Reconstruction into the new century. The level of violence in South Carolina reached heights never seen before, and the combination of those elements was directly responsible. South Carolinians had paid among the heaviest prices in the Civil War; the losses experienced by white South Carolina were exceeded only by the gains of black South Carolina, the state’s new political majority; and finally, South Carolina’s gender constructions were now a shadow of their former selves. As South Carolinian John Leland wrote of his state following black enfranchisement , “her seat and name has been usurped by a brazen-faced strumpet, foisted upon her ‘high places’ by the hands of strangers.” He characterized both the state and the black voter as feminine in an effort to illustrate their “weakened” condition and his belief that only white manhood could redeem South Carolina. He and others like him would do so at any cost.1 Black southerners found their political voice after the war, and land and labor prompted the movement. Land and labor issues were the focus of black political debates in post–Civil War South Carolina. According to historian Martin Abbott, three issues dominated public meetings among blacks during Reconstruction: 32 [ Black Politics and Violence freedom (how to use it and how to preserve it), labor (fair practices and the rise of the free labor system), and politics. Their role in politics would determine the future of freedom and labor. Shortly after Appomattox blacks organized political meetings throughout South Carolina. Most had been either praying or preparing for this moment for years. For example, in 1864 a number of black men who would later emerge as leaders within South Carolina politics participated in a national black convention in Syracuse, New York. Among them were Richard Cain and Jonathan Wright: a future South Carolina congressman and a future state supreme court justice respectively. They discussed the future of black southerners and their priorities, the need to secure their rights once attained, and the deteriorating rights of their counterparts in the North.2 These themes reappeared after the war, but they also soon moved beyond strictly economic issues. In July 1865 a black mutual aid society met in Charleston to address freedmen’s concerns. Predominant among these were land and labor. Two months later the freedmen of St. Helena met to compose an appeal to the state legislature for changes in the state constitution. In September 1865 blacks again met in Charleston to debate the issue of suffrage. They agreed that a lack of education should not bar black voting since ignorant whites already had the privilege. The Colored People’s Convention also assembled in Charleston that November, the first organization that included all of South Carolina’s black leadership. The convention issued a series of documents intended for both local and national audiences. The “Declaration of Rights and Wrongs,” “An Address to the White Inhabitants of South Carolina,” “A Petition to the State Legislature ,” and “A Memorial to Congress” outlined the goals of black South Carolinians , as well as their needs and their perceived rights. The documents reveal a young but relatively advanced political consciousness among South Carolina’s black leaders. Although largely conservative—arguing on behalf of basic human and civil rights rather than social revolution—the authors did not fail to express the belief that their state and country had obligations to black citizens, and that as political leaders of the black community, they would oversee the transition. These grassroots movements were organized largely by skilled laborers, local churches, blacks who had attained freedom before the war, and those who had acquired at least a basic literacy. This is not to say, however, that the mass of freedmen did not rise to the occasion. On the contrary...

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