Race, Class and Power in the Building of Richmond, 1870-1920 (review)

In Race, Class and Power in the Building of Richmond, 1870-1920, Steven J. Hoffman argues that historians too often have attributed urban physical development to all-powerful elites. Consequently, they have ignored how "American cities are the sum of the actions of all urban dwellers, not just those of the city's business and political leaders." (p. 187) Using Richmond, Virginia as a case study, Hoffman maintains that the authority of urban commercial-civic elites was far from total, and people of color and workers were far from powerless in shaping city growth. (p.1)

Hoffman demonstrates that large-scale factors beyond the control of Richmond's bourgeoisie hampered elite "city-building" agendas. These factors included an expanding national state and economy following the Civil War, which wrested key economic decisions out of local hands. (p. 53) The South's colonial relationship to the North, further, made the region's elite dependent on outside investment capital. (p. 46) Most importantly, the city-building projects of Richmond's homegrown elite were constrained by the activities of African Americans and working-class whites, who protested, privately lobbied officials, and contested for municipal office. (p. 113) Hoffman proffers that electoral politics clearly favored white workers, who had access to the Democratic Party by virtue of their race. But African Americans, otherwise disfranchised by the "for whites only" Democracy in Richmond, wielded electoral strength in Jackson Ward, a predominantly black and Republican stronghold. Under the aegis of the Knights of Labor, Jackson Ward politicians and dissident white workers created an independent "Workingmen's Reform" ticket that swept the city council in 1886. (p. 137) However, the author suggests that most overt challenges to elite power were unsuccessful. Black elected officials from Jackson Ward deferred to the commercial-civic elite on most municipal matters, and were ineffective when they openly fought white authority. (p. 121) White workers had more opportunity to exercise electoral power, but Hoffman contends that white workers who won office tended to be the most conservative, aligned themselves politically with elites, and eschewed working-class politics. (p. 135) Even the "Workingman's" insurgency was a short-lived success: Although it led to the construction of a new City Hall and streetcar line, the revolt crumbled amid the defection of many white workers back to the Democratic banner.

More effective challenges issued from the mundane institution- and community-building efforts of black and white working-class Richmonders. Restricted by racial segregation, fraternal societies seeded the soil for a vibrant African American economy that facilitated business development and homeownership. (By the early twentieth century, Richmond was home to three of the nation's most important black-owned banks.) (p. 150) The expansion of the black community that followed—including the creation of the black suburb of Browneville—influenced city-building not only by physically changing the urban geography, but also by "forcing" white residential and commercial development westward so as to escape black encroachment and preserve Jim Crow. (p. 168)

The author concludes that Richmond's non-elites had their greatest impact by being an amorphous threat in the imagination of elites "by virtue of the potential power they held as a result of their participation in the city's politics" (p. 131). Hence, the elite city-building agenda was ultimately limited by commercial-civic leaders' own racism and class chauvinism. Fearing black political dominance, white elites enforced a racial consensus that delayed discussions of contentious city growth schemes for decades, until African Americans were formally disfranchised. (p. 132) Likewise, the author reveals that while business leaders complained about a labor shortage, this was actually the result of the racialization and gendering of job classifications.(p. 75) And while they promoted public health as a means of attracting investment capital, Richmond elites undermined this project by denying sanitary water and sewer services to black and working-class white communities. (p. 96)

Race, Class and Power in the Building of Richmond...