Black Second

The Black Second today.

I recommended here Eric Anderson’s Race and Politics in North Carolina 1872-1901, a monograph focusing on North Carolina’s so-called “Black Second” Congressional district — one of the most concentrated centers of Black political influence in post-Reconstruction, late nineteenth-century America. Black Second voters elected four African-American men to Congress in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, including the indomitable George H. White.

The book contains this graphic depicting the Black Second’s slightly shifting boundaries in 1872, 1883, and 1891. Remind you of anything?

Here is a graphic showing results by North Carolina county in the recent presidential election. Look at the cluster of blue counties in the northeast part of the state. The Black Second lives.

Do you stand with the white men or the Negroes?

Josephus Daniel’s Wilson Advance was not subtle. Just ahead of Election Day 1888, he ran an edition frothing with white supremacy, racist slogans interspersed in bold type between alarmist articles.

And this nasty bit — an editorial cartoon depicting a white woman with a bewildered child hauled by a black constable before a court with a black judge, black complainant, a jury of twelve black men, and several black onlookers. This, it urged, was the peril of “Radical Rule in the Eastern Counties” of North Carolina, i.e. the Black Second.

Wilson Advance, 1 November 1888.

Recommended reading, no. 11.

I’m overdue for a re-reading of Race and Politics in North Carolina 1872-1901, a 43 year-old classic.

Eric Anderson’s monograph focuses on North Carolina’s so-called “Black Second” Congressional district — one of the most remarkable centers of Black political influence in post-Reconstruction, late nineteenth-century America. Though the work only touches lightly on Samuel H. Vick, it provides indispensable context for his life and work.

George H. White: Searching for Freedom.

George H. White: Searching for Freedom airs on PBS NC 16 June 2022, at 9:30 PM. Samuel H. Vick was a political ally and close friend of White, and Vick’s legacy can only be understood in the context of White’s impact on late 19th century North Carolina politics. “Explore the enduring legacy of one of the most significant African American leaders of the Reconstruction Era. Born in 1852 in Eastern North Carolina to a family of turpentine farmers, White rose through the ranks of state politics to serve in the 55th US Congress from 1887 to 1901 as its sole Black voice.”

See a trailer here.