The Reconstruction Desegregation Debate: The Policies of Equality and the Rhetoric of Place, 1870-1875

Wilson, Kirt H.

ISBN 10: 0870136178 / ISBN 13: 9780870136177

Published by Michigan State University Press, 2002

About this Item

2002. Hardcover. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780870136177

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Reconstruction Desegregation Debate: The Policies of Equality and the Rhetoric of Place, 1870-1875
• Publisher: Michigan State University Press
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0870136178
• ISBN 13: 9780870136177
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

In the decade that followed the Civil War, two questions dominated political debate: To what degree were African Americans now “equal” to white Americans, and how should this equality be implemented in law? Although Republicans entertained multiple, even contradictory, answers to these questions, the party committed itself to several civil rights initiatives. When Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment, the 1866 Civil Rights Act, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Fifteenth Amendment, it justified these decisions with a broad egalitarian rhetoric. This rhetoric altered congressional culture, instituting new norms that made equality not merely an ideal,but rather a pragmatic aim for political judgments.
     Kirt Wilson examines Reconstruction’s desegregation debate to explain how it represented an important movement in the evolution of U.S. race relations. He outlines how Congress fought to control the scope of black civil rights by contesting the definition of black equality, and the expediency and constitutionality of desegregation. Wilson explores how the debate over desegregation altered public memory about slavery and the Civil War, while simultaneously shaping a political culture that established the trajectory of race relations into the next century.

About the Author

Kirt H. Wilson is Associate Professor of rhetorical criticism and theory in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Reconstruction's Desegregation Debate: The Politics of Equality and the Rhetoric of Place received the Winans-Wichelns book award from the National Communication Association in 2003. Kirt received the prestigious Karl R. Wallace Memorial Award from the National Communication Association (2002) and the New Investigator Award from the Rhetoric and Communication Theory Division of the National Communication Association (2001).