tuskegee

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Norrell starts the book with the story of James Alston, the local black republican leader who returned home from a republican meeting and was sent to bed with an eruption of gunfire, injuring him and his pregnant wife. With the title of this chapter being “Perfect Quiet, Peace, and Harmony,” it is apparent that none of what the title implies is actually the case. Norrell goes on to describe the events during Reconstruction and the feud between the republicans and the democrats. A political battle of intimidation and fraud broke out as the white democrats and conservatives took over political control once again. After this battle, blacks began planning to move out of Alabama, but the whites needed them to keep economic control. Thus, the idea to create a school for blacks was born to not only keep blacks in the community and in the labor force, but to draw more blacks to expand the labor force. Booker T. Washington arrived to Tuskegee in 1881 with the creation of the Tuskegee Institute for blacks. This school gave off the feeling of a model community in which racial conflict and tension seemed non-existent. The white citizens of Tuskegee were content with their control over the blacks, especially since most of the funding and advising for the school came from white conservatives. However, their contentedness with the conditions in the 1880’s would later backfire on both the white and the black civilians of Tuskegee.
Soon after the death of Booker T. Washington, Charles Gomillion took over as the black leader of the civil rights movement. Before his arrival, a hospital was built in Tuskegee, which first brought racial conflict to the community. However, the hospital soon opened job positions for blacks, making another black institu...

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... conservative control over the community. As more blacks piled into the community, the more the whites’ definition was noticed and the quicker action was taken against it. This action had started with Charles Gomillion and his inability to accept white conservative control. Gomillion was determined to be registered as a voter, and became successful in 1939, five years after he began applying. He began encouraging all blacks in the community to register as well, which prompted the state legislature to redraw the city borders to maintain conservative control and keep the right to vote away from blacks. This gerrymandering outraged Gomillion and his supporters, who quickly took it to court. At first, the gerrymandering was declared lawful by Judge Johnson, who was merely following the law, although he realized it would hinder his belief in integration and civil rights.

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