A Nation under Our Feet: Black
Political Struggles in the Rural South
from Slavery to the Great Migration
by Steven Hahn
A Historical Work Of Major Importance
This is the epic story of how African-Americans, in the six decades
following slavery, transformed themselves into a political people--an
embryonic black nation. As Steven Hahn demonstrates, rural African-
Americans were central political actors in the great events of disunion,
emancipation, and nation-building. At the same time, Hahn asks us to think
in more expansive ways about the nature and boundaries of politics and
political practice.
Emphasizing the importance of kinship, labor, and networks of
communication, A Nation under Our Feet explores the political relations
and sensibilities that developed under slavery and shows how they set
the stage for grassroots mobilization. Hahn introduces us to local leaders,

and shows how political communities were built, defended, and rebuilt. He
also identifies the quest for self-governance as an essential goal of
black politics across the rural South, from contests for local power during
Reconstruction, to emigrationism, biracial electoral alliances, social
separatism, and, eventually, migration.
Hahn suggests that Garveyism and other popular forms of black
nationalism absorbed and elaborated these earlier struggles, thus linking
the first generation of migrants to the urban North with those who
remained in the South. He offers a new framework--looking out from
slavery--to understand twentieth-century forms of black political
consciousness as well as emerging battles for civil rights. It is a powerful
story, told here for the first time, and one that presents both an inspiring
and a troubling perspective on American democracy.
(20031015)
Personal Review: A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political
Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration
by Steven Hahn
Every now and then one reads that political history has fallen on hard
times. And there is some truth to this. Much political history seems awash
in a sea of detail, accounts of endless intrigues and bureaucratic
machinations whose overall significance is unclear, while regression
coefficients run amuck. Surely, a reader may be tempted to think, Michael
Holt's 1296 page history of the Whig Party tell us more than anyone would
possibly want to know about the subject. Steven Hahn's new book is very
different. Twenty years ago he published "Roots of Southern Populism," a
brilliant monograph on postbellum white Southern farmers. Now after two
decades this new book fully confirms the promise of his first book. It helps,
of course, that Hahn cares about his subject and makes sure that we care
as well. Hahn tells the story of black Southern politics from the last decade
of slavery to the civil war through Reconstruction. Then he goes on about
the next two decades before disfranchisement when African-Americans
sought to maintain their positions with alliances with the Virginia
Readjusters in the 1880s and the Populists in the 1890s. But surely we
already know the basic contours of the story. Do we really need to be told
that African-Americans were not just passive subjects but actively sought
their own political ends? But Hahn provides much more than this. For a
start he provides a much larger definition of politics than other writers
might. He looks at the kinship networks, the importance of church and
school, the significance of labor, and the value of community.
Notwithstanding the wide unity of African-Americans he takes special care
to discuss differences over region, strategy and especially class. He notes
the rise of more successful blacks, those who benefited from military
service, literacy, earlier freedom and access to land. He starts off by
discussing slavery and he gives an excellent discussion of the system of
petty production which allowed slaves limited access to markets and
money. We then read up to date accounts of slave families and slave

religion as well as a pioneering discussion of the networks of information
that slaves had. The next chapter deals with the now familiar tale of how
hundreds of thousands of slaves fled plantations, 150,000 joined the union
army to defeat the Confederacy, while many of the rest engaged in
"sulkiness, demoralization, insolence and outright insubordination." There
is then a chapter based on much original and new material about the wave
of rumours that ran through the south in the fall of 1865 that much
Southern land would be divided up and given to the freedpeople. We learn
about the freedmen conventions that made noticeable efforts to attract the
rural black majority, as well as the routes and circuits of rumours.The next
three chapters deal with Reconstruction. Hahn points out the scope of
political mobilization and the rise of Black militias. He points out the
tremendous feat of registering a largely illiterate population once they
achieved the vote, a feat rarely matched in American history. He
discusses the difficulties of interracial cooperation in the Union League and
how officials had to yield to popular wishes and sensibilities. We are
reminded of the scope of black office-holding, and especially of the
importance of holding local posts during Reconstruction. Not simply
governors, senators or state legislators, but also sheriffs, magistrates,
registrars and tax collectors, were vital to hold. We are also reminded how
unprecedented it was for such a deprived class to achieve such power
after emancipation. We are reminded of the constant pressures of
vigilantism and economic pressure directed against African-Americans and
we also learn about the use of intimidation to counter this. Associational
life boomed with black burial clubs, saving banks, firefighting clubs and
mutual aid societies being formed. We learn of more subtle checks on
democracy, such as the widespread use of bonds. A lowly court clerk
might have to post $3,000, while a sheriff might have to post as much as
$90,000. Naturally this only encouraged people to place their dependence
on the wealthy who stood as surety for them. And of course we learn
about the Ku Klux Klan, and how they especially targeted schools for their
murder and assassination raids. Part three looks at the "Redemption
period." On the one hand blacks were still able to make alliances with
Readjusters and Populists. But the intense hostility whites had to voting
for black officials or living in communities run by black officials undermined
every alliance. Hahn points out that this hostility was not simply racism;
there were intense ideological prejudices within American ideology that
looked down at any underclass, there were few areas such as churches
and school where poor blacks and whites could meet, and kinship ties and
economic dependence blunted class differences with the Democratic ruling
class. But this hostility existed nevertheless and it was not overcome.
Hahn also discusses such movements as Exodusters to Kansas and
colonization of Liberia. Although they attracted only 25,000 or so in the
late 1870s, they had a larger constituency of people who would have liked
to move but lacked either the money to do so or were cowed by white
opposition. Hahn points out that emigration was particularly weak in those
areas of South Carolina and Louisiana had blunted the worst of
redemption, and he also notes that the threat of emigration helped blunt
the first round of anti-black Redemption measures in the 1870s. Hahn also

points out these nationalist tendencies lasted well into the twenties, where
most of Marcus Garvey's supporters were in the countryside. Especially
noteworthy is Hahn's interest in gender and the importance of women as
mothers, political advocates, community organizers and anti-lynching
advocates. With 101 pages of notes, papers from at least fifteen different
archives and a thorough grasp of the secondary literature, "A Nation Under
Our Feet," confirms Hahn's status as one of the leading American
historians.
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