In South Carolina, in the aftermath of the Civil War, a group of ex-slaves joined the Democratic "Red Shirts, " white paramilitary clubs dedicated to restoring antebellum values. Drawing on primary sources, Edmund L. Drago examines the relationship between black initiative and southern paternalism.
"This Post-Revisionist Study examines the motives and the concerns of the ex-slaves in South Carolina who supported a movement that eventually led to white supremacy. Although most freedmen throughout the states of the former Confederacy were Republicans loyal to the party of the Federal government that had emancipated them, there were factions of African-American voters who aligned themselves with local white Democratic leaders. One such group of black conservatives joined the "Red Shirts," white paramilitary clubs that attempted to restore antebellum values in electing former Confederate general Wade Hampton governor of South Carolina in 1876."
"Drago's analysis recovers and explains this lost aspect of Southern black history. Drawing on primary sources that include testimonies of seven black Red Shirts before a Congressional investigation of the election and eleven slave narratives, he de-romanticizes the black experience by examining the relationship between black initiative and southern paternalism."
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Dr. Drago
received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1975. He came to the College of Charleston the same year. Edmund L. Drago is the author of seven publications and has developed several courses in The American Civil War, Reconstruction and World History.
His publication Broke By the War is just out in paper back. It is a fascinating collection of more than 140 letters written between 1852 and 1857 by South Carolina slave trader, A. J. McElveen, during the Antebellum South era.
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