In the ongoing debate about enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, civil rights activists allege that the Trump administration is intimidating black people to impede them from voting. They invoke the history of the Reconstruction era, arguing that “voters, especially voters of color, are intimidated and fearful of engaging in the democratic process.”
For historical context, it must be noted that during Reconstruction a vast majority of black people voted for the Republican Party, which they regarded as the party that brought them emancipation and voting rights. They felt they owed their allegiance to the Republicans and were encouraged in this belief by the Union Leagues.
The history of that era is commonly recounted as if all the violence emanated from one side—the Democratic Party. The Republican Party is absolved of all moral blame. The violence surrounding the 1876 election is seen in that light. It is blamed on the Democrats, who are depicted as racists and white supremacists, while the Republicans are seen as colorblind civil rights activists who only wanted black people to vote in peace.
In her article “Racial Violence During Reconstruction: The 1876 Riots in Charleston and Cainhoy,” Melinda Meek Hennessey follows the dominant academic practice of blaming the violence on attempts by white Democrats to intimidate black Republicans:
The causes of Reconstruction riots, indeed of any group violence, are complex. But the overwhelming political nature of the era’s riots is obvious. Over a third of the riots occurred within two weeks of an election and five erupted on election days. Fifty-five percent of the riots began with an attempt by whites to break up a black political meeting or to keep blacks from voting.
That is the usual style of commentary on the 1876 presidential election, which the New York Times describes as “the messiest contested election.” The vote was very close, and the stakes were high. Republicans controlled the electoral process in the South. As NYT observes, “Republicans still controlled the election canvassing boards and governorships in the three southern states [Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina], which led to the manipulation of vote counts and the subsequent awarding of electoral votes to Hayes.”
In South Carolina, the state militia were stationed at the voting locations, ostensibly to protect blacks as they cast their Republican votes. The state militia were hostile, and even violent, towards any blacks who defied their expectations by voting for the Democrats. The Democrats attempted to persuade their black supporters, who were massively outnumbered, that it would be safe for them to vote. John S. Reynolds observes that,
The colored Democrats, whenever they appeared in a procession or at a meeting, wore the Democratic uniform – the red shirt – and sometimes a single negro was detailed to appear in public in that garb, the purpose being to impress the fact that a colored man could thus show himself to others of his race and yet go unharmed.
Reynolds recounts that in July 1876, the Democrats had warned that any violence against their black supporters would be met with violence in return. They stated that:
. . .any attempt by Republicans, black or white, to intimidate, injure or oppress any colored man because he should join a Democratic club or should declare his purpose to vote [for General Wade Hampton] would lead to bloodshed in which the intimidators would surely be the sufferers.
The prospect of violence was real. Dr. Martin R. Delaney, born in Virginia and raised in Pennsylvania, is an example of a black man who supported the Democrats. In October 1876 he attended a political rally in South Carolina which erupted in violence.
Dr. Martin R. Delany, a prominent African American leader who supported the Democratic nominee for governor, former Confederate general Wade Hampton, came to speak at the event, which enraged black Republicans. When his speech began, many Republicans walked away or beat drums. As Delany finished, shots rang out.
It is customary, in reports of these events, to portray the tragedy as having been caused purely by racism. All political disputes are boiled down to racial hostility, which is treated as the one and only explanation for events in that troubled era.
We are told that the only reason whites were against the black militia in South Carolina was because, due to racism, they did not want blacks to be armed. In the popular language of the “sides of history” discourse, we are to view the black militia as “the right side of history,” while the white militia were “the wrong side of history.”
The presumption is that white Democrats would not oppose black Republicans for political reasons, such as a dispute over state governance, but could only be opposing them out of racial hatred. We are to believe that the only objection white people had to being corralled by black militia was that the militia were of a different race. For example, the race riot at Hamburg is framed as a case where white citizens were against black militia purely for racial reasons.
On July 4, 1876, two whites, Henry Getsen and Thomas Butler, were apparently stopped and heckled by an African American militia unit who refused to allow passage through town.
The antagonism between whites and black militia units was deeply entrenched. The militia, formed by the state’s Republican administration to protect the African American community, was unacceptable to many whites. To them, an armed, nearly all-black force in the service of (in their eyes) an illegitimate state government brought animosity rather than security.
We are informed that whites were “angry and offended” at being stopped by black state militia while they were trying to go about their lawful business. The implication is that they would not object to being ordered about and heckled by state militia had the militia been white.
This may seem incomprehensible to anyone who understands why living under military occupation would be aggravating no matter the race of the occupiers, but it fits the narrative of those who see history only through a racial lens. Once the racial narrative is in place, all subsequent violence is explained as another example of the same narrative.
Yet it is not disputed that there was violence on both sides. When matters came to a head and both sides squared up to fight, it scarcely mattered who fired the first shot. The events in Hamburg, South Carolina, in July 1876, bear this out.
Fearing a collision, [Justice] Rivers warned the [black] militia to lay low, and somewhere between eighty and one hundred members subsequently barricaded themselves in a nearby brick warehouse.
This action by the militia, followed closely by the disappearance of the trial justice, may have convinced whites that the African Americans were considering some sort of offensive action. Or, seeing the militia concentrated, rougher types might have seized the opportunity to push for punitive action.
Whatever the motivation, by midafternoon the whites, whose numbers had grown to more than two hundred, surrounded the warehouse. Dispute remains over who fired the first shot, but by late afternoon the battle was in full fury, with whites firing at the building while African Americans inside returned fire.
Men on both sides were wounded, but the first man killed was white, a young man who was shooting alongside his father.
When Wade Hampton won the Democratic nomination for the office of governor, he called for an end to the racial strife that had marked Reconstruction. He criticized the Republican leaders who responded to growing violence by calling for more arms and giving more federal support to the black militia.
The Republicans arrested the white men whom they blamed for causing the trouble and hoped to quell the violence with an even greater show of state force. Hampton, by contrast, sought to draw a line under the violence from both black and white. He said:
For it is our firm conviction that all the people of the State, of both races, desire peace and prosperity. We, therefore, call upon our fellow citizens, irrespective of race or past party affiliation, to join with us. . .
