Postbellum urban black economic development: The case of Norfolk, Virginia, 1860-1890
Abstract
The Civil War was an event of cataclysmic proportions that impacted on the lives of blacks and whites, both North and South. The period of readjustment which followed raised the spectre of substantive change in the lives of Americans as they sought to create new working relationships with one another. The urban South likewise adjusted to an increased presence of blacks who migrated there during and immediately after the war. But the experiences of blacks in the urban South were not uniform and black responses to their new status could not be expected, therefore, to conform to a monolithic pattern either. The experiences of blacks in Norfolk, Virginia, following the Civil War, were similar and yet unique to those of others throughout the urban South. As an area occupied early during the Civil War, the status of blacks remained unclear. Following the war, blacks in the city made slow, yet steady progress in accumulating property, participating in the political process, and interacting on a social basis with whites. These depended, however, on the particular time within Reconstruction and the ability, therefore, for blacks to operate within closed or quasi-opened systems. It was Congressional Reconstruction, however, that provided the foundation for meaningful advances for Norfolk's blacks. Blacks took advantage of the opportunities presented to increase control over their own community. In so doing, many blacks found themselves affecting a shift in the balance of power of the political economy in Norfolk. As a result, the white backlash of the 1890s and beyond proved all the more constraining.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Woodman, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Black history|Economic history
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