Segregation in Tuskegee, Alabama

Norrell reveals, in fact, that Tuskegee was a thoroughly segregated community consisting of one powerful white sector and one politically impotent black sector. The veneer of harmony held up by many whites and some socioeconomically privileged blacks masked a deep racial disharmony. Whites claimed that blacks registered in the conservative Democratic party were evidence of harmony, but in fact the evidence is that the rolls were manipulated by whites. The struggle that emerged when racial issues boiled to the surface in the wake of blacks' demands for justice is clear evidence that such harmony was in fact not present.

dwells on politics because much of the change and conflict in the country was manifested first and most fully in competition for control of political offices.

. . . It tries to reveal the many fears that the changes [wrought by the civil rights movement] caused among whites. It is about power: whites trying to keep control of their society and blacks seeking more autonomy (ix).

The "racial harmony" which existed up to the earliest origins of the civil rights movement---which the author places not in the 1960s but

. . .
ng black church] would not permit blacks "to be led astray by meddlesome and designing persons." The message was clear good race relations depended on black recognition of the inevitability of white conservative political control (12). Of course, a situation in which blacks are frightened into silence and obedience to institutionalized racism can hardly be termed harmonious, any more than slavery itself could be meaningfully called harmonious. However, the extended hand of white leaders to blacks was a door to opportunity left ever-so-slightly ajar. Book washington took advantage of that opening, starting Tuskegee Institute, a black educational institution. Washington, today improperly dishonored for having been an Uncle Tom in relation to more radical black leaders, was the ideal man, from the blacks' point of view, for such a task. Washington recognized that more could be won for blacks from a white-run community by using honey than vinegar. Washington's arrival coincided with an increasing white willingness to accept advances for blacks in such non-political areas as education, due to those whites' reentrenchment politically. Washington, says Norrell, "saw that his success at Tuskegee Institute depended on his keeping the f
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Approximate Word count = 1474
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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