Sammendrag
In the nineteenth century, the United States went through dramatic social changes, with the Civil War from 1861—1865 causing a fundamental reshaping of American society in its aftermath. In the decades leading up to the war, American society had seen the institutionalization of white supremacy. White supremacy was especially strong in the South, where the predominant economic system was premised on race-based chattel slavery. In the antebellum period from the early nineteenth century and up until the Civil War, this gave rise to a southern culture with its own mythology, and a sense of being distinct from the rest of the nation. This was what is often referred to as the Old South. When slavery was abolished as a result of the Civil War, white supremacy, as it existed in the South and the nation at large, was challenged. After the Civil War, the period known as Reconstruction began and lasted up until the late 1870s. This period saw radical strides towards civil rights for African American, that threatened to unravel American white supremacy. Reconstruction was characterized by violent political struggle in which violent entities such as the Ku-Klux Klan sought to re-establish the antebellum status-quo. Yet, in spite of seeming to hold the potential for creating an equal society, Reconstruction-policies that pushed for African American civil rights eventually fizzled out, and the country developed instead towards a reconstruction of white supremacy. By 1896, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the constitutionality of legislation based on racial segregation through Plessy vs. Ferguson. This completed the restoration of two factors that had upheld white supremacy before the Civil War: consensus in civil society, and coercion in political society. In this process mythology and romanticism related to the Old South, particularly racial paternalism, reinforced the notion that African Americans were unable to conform to the dominant economic worldview white Americans held. As white southerners and northerners were reconciling through this new economic vision, self-sustainability and individualism became ideals. The continuation of the Old South’s romantic paternalism through nostalgic depictions of the Old South, in which African Americans were depicted as subservient and dependent, fed into racist thought, and likely contributed to the reconstruction of white supremacy by white Americans.
In the nineteenth century, the United States went through dramatic social changes, with the Civil War from 1861—1865 causing a fundamental reshaping of American society in its aftermath. In the decades leading up to the war, American society had seen the institutionalization of white supremacy. White supremacy was especially strong in the South, where the predominant economic system was premised on race-based chattel slavery. In the antebellum period from the early nineteenth century and up until the Civil War, this gave rise to a southern culture with its own mythology, and a sense of being distinct from the rest of the nation. This was what is often referred to as the Old South. When slavery was abolished as a result of the Civil War, white supremacy, as it existed in the South and the nation at large, was challenged. After the Civil War, the period known as Reconstruction began and lasted up until the late 1870s. This period saw radical strides towards civil rights for African American, that threatened to unravel American white supremacy. Reconstruction was characterized by violent political struggle in which violent entities such as the Ku-Klux Klan sought to re-establish the antebellum status-quo. Yet, in spite of seeming to hold the potential for creating an equal society, Reconstruction-policies that pushed for African American civil rights eventually fizzled out, and the country developed instead towards a reconstruction of white supremacy. By 1896, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the constitutionality of legislation based on racial segregation through Plessy vs. Ferguson. This completed the restoration of two factors that had upheld white supremacy before the Civil War: consensus in civil society, and coercion in political society. In this process mythology and romanticism related to the Old South, particularly racial paternalism, reinforced the notion that African Americans were unable to conform to the dominant economic worldview white Americans held. As white southerners and northerners were reconciling through this new economic vision, self-sustainability and individualism became ideals. The continuation of the Old South’s romantic paternalism through nostalgic depictions of the Old South, in which African Americans were depicted as subservient and dependent, fed into racist thought, and likely contributed to the reconstruction of white supremacy by white Americans.