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Stealth Reconstruction
An Untold Story of Racial Politics in Recent Southern History
Glen Browder
Jacksonville State University
in collaboration with
Artemesia Stanberry
North Carolina Central University
NewSouth Books
Montgomery
NewSouth Books
105 S. Court Street
Montgomery, AL 36104
Copyright 2010 by Glen Browder and Artemesia Stanberry. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.
ISBN-13: 978-1-58838-239-9
ebook ISBN: 978-1-60306-228-2
LCCN: 2009049608
Visit www.newsouthbooks.com.
Glen Browder: To Becky and Jenny
Artemesia Stanberry: To my mother, Kathleen B. Thomas
Contents
Part One: Stealth Theory
1 - A New Perspective on Southern Politics and History
3 - Racial Representation in the South
Part Two: Stealth Research
4 - The Alabama Setting for Stealth Politics
5 - A Case Study in Stealthy Campaigning
6 - A Case Study in Stealthy Public Service
7 - The Broader Scope of Stealth Leadership
Part Three: So What?
8 - Biracial Roundtable on Stealth Reconstruction
9 - Summary: the Past, the Present, and a Challenge for Contemporary Leaders
This book concentrates on quiet, racially progressive actions by white elected officials in the South during the particularly interesting post-civil rights movement period of 1970–2000. As will be explained in the Introduction and then developed through the chapters of this book, we have coined the terms “stealthness,” “stealth leadership,” and “stealth politics” to describe this style of campaigning and serving by white politicians.
Essentially, we contend that some white officials worked with some black activists to mitigate the often unsavory role of race and move politics forward in the post-movement South. Our thesis is that, together, these biracial leaders helped reconstruct southern politics in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
Of course, black political leaders likewise have attempted to minimize racial factors in order to bridge the racial divide in this region and throughout the nation. Barack Obama represents the latest and most prominent incarnation of “deracialized” politics, but such efforts have been fairly common in the past few decades, as evidenced by David Dinkins in New York, Douglas Wilder in Virginia, and Tom Bradley in Los Angeles. This variance from insurgent black politics obviously poses an unsettling dilemma for many interested in the more aggressive agenda of black progress. African American scholars in particular have struggled with the idea of race-neutral elections and service. (For further discussion on these points, consult the works of authors like Charles V. Hamilton, Georgia A. Persons, Huey L. Perry, and others as detailed in the bibliography.)
Much of the “deracialization” literature resonates in our project, as the stealth proposition, issues, and activities reported in our research among white leaders sometimes reflect, in ironic ways, the experiences of biracial black politicians.
So, a logical question is how our notion of “stealthness” relates to “deracialization.” The simplest generalization is that our stealth concept focuses on white leaders courting and serving black voters, while deracialization research addresses black officials and their relationship with white voters. Of course, the single, dominant practicality is that all these politicians—both stealthy whites and deracializing blacks—wanted to get elected and stay elected. The most accurate assessment is that such “crossover” efforts sometimes worked and sometimes failed, depending to a great degree on context. However, there are important differences between stealthness and deracialization besides simple terminological preference.
These other differences relate to both theoretical definition and normative ramification. The definitional differences are: (a) our thesis limits the time period for stealth politics to 1970–2000, while deracialization is a practice of continuing interest; (b) stealth was a phenomenon of peculiarly regional and cultural pertinence, while deracialization has been observed and studied in varied locales throughout the country; and (c) the political nature of stealthness was low-profile, sometimes secretive, and especially risky considering the attitudes of white Southern voters, while deracialization is more obvious and acceptable, although certainly problematic in terms of contemporary public mores.
Additionally, there is the critical matter of context. Stealth politics began and took place in a one-party, semi-segregated system of elections and governance, while deracial endeavors have been attempted in varied, less “peculiar” environments. According to coauthor and ex-politician Browder, regional contextual factors placed tremendous pressures on Southern white officials:
I
