role of biracial political relationships during this critical period, leaving us with an incomplete story of Southern reconstruction in the past half-century. Just as importantly, it leaves us to begin the twenty-first century with a flawed comprehension of our racial legacy.
Unfortunately, this tonal deficiency is standard practice in the conventional literature, a situation which we consider unacceptable at this stage of our academic disciplines. It is time to heed the advice of Sokol, Eagles, Feldman, Scher, and Barker/Jones/Tate about the focus, method, and substantive analysis of Southern politics and history. Thus we offer our unconventional, controversial analysis. We argue that our stealth leaders forsook the region’s historic race-game for a variety of personal and political reasons. They tried to address minority black interests, without antagonizing the white majority, in their electoral campaigns and public service. It took a risktaking yet disciplined and committed politician and cooperative allies to attempt the personal and political venture of bridging the Southern racial divide. In an almost impossible time and environment, our reconstruction crew provided such leadership, working pretty much alone, with necessarily quiet purpose, helping their areas deal with historic problems and working to build a new, viable democratic politics. In doing so, they helped end racist vestiges of Old South Democracy, they helped moderate the tone of regional public discourse, and they collectively and substantially contributed to the normalization of Southern politics.
Of course, the very idea of stealth reconstruction, along with certain expressions and references, may offend some readers. Some likely will object to our focus on white politicians; some may complain that stealth politics was no more than unprincipled compromise; and some could assert that the South has not attained their broad, bold vision of progressive society. However, our conception of stealth leadership, politics, and reconstruction is a realistic, constructive amendment to Southern history. We do not claim that we have found the single most important or best agent and course of change; but we think that our stealth alliances represent much more than flaccid, irrelevant, opportunistic accommodation.
To generalize about our new perspective, then, we envision “stealth reconstruction” to incorporate quiet, practical, biracial leaders, their individualized practice of new-Southern political ways, and fundamental change during a particularly interesting period in this region of the country. Stealth reconstruction was a transitional adjustment to an evolving civil rights struggle, and it assisted in the riddance of stubborn racial legacies and the relative moderation and normalization of the Southern political system during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
We, the authors, have personally practiced stealth politics in our political careers; now we are exploring the nature of this phenomenon and its ramifications for Southern politics of that period. At the least, we are confident that our new perspective and study will provide a useful supplement to the conventional version of heroic history. More importantly, we hope that our work will encourage positive debate about the future of democratic representation in the South and America.
Our Theoretical Proposition about Stealth Leadership
We believe that amid all the heroic history of that time, there is a fascinating and useful story of “stealth leadership,” “stealth politics,” and “stealth reconstruction”—a story generally untold and unknown except among the reconstructing participants themselves.
Our proposition is that some leaders quietly broke with Old South ways during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s; we contend that these white officials, in concert with black activists, helped moderate and restructure the Southern political system in quiet biracial practicality. This stealthy white-black coalition’s distinctive working style, skills, and relationships contributed to changing the nature, players, rules, issues, and outcomes of the traditional political game. They calmed Southern political discourse; and they assisted greatly in moving campaigns and governance in positive directions.
In developing our theoretical proposition for use throughout this manuscript, we conceptualized stealth leadership and politics according to the following model.
A Conceptual Model of Stealth Leadership and Politics
Our model defines stealthness—in purely analytical terms—to include Southern white elected officials who traversed five steps, or checkpoints, of stealth service during that period. These stealth leaders: (1) served in white majority areas with significant numbers of black constituents, (2) demonstrated personal orientations toward quiet, practical, biracial politics, (3) successfully waged quiet, practical, biracial electoral campaigns, (4) effectively provided quiet, practical, biracial public service, and (5) substantially helped change the Southern system of elections and governance in moderate-to-progressive direction.
Table 1 (see next page) illustrates our conceptual model by comparing stealth leaders and traditional Southern politicians. It includes the characteristic elements of stealthness, presents each element as a cumulative step in the stealth process, and generally conveys the systemic nature and function of stealth leadership, politics, and reconstruction.
Obviously, this chart is an oversimplified depiction. By design, the model states polar examples of traditionalism and stealthness, whereas actual service was of varied mixtures and degrees. It is difficult to assess real leadership precisely in such terms. Nevertheless, the conceptual model is valuable as a theoretical construct because it neatly portrays our notion that some leaders pursued that new course of politics. Also, the model provides a framework for original research exploring the validity and broader applicability of the stealth thesis. Accordingly, we will study various politicians from that era—through structured examination of settings, orientations, campaigns, service, and impact—and the results will be presented in the second half of this book.
Before starting those examinations, however, we must further define these special leaders and take a look at the “race game” in which they performed their specialized service.
Table 1
Conceptual Model of Stealthness Versus Traditional Southern Politics
| Traditional | Stealth | |
| Politician | Leader | |
| 1. | ||
| Served in a variety | POLITICAL | Served in majority |
| of white-black | SETTING | white areas with significant |
| constituencies. | black populations. | |
| 2. | ||
| Evidenced acceptance | PERSONAL | Evidenced sentiment |
| of the historical system | ORIENTATIONS | and/or plans |
| of white supremacy | for quiet, practical, | |
| and racial segregation | biracial change | |
| in southern politics. | in southern politics. | |
| 3. | ||
| Emphasized conservative | ELECTORAL |
Emphasized communitarian
|
