Reference no: EM133687404 , Length: Words Count:500

Assignment:

In "Blood Redemption: The Counterrevolutionary White-Terrorist Destruction of Reconstruction," Michael Fellman writes about the White Line, a group that routinely engaged in violence against Black people in Mississippi in the mid 1870s:

"During the White Line campaign, no Democratic newspaper or major Democratic public figure expressed the slightest moral reservation about the plan of attack - to the contrary, they were fierce in their determination to sweep all before them. It is in this framework that one must read their self-serving claims to paternalism and their insistence that they sought peace and wanted to exercise a kindly direction over the black race. Of course, if their power were unquestioned, they would prefer to act in a gentlemanly fashion, a style in which the better bred of them certainly believed. But during that campaign, when dominance was the central issue, they willingly suspended paternalism when necessary, revealing the genuine threat of violent terrorist attacks they intended to make on anyone who questioned their authority.

That is the context in which to evaluate their self-proclaimed conservatism, which was actually a rhetorical tactic in their fundamentally violent counter-revolutionary strategy. During the heat of battle, gentlemen of property and standing let drop their paternalistic guise. When they had won their victory, they could resume that image, but forever afterward the use of systematic terrorism would lend a sinister meaning to their professions that they would "take care" of "their" black people." (emphasis mine)

In this excerpt, Fellman proposes a critique of the claims to "paternalism" made by White leaders in the South during the period of the "destruction of Reconstruction." In the form of an essay (at least 500 words but you can write much more):

Provide some historical context for this excerpt (when and where is this taking place, what was Reconstruction, what did Democrats and Republicans stand for (or against) at the time, etc...);

Explain what White southerners meant when they used the word "paternalism";

Summarize Fellman's critique of this discourse;

Describe the specific dynamics at play in the systematic use of violence against Black people that Fellman writes about here;

Propose your own analysis of (and your own opinion about) this "paternalism" discourse, and of the ways White Southerns attempted to justify their uses of violence during that period.

Feel free to refer to any text or specific case studied in class in order to further illustrate your analysis.