Black economic success itself triggered hostile white-supremacist reaction

Evidence

As the historian Paula Giddings, Elizabeth A. Woodson Professor Emerita of Africana Studies at Smith College, explains, “By the 1880s and 1890s, a significant number of blacks began to do very well in terms of entrepreneurship and landownership, and it simply couldn’t be tolerated.” … According to the historian and law professor Annette Gordon-Reed, Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard Law School, “Black empowerment and participation in the American system was a nightmare scenario for Andrew Johnson.” He described America as “a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men.” … Black people, however, did have an ally in the legislative branch and initially a friendly judiciary. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 268

Categorization

• XREF: The Giddings quote is the pivot of the case: black success, not black failure, sits at the root of the backlash — this reframes the harm narrative in a way that matters for designing remedy. — connects to: White resistance groups bombed black newcomers when threats failed — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 136; Whites who sold to blacks faced threats and harassment from their own neighbors — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 220; One black purchase across a racial boundary triggered mass white selling. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 233
• SHARE: The Johnson quote ‘It shall be a government for white men’ is worth sending to anyone who studies Reconstruction or presidential history.