Struggle for Mastery

Explores the process and impact of disfranchisement state by state and across the region Around 1900, the southern states embarked on a series of political campaigns aimed at disfranchising large numbers of voters. By 1908, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia had succeeded in depriving virtually all African Americans, and many lower class whites, of the voting rights they had possessed since Reconstruction - rights they would not regain for over half a century. Struggle for Mastery is the most complete and systematic study to date of the history of disfranchisement in the South. Because Perman examines each state within its region-wide context, he is able to identify patterns and connections that have previously gone unnoticed. Broadening the context even further, Perman explores the federal government's seeming acquiescence in this development, the relationship between disfranchisement and segregation, and the political system that emerged after the decimation of the South's electorate. The result is an insightful and persuasive interpretatic of this highly significant, yet generally misunderstood, episode in U.S. history.