A Black Congressman in the Age of Jim Crow: South Carolina's George Washington Murray Contributor(s): Marszalek, John F. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0813033403 ISBN-13: 9780813033402 Publisher: University Press of Florida
Binding Type: Paperback - See All Available Formats & Editions Published: November 2008 Click for more in this series: New Perspectives on the History of the South |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography - History | United States - Civil War Period (1850-1877) - History | United States - State & Local - South (al,ar,fl,ga,ky,la,ms,nc,sc,tn,va,wv) |
Dewey: B |
Series: New Perspectives on the History of the South |
Physical Information: 0.62" H x 6.01" W x 9.08" L (0.77 lbs) 232 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - 1851-1899 - Topical - Civil War - Cultural Region - South Atlantic - Cultural Region - Southeast U.S. - Geographic Orientation - South Carolina - Cultural Region - South |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: "Through the political biography of George W. Murray, one sees the myriad forces arrayed against southern Republicanism in the late nineteenth century and also witnesses the trials and tribulations one of the major African American political leaders faced in the quest for racial justice in the new South."--Bernard Powers, College of Charleston Born a slave in 1850s South Carolina and elected to Congress in the 1890s, George W. Murray appeared to be the antithesis of the African American male in the Jim Crow South and served as a beacon for African Americans who saw their hopes crushed in the aftermath of the Civil War. Early in the twentieth century, however, tragically defeated by corrupt Reconstruction politics and white supremacist attitudes he could not escape, Murray was driven from office and from the state. Drawing on extensive research to reconstruct Murray's life story, Marszalek defines an age and its people through the compelling battle of one man and shows how and why the nation's efforts to reconstruct the South into a biracial democracy failed. Murray's career, which spanned a quarter of a century, included two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and leadership of South Carolina's Republican party. He was an investor as well as a landed property owner who sold tracts to poor blacks in order for them to qualify to vote. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, with his party in shambles, he found himself on trial for alleged forgery in a land deal with two of his black land purchasers. Murray was found guilty, and the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the verdict. Sentenced to hard labor on a chain gang, he escaped to Chicago where he spent the rest of his life in obscurity. |
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