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Arkansas's Divided Democracy: The Making Of The Constitution Of 1874, Rodney Waymon Harris
Arkansas's Divided Democracy: The Making Of The Constitution Of 1874, Rodney Waymon Harris
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation examines the making of Arkansas’s constitution of 1874, which drew the curtain on Reconstruction in the state and remains in force in the twenty-first century. It contributes to the scholarship of Arkansas history, Southern history, and U.S. political and constitutional history by showing that Arkansas’s Redeemers were not unified or homogeneous, but rather a fractured group who fought about how restrictive the state’s new constitution would be. In the end, it was more generous in some sections than some Democrats wished. This dissertation, thus, challenges a traditional narrative of a likeminded convention and relentlessly restrictive constitution-making. However, it …
Refusing To Be Dispossessed: African American Land Retention In The Us South From Reconstruction To World War Ii, Camille Goldmon
Refusing To Be Dispossessed: African American Land Retention In The Us South From Reconstruction To World War Ii, Camille Goldmon
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
African Americans in the South were tied to the land during slavery and after emancipation. Many felt that land ownership was the key to freedom. For decades, black farmers strove for land ownership, in many cases falling prey to sharecropping and tenancy agreements in the meantime. Despite this drive toward independent farming, however, since 1920, there has been a steady decline in the number of black farm owners. This trend is especially prevalent in the Southern United States. The black farm owners who persevered through periods of economic, social, and political turmoil were able to, for varying reasons, navigate those …