When historians praise South Carolina’s 1868 Constitution as one of the most progressive documents in American history, they rarely mention how America’s first (and still the only) majority-Black constitutional delegation came to be.
A “Black wave.”
After the War for White Supremacy, Congress required the states that committed treason to rewrite their constitutions before being admitted back into the Union. Angered by the prospect of Black equality and political power, South Carolina’s Confederate white caucus came up with the dumbest protest idea in the history of the world:
What happens if white people refuse to vote?
In all fairness, the idea had some merit. States can’t just rewrite a constitution whenever they feel like it. Holding a constitutional convention requires the consent of a majority of a state’s citizens. South Carolina didn’t just need a majority of voters to approve the convention; it needed approval from a majority of everyone registered to vote. And by withholding their vote, white people could prevent Black people from gaining equal rights.
Unfortunately, the diabolical people who came up with this diabolically genius level of caucasity forgot one thing.
South Carolina was majority Black.
“The Democrats, or Conservatives, as they preferred to call themselves, attempted to defeat the proposed constitutional convention of 1868 by remaining away from the polls,” wrote historian R.H. Woody. “The ballots were cast on November 19 and 20, 1867. Of the 125,828 registered voters, only 2,211 votes were cast by whites, and of these only 130 favored the convention.”
That’s how the Black people of South Carolina created the “first free, compulsory, statewide public school system in America.” It’s how they expanded suffrage beyond white men. It’s why South Carolina’s constitution was the first to guarantee women the right to represent themselves in court, divorce and exist as legal entities. It’s how the first constitutionally guaranteed education system for the disabled came to be.
But it is also why white people got mad.
“The year which begins today will bring opportunity to hurl these pestilent knaves from Power,” the Charleston Daily News declared on Jan. 1, 1870. “And, once the campaign is opened, no exertion must be spared to win the fight. If, as we hope, the next twelve months shall rid us of the pack of hungry and unprincipled adventurers who are now lording over our State, then indeed, will 1870 be known in the annals of South Carolina as the Year of the Happy Deliverance.”
Let the violence begin.
I’d bet that many people who read that Constitution of 1868 assumed that they had finally achieved equality and political power. While the Constitution of 1868 was a monumental achievement, it was the beginning of a war to reinstate white supremacy that we are still fighting today.
After the South was redeemed, Black candidates were swept out of Congress. Voting rights were stripped away. The “Conservatives” who opposed Black equality eventually joined the Republican Party. In 1980, they elected Ronald Reagan, a not-so-smart, celebrity-turned-president who hated Black people. In 1984, Reagan won by the biggest margin in presidential election history.
Then, another blue wave happened.
“Thirty years ago, in the bayous of Louisiana and the cotton fields of Mississippi and other Southern states, it was unthinkable that a black would run for a seat in Congress - never mind stand a chance of winning,” the New York Times reported before the 1986 midterms. “Today, black candidates in Louisiana, Mississippi and several other states are running strong in contests for an assortment of political offices. Moreover, black voters are being courted as never before by Republicans as well as Democrats. History has shown that blacks turn out heavily when there are black candidates.”
When Mississippi sent Mike Espy to Congress in 1986, it was the state’s first Black congressman since Reconstruction. Black voters pushed Democratic candidates to victories in historically conservative strongholds like Louisiana, Alabama and Texas. With control of the House and Senate, the Democrats prepared for another blue wave instead of holding Reagan accountable for his anti-Black, authoritarian actions.
They figured anyone could beat George H.W. Bush. But when Black voters suggested Jesse Jackson, white Democratic voters chose the more moderate Michael Dukakis.
How’d that turn out?
Perhaps the biggest victory of the 1986 blue wave happened in Georgia, where Democrat Joe Frank Harris beat his Republican opponent by a whopping 41 points, partly because of Black voters. Since then, no statewide candidate in Georgia has won more Black voters and every single one of the state’s majority-Black counties.
Keisha Lance Bottoms just did it.
Today’s Reading List
We Are the Architects Now by LaTosha Brown
The Re-Redemption of America by Michael Harriot
Even Where MAGA Won, MAGA Lost, by Adam Serwer
The Midterms and What It All Means by Tiffany Cross and Michael Harriot
Thank you, PJ Schuster, Dr Bhembe's Newsletter, RLM, Chloe, Fat News Daily 📰, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.
