Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy

by Stephen Kantrowitz

Book Overview

Through the life of Benjamin Ryan Tillman (1847-1918), South Carolina's self-styled agrarian rebel, this book traces the history of white male supremacy and its discontents from the era of plantation slavery to the age of Jim Crow.

As an anti-Reconstruction guerrilla, Democratic activist, South Carolina governor, and U.S. senator, Tillman offered a vision of reform that was proudly white supremacist. In the name of white male militance, productivity,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807848395
• ISBN13: 9780807848395
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

marvelous distillation of powerful truths

The reader from Washington says the book is too long, but he wants more personal detail! How would that happen? Fact is, for a major figure in American political history, Tillman has found biographer whose economy of language is commendable; Kantrowitz only uses 309 pages to do a magnificent job of storytelling and analysis. And it is a great read, especially given the deep and subtle insights that Kantrowitz squeezes from this Dixie demogogue's pernicious but important career. And he does so without turning Tillman into a demon, but rather by revealing that the Senator was not so much a tribute but a trickster of the people, and far from being a populist, served the richest and most powerful of his constituents as he poured salt into the worst of the nation's wounds--the scar of white supremacy. This book is eloquent and profound, and could scarely have been better crafted.

Circular History

I'm currently reading "Ben Tillman And The Reconstruction Of White Supremacy" as part of my ongoing effort to understand the failure of Reconstruction. This is an excellent book that, as one of the reviewers has indicated, is more a history of the post-Reconstruction development of white supremacy in the United States than it is of "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, although Tillman's life story may be said to be a perfect illustration of white supremacy. Tillman, as a "Red-Shirt" mob and militia leader, governor, and U.S. Senator,loved to brag of his successful efforts to disenfranchise Afro Americans through fraud, murder, manipulation of the laws and legal processes, usurpation of legitmate governmental authority,campaigns of terror, lies, deceits, and the dividing and conquering of any cooperative, biracial political efforts by playing whites and their fears of "negro domination" against Afro Americans and their interests. But more, Tillman did not limit his attacks to Afro Americans aspiring to realize the full benefits of citizenship: poor, landless, uninfluential whites, supporters and sympathizers for Afro Americans' increased citizenship rights, whites who disagreed with his policies and political rule, Republicans, and the federal government were all his enemies and he attacked all of them with the same duplicitous ferocity. It is all too apparent that the legacy that he left was embraced by racists and segregationists throughout most of this century in their opposition to civil rights activities. For those interested in the "real", too long hidden history of race and race relations in this country, this book is an absolute must for their libraries.In my view, Kantrowitz joins Leon Litwack, Ira Berlin, Eric Foner, W.E.B. DuBois, Frazier, Woodward and the other luminaries of historical writing who worked to provide an accurate, inclusive history of the peoples of the United States of America with this book. "Ben Tillman..." is a book that will fascinate, enrage, infuriate, disgust, amaze, and disturb its readers, especially those who recognize what appear to be parallels between the latter parts of the 19th and 20th centuries and the beginning of the 20th and 21st centuries regarding race and politics. Perhaps history is circular after all. Read the book and decide for yourself.

The Biography of an Idea

Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy by Stephen Kantrowitz is a well written and well researched voyage through an ugly chapter in American history that still reverberates strongly throughout the entire culture. The selection of Ben Tillman as the focus point through which to examine the victory of white supremacy in the South after Reconstruction is brilliant and frighteninly effective. This book is not so much the biography of Ben Tillman but really the biography of white supremacy as a political idea and ideal. This book captures all of the evil idealism, political pragmatism, the unique blend of bomblast and subtlety, and, especially, the terror and violence used by Ben Tillman and his ilk to secure their goals of making the political system of South Carolina all white and all Democrat. It is a wonderful book of an ugly time that is important, unfortunately, to understanding our own time. Well done.

beautiful writing, rich insights, ugly realities

Senator Ben Tillman of South Carolina rose to the heights of power in the United States on a record of racial murder, political demogoguery and aristocratic deceit. His political career, documented here with painstaking research and brilliant prose, did a great deal to mark the world we inhabit. This is a book about the political project of white supremacy, about how rich and powerful white men persuaded poor and angry white men that it was African Americans, not wealthy whites, who constituted the central threat to their families and their fates. "Pitchfork Ben," Kantrowitz proves, was not a populist or a tribune of the common man, but a terrorist, an organizer, a tyrant and a bully. This beautifully-written biography grabbed my attention from the first page and continually surprised me with its revelations about race and American politics. The central figure is a despot and the story is tragic, and yet this wonderful work of history manages to inspire the reader and to remind us of the best possibilities of American democracy. This masterpiece about race and democracy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also speaks to persistent and disturbing realities in the contemporary world. U.S history at its best--a rewarding and absorbing piece of writing.