ipl-logo

Summary Of The Radical Abolitionist And Populist Movement

1318 Words6 Pages

The Radical Abolitionist and Populist Movements: The Superficiality of Interracial Coalitions Despite the decades separating the Radical Abolitionist and Populist movements, these political crusades share vital characteristics and shortcomings, the most significant being the superficial nature of their supposed “interracial” coalitions, at least on the part of white members, which ultimately led to each movement’s defeat. This superficial interraciality is most evident in the movements’ basic goals and histories as illustrated by John Stauffer in The Black Hearts of Men, Lawrence Goodwyn in “Populist Dreams and Negro Rights,” and Charles Postel in The Populist Vision. The striking similarities between the superficial interracial coalition …show more content…

John’s visit caused him to sympathize with the boys of Monkeyville, which turned him into a liar, thief, and murderer.6 This story is a clear allegory for Smith’s own racial alliance with black Americans, with Smith being John, and the boys of ‘Monkeyville,’ being a thinly veiled allusion to the black community, through the racist epithet ‘monkeys’. This story suggests that Smith had long held racist sentiments and doubted his involvement in the interracial coalition, but maintained a superficial interraciality in order to achieve his religious goals and due to his role as the most prominent member of the Radical Abolitionist …show more content…

Even the source of Smith’s change of heart suggests that his involvement in the interracial coalition was a veil hiding ulterior white motives. Smith was not upset because he realized the an interracial utopia was no longer achievable, he was disheartened because all his work with the Radical Abolitionists to bring about the millennium through the abolition of the original sin, slavery, was inconsequential.8 It was his religious beliefs, primarily the abandonment of millennialism, sacred sovereignty, and bible politics, that altered his racial politics, and rendered interraciality, as a means to a religious end, unnecessary, because he no longer believed in the possibility of that religious end, in this case, the generation of the Christian millennium and a heavenly

Open Document