Populism in the South Revisited

A survey of the full impact of the populist movement across the south With essays by Omar H. Ali, James M. Beeby, Matthew Hild, Michael Pierce, Lewie Reece, Alicia E. Rodriquez, Jarod Roll, David Silkenat, and Joel Sipress The Populist movement was the largest mass movement for political and economic change in the history of the American South until the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The Populist movement in this book is defined as the Farmers' Alliance and the People's Party, as well as the Agricultural Wheel and Knights of Labor in the 1880s and 1890s. The Populists threatened the political hegemony of the white racist southern Democratic Party during Populism's high point in the mid-1890s and threw the New South into turmoil. Populism in the South Revisited: New Interpretations and New Departures brings together nine of the best new works on the Populist movement in the South. One essay analyzes how notions of debt informed the Populist insurgency in North Carolina, the one state where the Populists achieved statewide power, while another analyzes the Populists' failed attempts in Grant Parish, Louisiana, to align with African Americans and Republicans to topple the incumbent Democrats. Other topics include grassroots organizing with African Americans to stop disfranchisement in North Carolina; the Knights of Labor and its relationship with Populism in Georgia; urban Populism in Dallas, Texas; Tom Watson's connection with Midwest Populism; the centrality of African Americans in Populism; a comparative analysis of Populism across the Deep South; and how the rhetoric and ideology of Populism impacted socialism and the Garvey movement in the early twentieth century. Together these studies offer new insights into the nature of southern Populism and the legacy of the People's Party in the South. James M. Beeby, Louisville, Kentucky, is an associate professor of history and coordinator of the history program at Indiana University Southeast in Albany, Indiana. he is the author of Revolt of the Tar Heels: The North Carolina Populist Movement, 1890-1901, also published by University Press of Mississippi.