Hi, OP! I am a political science and public policy student with an emphasis on the southern US. I just wrote a paper on this from a political perspective, but the McKee and Dawson books in the sources are great reading material that can help you better understand the social aspects. I can also answer additional questions you may have as a follow up, although it may take a few days for me respond as I’m in the middle of finals.
The African American political experience is primarily a collective experience derived from centuries of legal, institutional, and social obstacles. Although the arc of the moral universe is long and bends towards justice, the time we have on this earth is far less than what is needed to see social progress and true equality. Resultantly millions of individuals throughout our nation’s history have come together as best they can and as often as they can, so that they can do their part to safeguard a collective future.
The African American experience is closely intertwined with, and has been directly impacted by, the notion of American federalism. Until the early 20th century, federalism in the United States was dualistic in nature, with state governments able to exercise their powers with varying degrees of freedom from federal oversight. Resultantly, the lines between the federal and state governments were clear. The federal government exercised its powers with regards to national policy, such as defense and commerce, while state governments were able to exercise much more power over their respective citizens (Kraft, 2018). This system allowed states to operate as semi-independent political actors, allowing for vast disparities within the country, particularly between slave-owning states and states that had abolished slavery. Dual federalism wavered at times, gradually becoming watered down into the cooperative federal system we know today, particularly during times of crisis.
During the Civil War, President Lincoln was able to exercise an unprecedented degree of authority when taking steps to preserve the Union. Likewise, the veto-proof Radical Republican majority that controlled Congress following the Civil War was able to push through the Reconstruction Amendments- a first step in the path towards federally-guaranteed civil rights for African Americans. However, political bargaining following the disputed1876 presidential election led to the collapse of Republican governments in the South and the reformation of socially conservative white rule that would become synonymous with the Redeemers and the Jim Crow era. Congressional Republicans were thus unable to guarantee federal rights for southern African Americans in the face of strong domestic opposition, allowing federalism to pendulate back towards a weaker national government and strong state governments (Peshkin, 1973).
There is an old joke about Russian history that seems particularly apt for the next period of history in the American South- an historical fact is stated, followed by the phrase “And then things got worse”; further facts are added, followed by further iterations of the aforementioned phrase, until the point is made that things did indeed get worse. Following the end of Reconstruction, empowered white southerners set about undoing the social progress Radical Republicans had made by steadily and systemically encroaching upon the civil liberties of freed men and women and then things got worse. As Civil War federalism crumbled, dual federalism re-emerged, strengthened by court opinions sympathetic to states’ rights. Within 30 years African Americans had been relegated to second-class citizenship under Jim Crow, an institution that would be actively enforced until the 1960s.
The Great Depression of the 1930s was instrumental in swinging the pendulum back towards a powerful national government that was able to better safeguard the rights of African Americans. States ceded power and oversight to the federal government in exchange for desperately needed aid. This oversight blurred the previously distinct lines of power between the federal and state governments, creating the cooperative federal system seen in America today. Furthermore, the acceptance of federal aid allowed President Roosevelt and his Congressional coalition to begin the slow dismantlement of Jim Crow by allowing blacks access to some, though not all, of the aid being distributed. This precedent would increase the ability of the federal government to mandate the reimplementation of civil and voting rights for African Americans over the coming decades (McKee, 2018). Of particular importance during the New Deal and Civil Rights eras was the Commerce Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, allowing the federal government to regulate interstate commerce. The interpretation that Congress had the authority to regulate private businesses based on the clause formed part of the legal basis for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in public accomodations, as well as in schools and places of employment. This interpretation would be affirmed as constitutional by the Supreme Court in the case Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States in late 1964, as well as many successive cases.
13th is a reasonably concise and comprehensive documentary that covers this topic in a nuanced manner. I would highly recommend it as it’s easily digestible for people who are new to the topic. I believe it is available on Netflix (although that might be dependent on your location)
I’m an American Studies graduate student and just wrote a paper on Ta-Nehisi Coates. I highly recommend two of his books: Between the World and Me as well as We Were Eight Years in Power. The latter is a collection of Coates’ essays from The Atlantic about systematic/ institutional racism against African Americans. I just wrote a 25 page paper on this topic and these books were immensely helpful.
Hi there anyone interested in recommending things to OP! While you might have a title to share, this is still a thread on /r/AskHistorians, and we still want the replies here to be to an /r/AskHistorians standard - presumably OP would have asked at /r/history or /r/askreddit if they wanted non-specialist opinion. So give us some indication why the thing you're recommending is valuable, trustworthy, or applicable! Posts that provide no context for why you're recommending a particular podcast/book/novel/documentary/etc, and which aren't backed up by a historian-level knowledge on the accuracy and stance of the piece, will be removed.