The role of race in the failure of southern Populism

¶ … Race in the Failure of Southern Populism:

In the late nineteenth century, the price of cotton increasingly fell in the southern part of America (Shaw par, 2). The excessive railroad freight rates increased the misery of farmers with the farmers (both white and black) desperately seeking relief. Across this southern region, an agricultural society known as the Farmers' Alliance arose and enrolled more than 100,000 members. The Alliance advocated for the expansion of money supply by the government through the printing of more money and coining more silver. The Farmers' Alliance also argued that the American political and economic systems were prepared to serve the interests of the rich. They also campaigned for the direct election of the United States senators, banking reform and government possession of railroads. The Alliance argued for the sub-treasury plan in which farmers at harvest could borrow money against the value of the crops stored up in government warehouses while waiting for improvement of prices.

However, opponents of the Alliance criticized such proposals arguing that they would encourage governmental paternalism and destabilize free enterprise. The more reform-minded members of the Alliance formed the People's Party commonly known as the Populist Party as neither the Democrats nor the Republicans would adopt their demands. Populism engrossed followers in all of the southern states, particularly Georgia and tended to thrive in regions allied to the Democratic Party. In Georgia, the arrival of this Populist Party shook the politics of this region. Under Thomas E. Watson, the Populist Party mainly appealed to white farmers who had been bankrupt by debt and the low cotton prices in the 1880s and 1890s. The Populist Party unswervingly challenged the supremacy of the Democratic Party while threatening to divide the white vote in Georgia. Actually, the Populists courageously tried to win black Republicans to their cause something that outraged Democrats.

Though for some short time, the southern populist movement of the 1890s forged for a general cause between poor whites and blacks at a time when many were made to believe that the South was celebrating its re-enslaving of the freedmen. Contrary to being the most fanatic racists in the world, the depressed and deprived lower class of Southern whites were the pioneers of the populist movement. However, the movement and the racial bridge eventually failed leading to the notion that Southerners are historically incompetent of realizing racial harmony without the intervention of the Northerners.