The Retreats of Reconstruction: Race, Leisure, and the Politics of Segregation at the New Jersey Shore, 1865-1920 (Reconstructing America)

This study examines how the history of de facto segregation at the New Jersey shore—as both a policy and an idea—was connected to competing ideas about the rights of consumers and the economic and environmental health of consumer districts. Weaving together histories of race, leisure, and consumption, this book argues that the various consumer ideologies that emerged in battles over segregation proved every bit as powerful in limiting the scope of civil rights activism as free labor ideology and white supremacy did. While African Americans used the claim of consumer rights and public health to contest Jim Crow, defend black-owned leisure districts, and push for environmental protections, white northerners ultimately blocked claims to integrated leisure by adopting a producer driven vision of mass consumption that separated the right to consume from the right to integration. Beginning in the 1890s, local business leaders justified segregated leisure by disguising talk of race with a capitalist vocabulary of consumer choice, commercial development, and greater prosperity. Likewise, the African-American business class increasingly adopted the position that protecting their right to consume and securing environmental protections in black-owned leisure spaces was more important than fighting for integrated leisure. By the 1920s, these decisions helped popularize the political culture of “separate but equal” and drove civil rights activists away from strategies of protest and confrontation to those that favored political compromise and economic self-defense. Beginning in the 1880s, the economic realities and class dynamics of popular northern resort towns unsettled prevailing assumptions about political economy and threatened segregationist practices. Exploiting early class divisions, black working-class activists staged a series of successful protests that helped make northern leisure spaces a critical battleground in a larger debate about racial equality. While some scholars emphasize the triumph of black consumer activism with defeating segregation, Goldberg argues that the various consumer ideologies that first surfaced in northern leisure spaces during the Reconstruction era contained desegregation efforts and prolonged Jim Crow. Combining intellectual, social, and cultural history, The Retreats of Reconstruction examines how these decisions helped popularize the doctrine of "separate but equal" and explains why the politics of consumption is critical to understanding the "long civil rights movement." Beginning in the 1880s, the economic realities and class dynamics of popular northern resort towns unsettled prevailing assumptions about political economy and threatened segregationist practices. Exploiting early class divisions, black working-class activists staged a series of successful protests that helped make northern leisure spaces a critical battleground in a larger debate about racial equality. While some scholars emphasise the triumph of black consumer activism with defeating segregation, Goldberg argues that the various consumer ideologies that first surfaced in northern leisure spaces during the Reconstruction era contained desegregation efforts and prolonged Jim Crow Cover Half-title Title Copyright Contents Introduction 1. Reconstructing Jim Crow 2. Occupying Jim Crow 3. Marketing and Managing Jim Crow 4. Boycotting Jim Crow 5. Cleaning Up Jim Crow Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y This book examines how de facto segregation unfolded and operated at the New Jersey shore after the Civil War. Weaving together histories of race, leisure, and consumption, it argues that the politics of mass consumption contained early desegregation efforts and prolonged Jim Crow. Reconstructing Jim Crow -- Occupying Jim Crow -- Marketing And Managing Jim Crow -- Boycotting Jim Crow -- Cleaning Up Jim Crow. David E. Goldberg. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.