Stealth strategy clearly involved racial sentiments and challenged Southern political tradition; but our estimation is that quiet, practical, biracial leadership reflected, most centrally, the realities of routine, progressive politics in the South. Stealthy white politicians probably did what they did as their situations allowed or required, quite often but not always with race-principled intent; in that process they collectively helped reconstruct and “normalize” a perverted, contorted, regional system of historically institutionalized white supremacy and racial segregation. Our concern in this project thus is to theorize and evidence those actions as a historical development—a matter of race-sensitive politics and progress, not a moral crusade—that mainly helps us understand the past. Deracialization, on the other hand, usually articulates a more defined, structured, race-based strategy of black leaders for advancing black interests in reasonably normalized locales nevertheless beset with racism and racial tensions. Understandably, prescriptive analysis of this practice figures prominently into debate about the present and future course of black politics.
In summary, our stealthy Southern pioneers charted a course that sets them apart from both the “heroes” and “villains” of the past and the more recent “deracializing leaders.” Stealth leaders fundamentally challenged their own society and cultural traditions in those volatile times; yet their discrete and discreet actions, by design, would limit their careers and shade their role in history. We thus acknowledge the deracialization literature but declare that stealth politics is a very different, interesting, unexplored phenomenon that deserves scholarly attention.
Readers should also take note that in this unusual, exploratory project, the authors’ collaborative endeavor results in a mixed writing style. Generally, we present our analysis in plural, first-person manner (“we” and “our”). However, the Case Study in chapters four, five and six is narrated in first person (“I” and “my”) by coauthor Glen Browder), from the perspective of his own political experience in Alabama and Washington; and the Biracial Roundtable discussion in chapter eight is moderated in similar first-person style by Artemesia Stanberry. We debated about employing this stylistic shift, but in the end we felt that the personalization would add richness and clarity to those four chapters of the manuscript.
Also, since much of the material presented in this manuscript is based on our experience as participant-observers, analysis and comments deriving from these twin perspectives are enmeshed in the text. Therefore, many such statements (including factual observations and personal remarks, whether directly or indirectly quoted) are not endnoted; this book serves as the original source of the material. Otherwise, standard endnoting procedures have been used.
We rely extensively in this manuscript on material from the Browder Collection, consisting of several hundred boxes of documents that have been processed for public access at Jacksonville State University (see Analytic Guidebook for the Browder Collection). This material can be accessed within broader context in the Browder Collection at JSU.
Besides the original and endnoted material mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, this manuscript shares limited excerptions, slight revisions, factual presentations, and political observations with three other sources. First, some background material, particularly in the Browder case study, derives from Browder’s The Future of American Democracy (University Press of America, 2003). Secondly, some sections draw from Browder’s The South’s New Racial Politics (NewSouth Books, 2009) and Professor-Politician by Geni Certain with Glen Browder (forthcoming from NewSouth Books, 2010). All three of these books share certain material through mutual permissions. We are grateful to Ms. Certain, NewSouth Books, and University Press of America for the use of this material.
Numerous individuals contributed to this project, some in personal interviews, but most through telephone, email, and/or written communications. In some situations, their remarks have been edited for concision and clarity without affecting their substance. Among those interviewed and cited are the following:
| Bill Alexander | Michael Andrews |
| Richard Arrington | Jess Brown |
| Kelvin Cunningham | Artur Davis |
| Butler Derrick | Marti Thomas Doneghy |
| James A. Dunn | Jim Folsom Jr. |
| Martin Frost | Fred Gray |
| Jerome Gray | Mike House |
| Paul Hubbert | Gerald Johnson |
| Martin Lancaster | L.F. Payne |
| Pete Peterson | Owen Pickett |
| Steve Raby | Joe Reed |
| Roy Rowland | Robin Tallon |
| Lindsay Thomas | George C. Wallace Jr. |
| Carol Zippert |
We are very grateful to countless people who have assisted us in this project, including families, friends, and colleagues. Also, this work could not have been done without the kind support of Jacksonville State University, North Carolina Central University, and Prairie View A&M University. NewSouth Books is truly a Southern treasure, producing “regional books of national interest”—thanks Suzanne La Rosa, Randall Williams, Brian Seidman and all the staff. And, finally, thanks to many others too numerous to cite individually. Of course, any deficiencies or flaws in this book are our own; and we welcome comments and suggestions for future research.
America today speaks in clear, strong voice and reverent tone about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, the Freedom Riders, and other heroes of the civil rights revolution that rocked the South a half-century ago. Most citizens, when reflecting on the turbulent 1950s and 1960s, proudly cite Brown v. Board of Education as the legal and moral death knell for segregated schools. Some emotionally quote the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act promoting equality in Southern society and elections. A few have actually read “Letter from Birmingham Jail” or have sung “We Shall Overcome.”
Also seared into contemporary America’s collective conscience and consciousness is the memory of the South’s massive resistance to that revolution. Images of Southern white racism are still vivid and often brutal: George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door, Bull Connor and his police dogs, ugly crowds at Little Rock, the Birmingham bombings, the Orangeburg Massacre, and Bloody Sunday.
However, America seems to have little sense of how that public struggle among heroes and villains during the 1950s and 1960s actually played into Southern politics during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The trauma of the mid-century civil rights movement has so dominated American public thinking and discourse that subsequent developments pale in comparison with emotional, time-frozen, black-and-white images from the earlier period. Furthermore and ironically, as recent presidential politics has demonstrated, historical sensitivities still constrict our ability to address the continuing racial dilemma in twenty-first century America.
Thus, few people understand that some leaders and activists quietly and biracially translated dramatic confrontation into the relative normalcy of a new political order in the post-movement South. There’s little evidence in the public record attesting to this phenomenon, and knowledgeable participants have held their silence since those early days. In this book, we document this untold story of Southern politics and history.
The Movement: A Common Vision of Heroic Racial Drama
Over the past half century, our national news institutions, journalists, academicians, activists,