Review: The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina 1894–1901 by Helen Edmonds
By: Raymond Williams
Tags: History, Book Recommendations, North Carolina, Nonfiction, Book Review

“The years between 1891 and 1899 were fitful years in the history of North Carolina.” -Helen Edmonds

I first became aware of this book in 2019 when I read an advanced copy of David Zucchino’s book Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy. Zucchino referenced that Edmonds wrote the first book that gave a more truthful account of the 1898 Wilmington Coup. Edmonds’s 1951 book is about more than the coup, it is a story of coalitional politics and its backlash. It covers the Fusion era which was a short period of time between 1895–1901 when the Republican and Populist parties united and gain controlled of the state government. African Americans who were a constituency of the Republican party also gained political power.

Helen Edmonds

Edmonds’s book picks up when NC’s Reconstruction ends in 1876. The Democrats controlled state politics from 1877–1894, their election policies and voter suppression kept them in control. The Democrats were the “white man’s party”, especially when Blacks became more active in the Republican party. 1894 was when a major change occurred, the Fusion ticket of Republicans and Populist gained control of the General Assembly. As a result they were able to pass a new election law which essentially made it easier for Blacks, who were disenfranchised in the Democratic regime, to vote. Additionally, Black Republican leaders gained seats in the federal, state, and local governments. This effort continued when the Fusion ticket won reelection in 1896. The Fusion coalition was tenuous at best, there was not much coordination between the parties, with the exception of nominating the same people for state office. The biggest difference between the two parties was that the Populist party was not a big fan of Blacks being active in politics.

“There is no term more calculated to strike terror to the hearts of Southern whites than the expression ‘Negro domination’”. -Helen Edmonds

One of the central Democratic White supremacist claims during this period was that the 1890s was a time of “Negro Domination”. “Negro Domination” essentially meant that Blacks were taking over the government at all levels (federal, state, and local). In four chapters, Edmonds chronicles the Black officials who held office during this period. She tells their names, positions, and some of their accomplishments and challenges. In the end she comes to the strong conclusion that there was no Negro Domination when you examined the ratio of Black officials to their White counterparts. She even goes on to say that the number of Black officials do not come close to the proportion of Blacks that lived in the state. “Negro domination” was a fear tactic, plain and simple, of a “slowly” changing society. Edmonds makes it plain when she states, “It was never so much a question of the number of positions, for that was negligible in terms of the Negro ratio in population, nor of the quality of positions since few held positions of importance, but it was a question of a Negro being in an office and the whites seeing him in that office” (132).

The stats did not matter to the White supremacists, they wanted their power back. So in 1898 they campaigned on “Negro Domination” and promised to end the political rights of Blacks. They used the press to publish racist cartoons, pictures, and articles to turn Whites against Blacks. Groups like the Red Shirts came into the state, threatening political violence, which ultimately led to the Wilmington Coup. The White Supremacist campaign of 1898 worked and the Democrats regained controlled of the state, overturning Fusion laws and enacting new segregation laws in the state. Edmonds coverage of the different segregation bills was very interesting. Central to the White Supremacist legacy was the passage of a constitutional amendment that disenfranchised Black voters and some poor White voters by instituting a grandfather clause and literacy test in order to vote. The remainder of the book covers the campaign of 1900 which was about the passage of the constitutional amendment.

Edmonds’s book is a great political history of Fusion in NC which was a rarity in Southern Politics. The Fusion era in NC was brief and it ushered in some reform to the state’s political and economic system. I found that the political playbook during some of the campaigns reminded me of how racial politics is played today. Voter suppression and racial grievance was an aspect of the 1890s as it still is today, the only difference is that its less explicitly racist and the mediums of the campaigning have changed.

Overall, Edmonds’s writing is super clear and lucid, not dry at all in my opinion especially since this book is an academic text. The stories she tell, which occurred 50 years before the book was published, read as if they happened only a few years ago. In her coverage of the elections, Edmonds writes like a modern day political data reporter especially when she discusses demographic changes across elections. Fans of NC political history will enjoy this study.