Enterprising Southerners: Black Economic Success in North Carolina, 1865-1915Most historians agree that only a small share of southern blacks experienced economic gains in the fifty years following the Civil War. Little attention has been focused, however, on the minority who successfully acquired property and conducted business during this time. In Enterprising Southerners, Robert C. Kenzer examines the characteristics of North Carolina's African-American population in order to explain the social and political factors that shaped economic opportunity for this group from the Civil War until 1915. What is surprising, Kenzer asserts, is that his research does not support lingering theories that the "heritage of slavery" adversely affected blacks' performance in the market economy. Instead, he blames economic barriers to development, such as lack of capital and poorly developed markets. This study not only provides a valuable history of one state's black population, but also paves the way for similar scholarship in other southern states. |
Contents
Black Landownership 9 | 9 |
The Black Business Community | 35 |
Collective Efforts toward Enterprise | 67 |
The Politics of Enterprise | 86 |
Family Marriage and Education | 107 |
Common terms and phrases
5-County Sample acreage acres African-American Alamance through Yancey antebellum average and median Average Median Biddle black business community black businessmen black landowners blacks and mulattoes Brigham Young Univer Carolina African Americans Civil War Williams coastal plain county seat Craven County credit ratings Credit-Rated Black Firms Durham economic success Edgecombe County elected Estate Value Value example farm farmers free black population freedmen freedmen in 1860 gain graduates Granville County households headed John John Hope Franklin Johnston County Lee Library legislature livery firms Manuscript Census Masonic Mebane Median Value mercantile Negro North Carolina blacks North Carolina vol noted number of black occupations overwhelmingly rural owner Ownership by North patronage percent percentage of blacks piedmont political Provo R. G. Dun Raleigh real estate real estate valued Real-Estate Ownership resided Shaw University slave statewide tax lists trar of deeds types of firms Warren County Warrenton white county Wilmington Yancey Counties