Race and the Politics of the Exception: Equality, Sovereignty, and American Democracy by Utz McKnight

Author:Utz McKnight [McKnight, Utz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ethnic Studies, History & Theory, American, Social Science, African American & Black Studies, Political Science, Executive Branch, American Government, General
ISBN: 9781134069798
Google: oJ0s4pgvQA8C
Goodreads: 18182151
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

IOLA LEROY: INTRODUCTION

Published in 1893, Iola Leroy, Or, Shadows Uplifted, by Frances Harper, describes the challenges experienced by a young African American woman, Iola Leroy, at the end of the Civil War. The book was a best seller when it was published, and is the first novel by an African American woman to be widely read in the period immediately after the Civil War. The novel describes some of the concerns that the newly freed Blacks had in trying to define a place for themselves in the society, and the energy with which they sought to be included in the efforts of rebuilding society after the war. The book provides a series of discussions on the perception of race and community by Blacks as well as a description of the type of choices available to members of the Black community in the immediate postwar period. It is an important novel for what it tells us about the urgency with which former slaves tried to improve the resources of the community after emancipation.

A light-skinned Black woman, Iola grew up without being aware of her racial history, only to be enslaved when her father died and the truth was revealed. Prior to her enslavement Iola’s education and deportment were those of plantation White society. With the coming of the Civil War, Iola fled to Union lines and stayed with the army instead of fleeing north to her brother. She wanted to try to find her mother, who was sold separately from her, but while waiting for some word she provided assistance as a medical nurse to the wounded. During her time as a nurse, the White doctor Gresham falls in love with Iola. She is the classic American tragic figure of someone who looks White but is Black, as though somehow this fact of possibly being White makes race more difficult to accept or justify than for someone who is darker skinned (Bogle 2001). Harper describes Iola as someone who reflects on race and slavery, and in doing so Harper describes a political subject able to understand the problems that newly freed Blacks experienced, with few resources, little or no education, and uncertain prospects. That Iola has a superb education, has had considerable social resources at her disposal for much of her life, and also has been a slave at the mercy of the master means she can serve as a foil in the novel to discuss the types of choices educated Blacks had in response to the needs of their community, as well as address the desires of Whites to integrate the newly freed Blacks into the society.

The two political narratives about the development of racial politics in the coming Jim Crow period are also present in the novel. These were the idea that White Northerners freed Blacks, and therefore the definition of race as facilitating White community cohesion remained an important justification for Black subordination after slavery, and that the Civil War was a conflict between parts of the White

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