The Populist Movement: A Comparative Analysis

Despite the decades separating the Radical Abolitionist and Populist movements, these political crusades share vital characteristics and shortcomings, the most significant being the superficial nature of their supposed “interracial” coalitions, at least on the part of white members, which ultimately led to each movement’s defeat. This superficial interraciality is most evident in the movements’ basic goals and and histories as depicted by John Stauffer in The Black Hearts of Men, Lawrence Goodwyn in “Populist Dreams and Negro Rights,” and Charles Postel in The Populist Vision. The striking similarities between the superficial interracial coalition of each movements, suggests not only an evident stasis, but, arguably, a regression, of interracial politics throughout the second half of the nineteenth century.
Stauffer’s Black Hearts of Men historicizes and contextualizes the Radical Abolitionist movement through the interracial alliance between Gerritt …show more content…
Stauffer presents him as a benevolent man who was a major driving force in the movement due to his social status and political and economic power. He is remembered for his writings, often published under the guise of a black man, and for creating North Elba, also known as Timbucto, a northern city for freed persons, established to help them gain suffrage, social and economic power, and the ability to rise to the conditions of whites.4 However, generous and racially progressive his publicized actions, there existed a subconscious racism within him throughout the movement, which alongside his abrupt abandonment of the movement after the Raid on Harper’s Ferry, suggest that his racial politics were largely a