Newly Discovered Voices from America's Most Turbulent Time: Black and White Oral Voting in the First Enfranchisement

FAIN: RZ-249985-16

University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA 22903-4833)
Donald A. DeBats (Project Director: December 2015 to August 2020)
Susan Holbrook Perdue (Project Director: August 2020 to May 2022)

Completion of an online database and digital resource, as well as research and writing of journal articles and book chapters, related to voting records and social networks in two Kentucky counties during the late 19th-century.

This project investigates individual voting behaviors, black and white, following the Civil War and black male enfranchisement. Two Kentucky counties with large African-American populations and contrasting economies and historical information are the focus. Only Kentucky continued oral or viva voce voting after black enfranchisement, creating in poll books a treasure trove of never before used individual political data. The project focuses on the context in which voting occurred, linking census, tax, and membership records (religious affiliation as possible) for all residents. One county is mapped at the individual level. The project follows black and white voters across multiple elections, revealing the political effects of network and neighborhood. Now we can understand why black voting continued, or did not, and appreciate both political courage and cross-racial alliances in which blacks and whites, fierce partisan opponents, cooperated in selecting local judicial and law-enforcement officials.

Associated Products

FirstVote (Web Resource)
Title: FirstVote
Author: Donald A. DeBats
Abstract: First Vote presents two case studies of the intersection of race and politics at an inflection point in American history: the arrival of African American voting following the ratification of the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution. The discovery of official polls books that preserve the votes of newly enfranchised African Americans and their white neighbors in two Kentucky counties—Garrard and Todd—enable us to follow black and white voters across multiple elections during the Reconstruction era. It reveals the political effects of network and neighborhood and shows where and how individual African Americans voted. It is a story of both political courage and cross-racial alliances, in which black men and white men in joined forces to create a new political majority in one case and, in the other case study, failed to do so.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: http://firstvote.iath.virginia.edu/

“Black and White Oral Voting in the First Enfranchisement: The 15th Amendment a Failure? Some New Evidence. (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “Black and White Oral Voting in the First Enfranchisement: The 15th Amendment a Failure? Some New Evidence.
Author: Donald A. DeBats
Abstract: The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified February 3, 1870, gave African American men in America the right to vote. It was the third and last of the Reconstruction amendments. While women’s suffrage took another fifty years, the arrival of African American men at the polls promised a dramatic change in politics and society. Historians have long wrestled with the question of whether the amendment was a success or a failure. In this talk, Don Debats explores newly discovered electoral records that enhance our understanding of an amendment many called, “the greatest gain of the Civil War.”
Date: 2020-02-04
Primary URL: http://virginiahumanities.org/2020/02/the-15th-amendment-a-failure/
Primary URL Description: Video version of the talk hosted by Virginia Humanities
Conference Name: Virginia Humanities Fellowship

“The Arrival of Black Voting: A Political Revolution:” (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “The Arrival of Black Voting: A Political Revolution:”
Author: Morgan Tompkins
Author: Donald A. DeBats
Author: Sarah Johns
Abstract: Special webinar with three experts on the history of early voting.
Date: 2020-04-24
Primary URL: http://virginiahumanities.org/2020/04/the-arrival-of-black-voting-webinar/
Conference Name: Virginia Humanities Fellowship

“Southern Voting in Postbellum America: An Archives Tale” (Article)
Title: “Southern Voting in Postbellum America: An Archives Tale”
Author: Donald A. DeBats
Author: Cara Griggs
Author: Sarah John
Abstract: Archival records from Virginia and Kentucky can reveal much about those first votes of African American men in the postbellum South and help us to understand why their political participation in Virginia and Kentucky, like the rest of the South, dropped precipitously by the turn of the century and whether or not the Fifteenth Amendment was truly another false promise that, by 1900, left a New South standing on black disenfranchisement
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://marac.memberclicks.net/assets/maa/maracfall2020.pdf
Access Model: Open access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Mid-Atlantic Archivist
Publisher: Mid-Atlantic Archivist

“African American Voting in Kentucky and Virginia, 1867-1902” (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: “African American Voting in Kentucky and Virginia, 1867-1902”
Author: Debats, Don
Author: Grigg, Cara
Author: John, Sarah
Abstract: In 1867, African American men voted for the first time in Virginia. In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment enfranchised African American men across the United States, including in Kentucky. Poll books, which document those who voted in late nineteenth and early twentieth century elections, can be used to address questions ranging from voting methods to the early impacts of the Fifteenth Amendment. Cara Griggs will discuss how she uses these records to teach about resources that are useful for researching African Americans in Virginia in the decades following the Civil War. Don DeBats and Sarah John will show that, when matched with other records, poll books reveal high levels of Black political participation into the 1890s, directly challenging the idea of the Fifteenth Amendment’s failure.
Date Range: 04/13/21
Location: Mid Atlantic Regional Conference, Harrisonburg, Virginia

The Routledge Handbook of Spatial History (Book)
Title: The Routledge Handbook of Spatial History
Author: Gregory, Ian
Author: Debats, Don
Author: Lafreniere, Don
Abstract: The Routledge Companion to Spatial History explores the full range of ways in which GIS can be used to study the past, considering key questions such as what types of new knowledge can be developed solely as a consequence of using GIS and how effective GIS can be for different types of research.
Year: 2018
Publisher: New York: Routledge, Taylor, and Francis
Type: Edited Volume
ISBN: 9780367735371
Copy sent to NEH?: No

---