In the South after the Civil War, the reassertion of white supremacy tended to pit white against black. In the West, by contrast, a radically different drama emerged, particularly in multiracial, multiethnic California. State elections in California to ratify Reconstruction-era amendments to the U.S. Constitution raised the question of whether extending suffrage to black Californians might also lead to the political participation of thousands of Chinese immigrants.
As historian D. Michael Bottoms shows in "An Aristocracy of Color," many white Californians saw in this and other...
In the South after the Civil War, the reassertion of white supremacy tended to pit white against black. In the West, by contrast, a radically diffe...
