16/21 The effect of the abstention policy upon the personnel of the conventions was unfortunate. In every convention there was a radical majority with a conservative and all but negligible minority. In South Carolina and Louisiana, there were Negro majorities. In every State except North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, the Negroes and the carpetbaggers together were in the majority over native whites. In Alabama, for example, only two Negro members could write, though half had been taught to sign their names. |