THE POST-RECONSTRUCTION YEARS

and the activities of blacks during the time have been somewhat neglected by historians. Thus many have the impression that disaffection with Republicanism, disappointment at the loss of political power and harsh treatment by white Democrats made blacks lapse into passivity after the inauguration of Rutherford B. Hayes. The fact is that this was one of the most active periods in black history. Blacks, both South and North, frequently and seriously challenged the nation's new political and economic priorities, and the Republican party was subject to particularly severe questioning. Numerous black organizations were formed and one proposal after another was made for redress of wrongs. Actions ranged from Chicago newspaper editor (The Conservator] Ferdinand Lee Barnett's 1878 demand that the word Negro no longer be spelled with a small n—"This breach of orthography is the white man's mark of disrespect," he said, ". . . [so] spell it with a capital!"—to the antilynching crusade of Barnett's wife, Ida B. Wells, who was forcibly driven out of Memphis because of her outspokenness. From black individuals, from black organizations and conventions, from black newspapers, etc. came various schemes for migration and emigration, plans for schools of all kinds, suggestions for the forming of labor unions, strategies for dealing with terror