Grappling with the Long‐Term Consequences of Slavery: A Critical Examination of Woodrow Wilson's Efforts to Legitimate Racial Segregation

• Author: Karima A. Jackson
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12793
• Published date: 01 July 2017
• Date: 01 July 2017

624 Public Administration Review • July | August 2017

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 4, pp. 624–626. © 2017 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12793.

Karima A. Jackson is a doctoral

student and Ralph Bunche fellow at Rutgers

University, School of Public Affairs and

Administration (SPAA). Karima is a student

of the movement toward a Constitutional

School for public administration, which finds

its normative base in the principles of the

U.S. Constitution and the rule of law. Her

research interests include the historical and

legal foundations of public administration,

representative bureaucracy, social justice,

and transparency. Karima has a 13-year

career in government service that further

guides her interest in the intersection of

theory and practice.

E-mail: karimaj@rutgers.edu

Eric S. Yellin , Racism in the Nation ’ s Service:

Government Workers and the Color Line in

Woodrow Wilson ’ s America ( Chapel Hill: University of

North Carolina Press , 2013 ). 315 pp. $22.36 (paper),

ISBN: 9781469628387.

T he American presidential election of 2016

will undoubtedly serve as a bookmark in

history for political scientists for decades to

come. Those who slumbered through the electoral

count of November 8, 2016, which went well past

midnight, awoke to share in the surprise that America

had not elected its first female president as most

sophisticated projections offered. Political persuasion

and dogmatic posturing aside, few would debate

that the outcome of the election reshaped the way

America understands presidential politics. However,

political scientists should not be left to grapple with

the understanding of this historic election alone. Less

than 24 hours after America ’ s forty-fifth president

took the inaugural oath to “preserve, protect, and

defend the Constitution of the United States,”

millions had already began gathering around the

world in unprecedented fashion to rebuke the new

administration. Much of this rebuke was a response to

a campaign nestled in the promise to return America

to some indeterminate period of greatness that proved

to unsettle the sensibilities of those who heard echoes

of social, political, economic, and racial division in

the message. Such a consequential election has a

tremendous impact on how government understands

and interprets its role in upholding the democratic-

constitutional values of public institutions.

Safeguarding public institutions from constitutional

violations such as those associated with racism

becomes a fundamental governmental duty.

In his book, Racism in the Nation ’ s Service (2013),

Eric S. Yellin provides a provocative illustration of

how “good government became the special preserve

of white men” (1). Yellin examines the period

following the Civil War, known as the Reconstruction

Era through the late 1920s, with a concentration

on Woodrow Wilson ’ s presidential administration

(1913–21). In remarkably rare and eloquent fashion,

Yellin succeeds at delivering a compelling narrative

of how discrimination against African Americans

permeated government employment. Racism in the

Nation’s Service connects the institutional and racial

exclusion experienced by African American civil

servants to a deliberate effort to undermine their claims

to full citizenship and economic security (4). Yellin

contends that the segregation of federal employment

during Wilson ’ s administration did not merely impact

economic opportunities for African Americans but also

devastated their social and political influences. Yellin

asserts that “federal discrimination was not simply the

establishment of segregation in federal offices by one

Democratic president. Rather, it constituted a dramatic

change in national politics, one that encompassed

bureaucratic rationalization, progressive politics, and

African American disenfranchisement. This history

illustrates how the American state has been complicit in

racism and black poverty” (8).

Yellin lays out his argument in three sections. The

first section labeled, “The Republican Era, 1867,”

provides an intellectual history of African American

political power and the rise in federal employment

before Wilson assumed the presidency. Chapter 1

of the section describes the postbellum flight to

Washington, D.C. for employment opportunities

in a federal government expanded by war. While

racial hostility toward African Americans existed

in the District of Columbia, Yellin aptly notes that

“Washington was not Mississippi” (12). Growing

numbers of well-studied black applicants gained

access to federal employment in the District through

the Pendleton Civil Service Acts of 1883 and 1909,

ushering in a black middle class in Washington that

was prepared to hold America accountable to its

promise of liberty. Yellin asserts that “the politically

savvy, educated, and reasonably well-off black

population in the capital represented the highest

ideal of progress for African-Americans. That they

made their living in government offices placed them

Danny L. Balfour , Editor

Karima A. Jackson

Rutgers University

Grappling with the Long-Term Consequences of Slavery:

A Critical Examination of Woodrow Wilson ’ s Efforts to

Legitimate Racial Segregation