{"product_id":"a-carpetbagger-in-reverse-arthur-w-mitchell-americas-first-black-democratic-congressman-9780817361754","title":"A Carpetbagger in Reverse: Arthur W. Mitchell, America's First Black Democratic Congressman","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eA long overdue account of the pioneering life and work of controversial African American Congressman Arthur Wergs Mitchell of Chicago\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Carpetbagger in Reverse\u003c\/i\u003e offers a landmark reassessment of the life, career, and accomplishments of groundbreaking Congressman Arthur W. Mitchell, the first Black Democrat elected to Congress and the only Black member of Congress during his four terms of service from 1935 to 1943. \u003cp\u003e Born to former enslaved people in Alabama in 1883, Mitchell studied with Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute and later moved to Washington DC and became a lawyer. He continued his career in Chicago, where the Great Migration had helped transform the city's South Side into a vibrant, multiracial enclave. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e As a congressman, Mitchell helped to create an enduring alliance between Black Americans and the Democratic party. Seeing his primary role as representing the South's disempowered Black population, his belief that solutions to the region's racial problems should arise from a new cadre of locally trained leaders brought him into frequent, vituperative conflict with the NAACP, the Republican Party, and the Black press. The first Black lawyer to argue successfully before the Supreme Court, his unanimous victory in Mitchell v. United States would have long-term consequences for the Civil Rights Movement. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Carpetbagger in Reverse\u003c\/i\u003e is the first publication significantly based on Mitchell's papers, an essential and often overlooked source of insights about the development of Black political and culture life in the 1930s and 1940s. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn Morris Knapp\u003c\/b\u003e is author of \u003ci\u003eBehind the Diplomatic Curtain\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University Alabama Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50878208475410,"sku":"9780817361754","price":30.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_c8a66a03-ffe7-4b40-80c3-fc39969ec37a.jpg?v=1738256913","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/a-carpetbagger-in-reverse-arthur-w-mitchell-americas-first-black-democratic-congressman-9780817361754","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}