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Abstract
In the years after the civil war, the newly freed southern blacks developed many methods to obtain the freedom and equality that they had expected from emancipation. One such effort was the Exoduster movement. This article analyzes the movement using three indices: (1) material needs and interests, (2) ideology, and (3) the manipulation of symbolic meaning about the movement by its leaders to promote it. A history of the movement is included, focusing specifically on the efforts of one of its primary leaders, "Pap" Singleton.
Introduction
Before beginning an introduction specific to the paper it may be important to note that many of the Exoduster communities remain, mainly as quickly deteriorating ghost towns in western Kansas. Archeologist, anthropologists, and historians, as well as other social scientists, may find interest in visiting these sites.
This article reviews the attempt by some post-Civil War African Americans to contend with the difficulties of their new and ever diminishing status in the American south by relocating to Kansas. Some of the generally accepted theories and explanations for social movements explain it in part, especially its conception, but appear to become less useful in explaining the on-going movement and its leadership. For example, Deprivation Theory (see Rose, 1982) certainly fits with the severe deprivation this group had suffered for centuries, and Relative Deprivation (Davies, 1962) may assist in understanding why the movement began so soon after emancipation. However, both theories' focus mainly on how social movements begin. Mass Society Theory (Kornhauser, 1959) suggests that people who feel insignificant tend to join movements and, after centuries of being told this by the dominant society, this may have been a widespread feeling in this population. However, they appear not to be socially isolated from each other, as the theory contends. Structural Strain Theory (Smelser, 1962) provides much insight into the movement, but does little to explain how the participants overcame social control mechanisms, and Resource Mobilization Theory (McCarthy and ZaId, 1977) focuses on the need for resources, of which the Exodusters had little. While all of these theories help explain parts of this movement, it appears that what happened involved (1) material circumstance combined with (2) a supporting ideology and (3) a creative use of symbolic meaning of the movement...