Moses of South Carolina: A Jewish Scalawag during Radical Reconstruction
About this ebook
In Moses of South Carolina, Benjamin Ginsberg rescues this protean figure and his fascinating story from obscurity. Though Moses was far from a saint—he was known as the “robber governor” for his corrupt ways—Ginsberg suggests that Moses nonetheless deserves better treatment in the historical record. Despite his moral lapses, Moses launched social programs, integrated state institutions, and made it possible for blacks to attend the state university.
As a Jew, Moses grew up on the fringe of southern plantation society. After the Civil War, Moses envisioned a culture different from the one in which he had been raised, one that included the newly freed slaves. From the margins of southern society, Franklin Moses built America’s first black-Jewish alliance, a model, argues Ginsberg, for the coalitions that would help reshape American politics in the decades to come.
Revisiting the story of the South's “most perfect scalawag,” Ginsberg contributes to a broader understanding of the essential role southern Jews played during the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Discover more
About the author
Benjamin Ginsberg is the David Bernstein Professor of Political Science at the Johns Hopkins University, coauthor of Downsizing Democracy: How America Sidelined Its Citizens and Privatized Its Public, and coeditor of Making Government Manageable: Executive Organization and Management in the Twenty-First Century, both also published by Johns Hopkins.
