Rasism på West Point : En studie av fördomar och sociala relationer mellan svarta och vita kadetter på USA:s militärhögskola under 1870-talet

Sammanfattning: This essay examines the social relations between colored and white cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point during the late 19th century. Through letters we are able to take part of two microhistories that show the social structure from two different angles. Exclusionary rhetoric and practices made it possible for white cadets to shut out colored cadets from their social community. When the first African-American, James Webster Smith entered the Academy in 1870 a controversial question was raised about social relations between colored and none-colored cadets. By studying Smith ́s letters in tandem with those of a white cadet who attended West Point at the same time, Hugh Lenox Scott, this thesis aims to study how racism played out in everyday encounters and practices. In doing so it reveals a complex tension between exclusion and confrontation involving colored cadets, as a result of the structural racism at the Academy and in the American society at large in the post-Civil War era.