During World War I, thousands of rural southern men, black and
white, refused to serve in the military. Some failed to register
for the draft, while others deserted after being inducted. In the
countryside, armed bands of deserters defied local authorities;
capturing them required the dispatch of federal troops into three
southern states.
Jeanette Keith traces southern draft resistance to several sources,
including whites' long-term political opposition to militarism,
southern blacks' reluctance to serve a nation that refused to
respect their rights, the peace witness of southern churches, and,
above all, anger at class bias in federal conscription policies.
Keith shows how draft dodgers' success in avoiding service resulted
from the failure of southern states to create effective mechanisms
for identifying and classifying individuals. Lacking local-level
data on draft evaders, the federal government used agencies of
surveillance both to find reluctant conscripts and to squelch
antiwar dissent in rural areas.
Drawing upon rarely used local draft board reports, Selective
Service archives, Bureau of Investigation reports, and southern
political leaders' constituent files, Keith offers new insights
into rural southern politics and society as well as the growing
power of the nation-state in early twentieth-century America.