Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the South — Key Ideas to Explore

Land Monopoly as the Root of Inequality

Fortune devotes considerable attention to land ownership as the foundation of economic power. He asserts that land monopoly—whether by individuals, corporations, or syndicates—is the prime cause of the inequalities that desolate fertile acres and turn small farmers into tenants or slaves. In the preface, he describes how vast ranches and bonanza farms of a thousand acres replace human habitation with machinery, while cities crowd thousands into narrow quarters where vice and crime flourish. This analysis extends beyond the South: Fortune insists the social problems there are the same as those afflicting every civilized country. He argues that wealth unduly centralized endangers efficient government, and that the laboring classes ultimately pay all taxes while being victimized by those who control land and capital.

Evidence of Black Economic Progress

To counter the prevailing narrative of Black inferiority, Fortune offers concrete examples of successful African Americans he observed in Washington, D.C., in the early 1880s. He describes sitting in the banking office of William E. Mathews and ex-Congressman Joseph H. Rainey, where a stream of white patrons—contractors, merchants, department clerks—deferred to the colored gentlemen who had money to loan. He notes dining with ex-Senator B.K. Bruce, Register of the U.S. Treasury, and seeing the names of foremost men and women on his card tray. Fortune also cites Professor Richard T. Greener, a lawyer and insurance company president with both black and white clients. These vignettes serve to demonstrate that when Black men achieve financial and professional standing, color prejudice diminishes.

The Predicted Shift from Race to Class Conflict

Fortune repeatedly predicts that the so-called 'war of races' will pass away, leaving no trace, because it is based on condition and color-prejudice—two things that cannot perpetuate themselves. He envisions a future where Black Americans become bank presidents, large landholders, judges, and legislators, and where their color is 'swallowed up in reputation' and wealth. The real struggle, he argues, will be between capital and labor, with odds favoring nonproductive wealth due to land monopoly. Fortune calls for unity among labor elements across the United States, urging sympathy and eventual organization across racial lines. His preface frames this as the 'primal purpose' of the book: to show that poverty and misfortune make no distinctions of race, color, or previous condition.

Fortune's evidence is drawn from personal observation and contemporary data, not from a complete narrative of the post-Reconstruction South. Readers should note that his examples of Black success—bankers, senators, lawyers—are deliberately chosen to challenge stereotypes, but the excerpts do not reveal how he addresses countervailing forces like violence or disfranchisement. The book's structure, moving from racial analysis to economic argument, rewards attention to Fortune's rhetorical strategy: he uses specific cases to support a universal claim about class conflict.

I’ve often thought of Fortune’s Black and White as a lantern in the economic murk, and next to it on my shelf, the earlier The rise, progress, and phases of human slavery How it came into the world and how it shall be made to go out — Edition Insights burns steady, a quiet elder tracing the same root—property over person—before the later book ever dared name it.