James Madison and the Making of America
advancement in the government through Republican Party patronage. Yellin clearly shows that it was crucial for African Americans to remain loyal to the Republican Party, as it offered them some degree of political protection and often rewarded their loyalty with fairly well paying jobs. Patronage, however, was demonized by Wilson and fellow Progressives, and they meant to get rid of it under the guise of good government. Whites such as Wilson, however, merely wanted to remove one of the few systems that allowed for African American economic mobility and, thus, purge African Americans from most rungs of government employment. After Wilson's administration made segregation the federal norm, not even the election of Republican presidents Warren Harding in 1920 and Calvin Coolidge in 1924 could reverse the trend. In addition, Yellin argues that, by the 1920s, the Republican Party was trying to distance itself from the party of Lincoln, as it sought to appeal to an increasingly conservative white America. Throughout the story, Yellin does a splendid job of documenting not only the racism faced by African Americans, but also the agency of black people as they constantly resisted discrimination and harassment. For instance, the author details the efforts of noted civil rights activist William Monroe Trotter, as well as those of the more moderate Booker T. Washington. Furthermore, Yellin notes the contributions of black periodicals such as the Washington Bee and even acknowledges more subtle forms of resistance, such as lighter skinned African Americans passing as whites. As in any work, there are a handful of flaws in Racism in the Nation's Service. First, Yellin makes repeated reference to the Progressive Era as he dissects the Wilson presidency, but he does not contextualize Progressivism as a whole. The work would have benefitted from a discussion of why Progressivism emerged, what it entailed, and how Wilson fit into the larger Progressive ideology. Yellin does make some mention of the additional difficulties that black women had as they dealt with sexism as well as racism, but the work also needs to better include women in the narrative. The aforementioned shortcomings, however, do not take away from what is overall a very solid examination of African American life, work, and resistance in our nation's capital at this turbulent time.