Debunking the traditional interpretation of black lawmakers in Alabama, Neither Carpetbaggers Nor Scalawags offers a new interpretation of the state's initial group of African American officeholders. Coming long after Vernon Lane Wharton's 1947 study of black lawmakers in Mississippi, this book completes the state studies of black officeholders. It outlines their response to the end to slavery, discusses their slave backgrounds, and addresses their allegiance to the Republican party. The book also points out military experience, wealth, education, and the emergence of intraparty and interparty factionalism. The closing chapters explain why black officeholders disappeared.

Wiggins provides a well-researched view of the Alabama scalawag. One of the many pluses of the study is her identification of carpetbaggers, scalawags, and black officeholders in an appendix.

Schweninger helps readers understand Alabama Reconstruction by offering a detailed account of one of the state's most progressive figures.

This book delves into black life from the end of slavery in 1865 and ends with the entry of blacks into politics in 1867. The value of this study is that Kolchin adds faces and names to many of the heretofore anonymous personalities of the early years of Reconstruction. Excellent study.