Hilary Green examines this aspect of freedom by considering Emerson Normal School and institution-building in the postwar era and the important role of education in the lives of formerly enslaved women in Mobile, Alabama. Green posits that Emerson Normal was instrumental in permitting former slaves as well as the children born after the end of slavery to become teachers, administrators, and, most important, leaders within their communities. Emerson Normal represented the expansion and refinement of the educational partnership between Black Mobilians and the American Missionary Association after the creation of state-funded public schools. This partnership played a critical role in creating the corps of teachers required for the new public school system. Outside the classroom, graduates employed their preparation for middle-class leadership by actively participating in racial uplift organizations and campaigns. Never viewing their service as limited to the classroom, Emerson Normal graduates became an essential asset for Black Mobilians and their slow, arduous struggle for African American public education and racial equality in Mobile.

This chapter presents in-depth case studies of initial implementation of the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) program. The four states chosen- Alabama, California, Georgia, and New York- represent states that took very different approaches to initial implementation: Alabama represents a state with a highly leveraged program and significant private sector involvement; California is a state with large needs that did not leverage; Georgia is a state that did not leverage and implemented the program without private sector involvement; and New York had huge needs but was delayed in implementation. Data are drawn from state documents, survey data, and in-depth interviews conducted with state program administrators. The case studies highlight the unique circumstances present in each state, and how these circumstances shaped the implementation decisions and, ultimately, the nature of the program developed in the state.

In four former Confederate states, the Lily-White movement not only succeeded in taking control of the local Republican party organization but subsequently used this control to exclude blacks from participating in the party either entirely (North Carolina and Alabama) or nearly so (Virginia and Texas). These white Republicans went the exclusion route despite many other Lily-White-controlled states allowing black Republicans to continue participating in the party to some extent. Why did white Republicans in these four states choose to implement Lily-Whiteism in such a "strong" way? As the case studies presented here show, there is no consistent answer to this question. The path toward Lily-White control, and the subsequent nature of white rule in the state GOP, was dependent (at least in part) on the unique historical context in each state. For example, in Virginia, black Republicans were excluded from the party much earlier than in most other states. Local party leaders consistently kept black representation at national conventions close to zero, and even criticized the local Democratic Party for becoming the "black party" during the New Deal era. In Texas, the Lily-White Movement was a response to a black man – Norris Wright Cuney – controlling the state party organization in the 1880s and 1890s. After the end of Cuney’s rule, Lily-Whites took control of the party and expelled nearly all blacks from participation in state and national conventions. In North Carolina, the Lily-White takeover followed the dramatic events of the 1898 and 1900 elections, in which extreme violence against (black) Republicans instigated the passing of new voter laws banning black participation. In response, white GOP leaders explicitly banned blacks from the party organization entirely in 1902. Finally, in Alabama, Lily-White control came in 1912 and resulted in a slow but consistent reduction of black delegates at the national convention until no blacks were left in the state’s national convention delegation from 1924 onwards.