Civil War Memory

Goodbye Jesse Helms: Thanks for the Bigotry

I would be remiss not to acknowledge the passing of one of the more unapologetic racists of the 20th century.

"To rob the Negro of his reputation of thinking through a problem in his own fashion is about the same as trying to pretend that he doesn't have a natural instinct for rhythm and for singing and dancing." — Helms responding in 1956 to criticism that a fictional black character in his newspaper column was offensive.

"I've been portrayed as a caveman by some. That's not true. I'm a conservative progressive, and that means I think all men are equal, be they slants, beaners or niggers."  According to Edge of the American West it looks like the evidence attributing this quote to Helms is insufficient.
--Jesse Helms, North Carolina Progressive, February 6, 1985, quoted in, "Yes, They Really Said It!"

"Watch me make her cry. I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing 'Dixie' until she cries." --Statement made to Orrin Hatch in reference to Carol Moseley-Braun

"You needed that job and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota." --Statement made in a 1990 TV commercial during a close campaign against black Democrat Harvey Gantt

"White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races."  Helms reportedly helped write this TV commercial passage as an aide for North Carolina Republican candidate Willis Smith in 1950

The University of North Carolina was "the University of Negroes and Communists." (Capital Times, 11/22/94) Black civil rights activists were "Communists and sex perverts." (Copley News Service, 8/23/01)

Of civil rights protests Helms wrote, "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights." (WRAL-TV commentary, 1963) He also wrote, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced." (New York Times, 2/8/81)

Remembering Condemned Marriages

On Monday longtime lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon (83) and Del Martin (87) were married in California. They have been partners for more than 50 years. 

On a related note, the National Park Service at Hopewell Furnace will stage a re-enactment of the marriage between the interracial couple Miss Sally Hampton and Mr. Sol Stuart on Saturday, June 28.  See the News Release below.

I Am Going to Miss You on Sunday Mornings

Thanks Tim Russert

John Hope Franklin on Obama Nomination

It's a very brief interview, but if you are aware of Franklin's own personal story it is easy to appreciate the excitement that comes through visually and vocally.  Consider his autobiography for your summer reading list.

Congratulations Senator Obama

If you had asked me last year at this time whether an African American could be nominated by either the Republican or Democratic parties for the presidency I would have said you are crazy. It looks like that by the end of the evening the Democratic Party will have accomplished just that.  At the same time it is easy to imagine the primary process taking a slightly different turn with the result being the first female presidential candidate - a significant achievement in its own right. 

Regardless of your political affiliation or feelings about how Obama has handled the campaign and the many controversial moments, you should feel proud as an American that we are now at a point in our nation's history where such an outcome is possible.  The historian in me can't help but place this in historical context.  Two African Americans served in the U.S. Senate during Reconstruction, both representing the state of Mississippi.  The first, Hiram Revels was elected in 1870 and sat in Jefferson Davis's old seat while Blanche K. Bruce, a former slave, was elected in 1875.  Since then, only three African-Americans--Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts (1967-1978), Carol Moseley Braun (1993-1998) and Barack Obama (2004-)--have held seats in the Senate.  In the House of Representatives, 121 African Americans have served since 1868.  On the state level only one African American served as governor in Louisiana during the winter of 1872-73 before Douglas Wilder of Virginia was elected in 1989.

This nation is turning an important corner tonight and I couldn't be prouder.  As of the writing of this post, Obama is only 11 delegates shy of the nomination.  Finally, we are one step closer to getting rid of the current occupant of the White House.

 

Oh My God!

Wait...if they make the lettering just a little smaller they should be able to fit the Confederate flag on the right side.  The state can then offer a two-for-one deal.  Read the story here.

John Hope Franklin "promotes propaganda and poppycock"

I am reading Rick Perlstein's new book on Richard Nixon and the rise of modern conservatism, titled Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.  It's quite good and I highly recommend it.  I am reading through the chapter on Ronald Reagan's run for governor of California; at one point Perlstein sketches the culture wars of the mid-1960s and the moral panic that led many California conservatives to view Reagan as their guy.  One example he uses is an excerpt from a review of historian John Hope Franklin's Land of the Free (1966).  The publication in question concluded that it:

destroys pride in America's past, develops a guilt complex, mocks American justice, indoctrinates toward Communism, is hostile to religious concepts, overemphasizes Negro participation in American history, projects negative thought models, criticizes business and free enterprise, plays politics, foments class hatred, slants and distorts facts and promotes propaganda and poppycock.

Hey Horowitz...you got nothin' on this guy.

Thank You Jon Stewart

What does it say about our media when it takes a comedy show to hold our public leaders accountable.  I actually felt sick to my stomach listening to Jon Stewart interview Douglas Feith about his new book.  Thousands of American soldiers have made the ultimate sacrifice in addition to the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis who have died as a result of our invasion and this guy gets to spend his time rationalizing the road to war.  Part 2 of the interview can be found here.

What Would An Obama Presidency Mean To Civil War Memory?

This post originally ran in April 2007.  Given last night's primary results in Indiana and North Carolina I thought it might be an opportune moment to share it once again.

One of my readers recently pointed out that the Civil War Sesquicentennial observances may coincide with the election of our first black president.  How will that shape the national narrative that will arise out of political speeches, state sesquicentennial commission plans, and other observances?  My friendly emailer asks:

As the bellowing over the Confederate battle flag seems to be nearing crescendo, how relevant will Confederate heritage appear four years from now?  And with, perhaps, a black president, how empty will any Confederate legacy be revealed to be?

The more I think about it the more it becomes apparent that an Obama presidency could reshape our understanding of the Civil War, Reconstruction and the rest of American history right down to the Civil Rights Movement.  We've already seen how a push for black civil rights in the 1950s and 60s served to challenge the work of various centennial commissions.  This led to a noticeable waning in enthusiasm among white Americans for centennial celebrations by 1963.  The difference this time around could be that with Obama potentially elected in 2008 that this will leave plenty of time for the nation to begin to rethink its history and the place of slavery and emancipation within the overall narrative.  Think about it: We will hear about how far the nation has come since before the Civil War.  Part of that narrative will highlight the Civil War as leading to emancipation through the sacrifice and bravery of black soldiers themselves along with the actions of countless others.   It is reasonable to expect that the work of various organizations involved in setting up events for the sesquicentennial would be influenced to some extent by this natural curiosity as to how the nation has come to elect its first black president.  In short, the "emancipationist legacy" of the Civil War would return to center stage. It does have the potential of becoming overly celebratory and I would resist this urge for the sake of maintaining the focus on better understanding the relevant history.

Returning to the passage quoted above it is necessary to point out that the "emptiness" referred to in connection with "Confederate heritage" is not meant to denigrate the very strong desire on the part of Southern whites to remember and acknowledge the service of ancestors.  I've said before that there is nothing necessarily wrong or even strange about this personal need to remember.  It is meant, however, to point out that this view reduces both the war years, Reconstruction, and the history of race and slavery in a way that fails to acknowledge salient factors and relevant perspectives as part of the overall historical narrative.  It tends to reduce Southern history and the Civil War to the perspective of white Southerners and equates the Confederacy with the South.  More importantly, Southern history is equated or understood along the overly narrow lines of the four years of the Confederacy.  In short, the narratives coming out of Confederate Heritage groups would be inadequate to explain a black president.

More to the point, the attention among professional historians in recent years to better understanding the ways in which slavery shaped the Confederate experience will potentially occupy a central place in future narratives that purport to explain the historical background of a black president.  We will be forced to acknowledge secession and the Confederacy as an attempt to maintain slavery and a racial hierarchy and not simply as a constitutional right or a defense of hearth and home; both points figure prominently in our collective memory while race and slavery linger on the fringes.  Of course, understanding the Civil War years does not in any way come close to defining the black experience in America nor does an emphasis on the American South.  What it does do, however, is highlight the importance that was attached to emancipation both during the war and in the decades to follow before it was overshadowed by reunion, reconciliation and Jim Crow at the turn of the twentieth century.

This post is not meant in any way as a justification for a vote for Barak Obama.  The election of a black president would be an important milestone for this country, but in our attempt to understand how we as a nation arrived at this point it also has the potential of radically shifting the way we think about our collective past.

One of my readers recently pointed out that the Civil War Sesquicentennial observances may coincide with the election of our first black president.  How will that shape the national narrative that will arise out of political speeches, state sesquicentennial commission plans, and other observances?  My friendly emailer asks:

As the bellowing over the Confederate battle flag seems to be nearing crescendo, how relevant will Confederate heritage appear four years from now?  And with, perhaps, a black president, how empty will any Confederate legacy be revealed to be?

The more I think about it the more it becomes apparent that an Obama presidency could reshape our understanding of the Civil War, Reconstruction and the rest of American history right down to the Civil Rights Movement.  We've already seen how a push for black civil rights in the 1950s and 60s served to challenge the work of various centennial commissions.  This led to a noticeable waning in enthusiasm among white Americans for centennial celebrations by 1963.  The difference this time around could be that with Obama potentially elected in 2008 that this will leave plenty of time for the nation to begin to rethink its history and the place of slavery and emancipation within the overall narrative.  Think about it: We will hear about how far the nation has come since before the Civil War.  Part of that narrative will highlight the Civil War as leading to emancipation through the sacrifice and bravery of black soldiers themselves along with the actions of countless others.   It is reasonable to expect that the work of various organizations involved in setting up events for the sesquicentennial would be influenced to some extent by this natural curiosity as to how the nation has come to elect its first black president.  In short, the "emancipationist legacy" of the Civil War would return to center stage. It does have the potential of becoming overly celebratory and I would resist this urge for the sake of maintaining the focus on better understanding the relevant history.

Returning to the passage quoted above it is necessary to point out that the "emptiness" referred to in connection with "Confederate heritage" is not meant to denigrate the very strong desire on the part of Southern whites to remember and acknowledge the service of ancestors.  I've said before that there is nothing necessarily wrong or even strange about this personal need to remember.  It is meant, however, to point out that this view reduces both the war years, Reconstruction, and the history of race and slavery in a way that fails to acknowledge salient factors and relevant perspectives as part of the overall historical narrative.  It tends to reduce Southern history and the Civil War to the perspective of white Southerners and equates the Confederacy with the South.  More importantly, Southern history is equated or understood along the overly narrow lines of the four years of the Confederacy.  In short, the narratives coming out of Confederate Heritage groups would be inadequate to explain a black president.

More to the point, the attention among professional historians in recent years to better understanding the ways in which slavery shaped the Confederate experience will potentially occupy a central place in future narratives that purport to explain the historical background of a black president.  We will be forced to acknowledge secession and the Confederacy as an attempt to maintain slavery and a racial hierarchy and not simply as a constitutional right or a defense of hearth and home; both points figure prominently in our collective memory while race and slavery linger on the fringes.  Of course, understanding the Civil War years does not in any way come close to defining the black experience in America nor does an emphasis on the American South.  What it does do, however, is highlight the importance that was attached to emancipation both during the war and in the decades to follow before it was overshadowed by reunion, reconciliation and Jim Crow at the turn of the twentieth century.

This post is not meant in any way as a justification for a vote for Barak Obama.  The election of a black president would be an important milestone for this country, but in our attempt to understand how we as a nation arrived at this point it also has the potential of radically shifting the way we think about our collective past.

Where Are the Logical Positivists When You Need Them?

I am sitting here flipping back and forth between CNN and MSNBC and trying to figure out whose political talking heads sound more absurd.  It must be a tie.  There is no dissemination of information, just pure entertainment.  I would love to stick A.J. Ayers in the studio:

We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if and only if, [she or] he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express—that is, if [she or] he knows what observations would lead [her or] him, under certain conditions, to accept the proposition as being true, or reject it as being false. [From Language, Truth, and Logic (1936)]