On Friday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and 36 Republicans sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona accusing him of trying to advance a “politicized and divisive agenda” in the teaching of American history.
There is a version of American history that starts out with, "Once upon a time..."
That is the history I was taught. (I'm 70) It is a myth, a fairy tale, not only because of what is told, but because what is left out.
America would not be the nation it is without slavery and genocide, starting from when the first Europeans set foot on this continent. That is a fact, a fact that colors all that this nation has accomplished. If we can, as a nation, acknowledge that fact, we can truly realize our great potential, and begin to make the myth a reality. That was the message of Martin Luther King.
But that myth is the basis of an entrenched power structure that will hold onto it with a death grip, because if the myth dies, so must the power structure.
I haven't read much from the 1619 Project, but what I've seen is most impressive. The 1776 "Project" is a joke by comparison. The loudest GQP voices on history education and race are willfully ignorant about both.
Gerald Horne, one of our most hard-working historians, concurs with 1619's view of slavery in the Revolution.
Horne, Gerald. The counter-revolution of 1776: slave resistance and the origins of the United States of America. New York University, 2014. 349p index afp ISBN 9781479893409, $39.00.
Horne (Univ. of Houston) holds a distinctive view of watershed historical dates. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 brought political order to Britain and encouraged free trade. This facilitated massive slave imports into the American colonies, destabilizing colonial societies with the specter of racial conflicts and rebellious slaves allied with foreign invaders. Horne also asserts the less-familiar importance of 1772. That year's landmark Somerset decision by Lord Mansfield effectively banned slavery in England, signaling a trend in favor of rights for Africans. In June 1772, Rhode Islanders defied imperial authority by burning HMS Gaspee. Colonists' determination to continue profiting from "the slavery trade" ultimately led to independence, but 1776 was partly a counterrevolution against London's nascent antislavery sentiment. This narrative is often about white anxieties in Britain, the Caribbean, and North America. Readers seldom hear the voices of free and unfree Africans, though their actions (flight, rebellion, everyday resistance) speak clearly enough. Horne's interpretation emphasizes material factors over political philosophy and ideas in general. It directly challenges conventional views of the American Revolution but, based on extensive evidence, deserves close reading. Summing Up: Recommended. Academic and large public libraries; undergraduates and above.
Choice Vol. 52, Issue 4, Dec 2014 American Library Association. Contact permissions@ala-choice.org for permission to reproduce or redistribute.
I just have to say that I LOVE being on this forum with a bunch of historians. Not a single day goes by that I don't learn something vital and accurate. Thanks to you all.
Lynda, when I was in school, there was an essay contest every year, sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. My mother enrolled me every year, I suppose because she thought “people would talk” if she didn’t, and I wasn’t old enough to rebel. I did as little work as I could get by with. We were given time during class, when we should have been learning *anything* else, to work on these essays. This is by way of saying that any teacher who had taught us anything that went against the Glorious Cause narrative would have lost her (always her) job.
I had a few friends when I was working that did the entire foolish Daughters of the Confederacy thing up to dressing up and re-enactment. I always thought it was ridiculous, but honestly I didn't realize the harm it was doing until much later.
For the past 10 years, I’ve been indexing for the DAR Genealogical Research System, a tool to help history students, researchers, scholars and teachers. Not an “ugh.”
Thanks back at ya, Reid. We learn much from you as well.
In every course, I ask students who among them plans to be a teacher. With many business or IT majors, few if any answer Yes, especially when I taught history at a business school. My reply: "WRONG. You answered a question not posed. I didn't ask who will be a professional educator; the question is, who will purposely impart information, knowledge and/or wisdom?" Once they realize what's at issue, they understand that we all teach others: children, peers, friends, co-workers, even our bosses. (Among the worst is when we train someone who will take our job. Argh!) This also means that we're all students too, and should be throughout life.
The point: we all act as teachers, whether we know or wish it. And most LFAA readers have something to offer. So, now that we know, seize the opportunity!
TPJ, as one of the fellow historians in this conversation group, I concur that some of the most interesting work published in the last 5-10 years is reassessing not just US and North American colonial history (and how I wish people would start paying more attention to Canada in discussion of the era before the invention of the USA), but also British and European history. The impact of the Cromwellian Interregnum on the psyches of British people has been understudied. The tactics Cromwell used in Ireland against Catholics served as a blueprint for genocide in the colonies, and the expansion of the plantation system from Ulster to the colonies, with its parallel expansion of the kinds of enslaved and pressed labor developed in order to effect it, has not been discussed sufficiently by either British or US historians.
One of the biggest problems we have is that "American" history has almost always been a closed shop: Historians outside the USA have, until recently, eschewed studying US history. This is changing, but slowly. As a British historian whose background is anything but British, I find I have a different perspective on the history of the British Isles, as I am not particularly influenced by some emotion-driven notion of "patriotism" in the work I do. I am not saying that American-born historians are incapable of being critically engaged--far from it. But we have these jokers whose "education" in US history was probably taught in high school by football coaches (that's who taught US history in my high school and many others) who have absolutely no idea of how to think critically about the past. Unfortunately, they appeal to the basest emotional instincts of the dominant white population in order to demonize everyone else.
And never forget the text books that shaped the curriculum everywhere. If Texas didn’t adopt a text book, it was/is dead on arrival, as the big publishing houses well knew. Authors were carefully edited and teachers required to follow the prescribed program. I published a textbook for junior college communications with a major publisher in 1986. It took my co-author and I four years to respond to all the editing and for the company to bring the book out.
I was a teacher in a very progressive public school later. Happily, in our system teachers were free to dispense with textbooks. It made more work for teachers but such better opportunity to help students of all ages learn research skills, questioning, and discernment.
So I mentioned this in an earlier comment, but I've been thinking about it all day.
When I was in school, there was no Google. Our town, when I was young, had no bookstores: as I mentioned, the closest we had was the Hallmark store, and the "lurid paperback" rack at the supermarket, and of course, the magazine racks, and least half of which were up high with only the top edges showing. My parents got us a World Book Encyclopedia set, twenty-some volumes of the "authoritative history of everything." The county library had what it had, and there was a card catalogue, but its curation was a bit haphazard.
The real Authority was the textbooks we were given in our classes, because it consisted of material we had to memorize and regurgitate, though typically only once. There was no real synthesis of ideas, just discrete sections with discrete globs of things to memorize, regurgitate, and forget. But we all knew that if it was in the Textbook, it was right, and the teacher was wrong.
Now, I can go online and learn how to install and mud drywall (that's been a home project, and we did a good job), gather enough information to write an algorithm for reproducible floating-point sums, get an overview of global warming trends (with data), read three competing histories of the attack on Pearl Harbor, order a book on John Dee's Enochian Magick.... If I can ask the question, I can get answers.
It's like something out of Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night.
So how DO you approach the teaching of history? Can it be summarized?
When I taught third grade my class and I researched and wrote and published neighborhood histories. We began with the neighborhood around our school, which included many olh houses as well as the site of the first gristmill in our county. We discussed how we could learn what the neighborhood was like 150 years earlier. We walked downtown to the main branch library and discovered the Sanborne insurance maps as well as old city directories. We found a history of Asheville ( our city) houses. We knocked on doors and interviewed people. Eventually we divided the research into pieces and kids wrote different sections. We invited the man who lived on the gristmill site to talk to us. We had discussions about how you could decide which was the correct answer when one source gave a different date than another. It was a fascinating project for all of us. We integrated language arts, social studies, research, etc. These were 8 and 9 year olds, and at the end of the year we went to a City Council meeting where a few of the kids got up and gave reasons why the neighborhood should be designated a historic district.(It did).
I have learned so much more about our history as a country in the last 10 years, about America as a whole, about my own state (NC) in particular. That history that l learned on my own is much more complex than the version l was taught in school. Economic forces were usually the drivers of history. I want to recommend Colin Woodard whose two books, “American Nations” and “American Character” taught me things I did not know. Check out the book descriptions on Amazon.
As I recall the 1619 view of slavery arrived as a special section of our Nytimes one Sunday. I read it and found it fascinating and plausible. I was early educated in the NY state public education system. I feel it is correct that we learned mostly the great myths about our country.
Thank you TPJ for bringing, Horne, Gerald. The counter-revolution of 1776: slave resistance and the origins of the United States of America. New York University, 2014, to our attention. I am taking the long way before returning to Gerald Home's work.
I was somewhat lost after finishing today's Letter. Only some memories of my Social Studies classes in elementary school came to mind. Seeing lean-tos and the Indian's clothing, so different from what we wore wafted into my mind. Feeling patriotic or like a 'Girl Scout' when getting into the Brotherhood spirit as a schoolgirl. It felt good widening our circle of people when in Social Studies classes. The hours there were as mini dramas. There was the sense of play absent from my academic of math and reading classes.
'The department is proposing two priorities to reach low-income students and underserved populations. The Republicans object to the one that encourages “projects that incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives into teaching and learning.” (The Letter). I want to be in the classes for the low-income students and underserved populations; they sound a lot more interesting. Why aren't classes that incorporate racially, ethnically, etc., diverse perspectives taught to all the children? I would go farther than the Department of Education.
While we will delve into this White v. Other war that the Republicans are waging, doesn't this present a great opportunity for us to learn our American History differently? Won't we 'educated Whites' enjoy taking bites from a revised American History curriculum, in addition to fighting the current Civil War? I'm back to Gerald Home's work, TPJ. Heather is sending us back to school!
Indeed you are right. "But that myth is the basis of an entrenched power structure that will hold onto it with a death grip, because if the myth dies, so must the power structure. " See my post on my experience as a researcher of US history.
As far as Mc Connell's train of thought that even discussing racism, here in NH, the newly Republican majority (a result of the Nov. election) has been falling in lockstep w/him, just as the southern states mentioned have done. They have passed HB 544, a gag order that prevents essentially anyone from even discussing racism or offer any diversity training or teaching such concepts. I sincerely hope that the ALCU will challenge this in court. As Dr H said, it IS unconstitutional re Freedom of Speech guaranteed in the Constitution. I truly fear that the super majority SCOTUS would go along with this UNCONSTITUTIONAL train of thought.
Turned 71 today and looking back to the 60’s and 70’s, it looks like the same ol’ same ol’ to me. I’d love to see this has come up to be healed but I thought that then also. Just seems like circles to me, fighting the same old battle over and over again.
I turn 71 in two weeks and have had similar thoughts. But then when we went into Iraq and Afghanistan I wondered, “What’s the end game? Will these be two more long, pointless wars? Did we learn anything from Vietnam?” Guess not.
What was learned from Vietnam was not to send a draftee army to fight an imperial war. The antiwar movement was fueled by the draft calls; you'll notice the large antiwar movement that exists today, when the fighting and dying only affects 1.5% of the population.
When you've got a job as big as the job America has now, you can't just dig your shovel in, scrabble around a little, sweat a little, and say you're done with it. Our project has to be more like archaeology, I think: dig carefully, dust things off, look at them in the light (definitely with direction from HCR), analyze and synthesize and act. Then dig a little more. I'm not, by the way, suggesting that we should do it slowly. There is an urgency in the air now, and it provides, no, demands energy. Let's roll up our collective sleeves, energize our minds and hearts, and get it done. I've got three score and ten-plus behind me, and of course there are and will be times when I mutter, "Damn. I thought we did that already," to myself.
I want to do that too and I try very hard not to feel helpless, but in a state where it will fall on deaf ears and where my friends and family think I am crazy and a radical leftist, it is hard.
Crazy and a radical leftist? Wear it like a badge of honor!
Much sympathy to you Lynnda, and Nance too. Even here in bluest MA, we often encounter something similar, especially with the crises in racial justice and policing. Even moderates imagine that real law enforcement reform will leave them exposed to nameless, faceless danger. (Though the faces cannot be discerned, they are almost always dark ones.) Most who will not stay silent, and who celebrate last year's protests, see friendships strained or lost. Yet progressives and moderates reach out and find each other, achieve new understandings, make wonderful new friendships, and build community. Cf. Letters from an American.
I try to be proud of what I believe and sure in the knowledge that I've taken the high road and done my homework. But it's really difficult when your brother tells you that many of our "mutual friends and family" have deleted my posts on FB because they make them so mad. I want to say - then why don't they try to discern what's really going on. But I don't.
Oh, Lynnda, I am so, so sorry. Right now I'm a lefty in a pretty red little town, but I've got good friends, and this forum . . . although I suspect my sister will never speak to me again. My thoughts are with you.
I blame Trump and Fox"news" for the extreme divide we are in. I cannot get my brother to see that we are no longer discussing Left vs Right issues, but we are discussing Democracy vs Authoritarian/corruption/craziness/and on and on.
So nice of you to write, TPJ. I love The Clancy Brothers (Tommy Makem, too), and I'd never heard this song with the "three score and ten." I was referring to my age, which is three score (60) and (10, plus. . . ) so, 74, and fast closing on 75. It's taken me such a long time to heal from doing work I thought was good, then returning to it years later, only to find it erased. I helped knock down the unnecessary Caesarean section rates where I lived in the 70s, only to find them soaring 20 years later. Sigh. I had a friend who was in the Peace Corps and managed the digging of wells for people who had little access to water. She visited nine years later and could barely find the sand-filled holes. Well, you know what I mean. When we make change, we work hard, and we want it to stick. I'm getting better at facing what I see is probably a reality, but right now, I'd give a lot just to see things move . . .
So I was wrong, and the connection is serendipitous. Oops!
My parents' early Makem/Clancy record is among my first musical memories. I had the great privilege of finally seeing Tommy about 20 years ago. He and Liam C made several fine records together. You are in for a treat.
The world is littered with aid and development projects that look like failure, but in fact, success is real, though finite. I had some success with a project fighting cattle disease in Zambia in the 1990s Such efforts often do achieve something for a while, including yours.
Yes, some in America can't let go of feeling like being the White Masters of the Universe. We keep coming back to it. It's old and it's new again. It is also so boring, ugly and dangerous, still.
I agree with you. I am the same age as you. Born and raised in a rural town in NC. Our history books never taught us about slavery and the white man’s foray into raping, lynching, and denial. I was surprised that Anne Frank’s book was required reading though.
Ralph, Wait! You mean John Wayne didn't win the West?? George Washington didn't chop down his daddy's cherry tree?
Seriously, your points are well taken. I've got a few years on ya, and I learned the same -you'll pardon the expression - white-washed version of American History you describe.
At least when I was in what is now called 'middle school', we did learn civics, by which I mean, the mechanics of how it's all supposed to work.
When my daughter was in middle school in NC, in the 1990s, civics had become a mere shadow of its former self, and was bundled into 'social studies', which was a mish-mash of some history, some geography, and very little clarity and NO depth. I was horrified.
I have never been a fan of home schooling, but if I had school age kids now, and the local system followed the Trumpian dictates, I would become a home schooler in a skinny minute.
Don’t surrender yet, Nancy. To paraphrase John Paul Jones, we have just begun to fight! And to quote the British-American naval commander, “If fear is cultivated it will become stronger, if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery.”
As you can tell from the responses to Dr, HCR’s “Letters...”, her readers are just beginning to draw up plans, decide on strategies, and create tactics, to do moral and intellectual battle with the “forces of darkness” who threaten our national existence. Far from conceding the contest, we are committed to confronting the evil and destroying it with goodness.
By banding together with like-minded people we can deliver mortal blows to self-serving falsehood with the keen-edged sword of truth! Unity, courage and perseverance are the arrows in the quivers of the righteous!
No need to sorrow or concede to the greedy, ignorant horde. We can and will win the day!
TPJ, thank you for that kind, dare I say, overly generous, response. On re-reading the copy I was struck by the perhaps florid style that I am all too likely to lapse into. I wanted to be comforting and encouraging, but the scent of flora was a bit overwhelming.
I was born in the late 1940’s. In junior high and high school I suffered though domestic arts and sewing classes and I never seemed to get it right. I never learned to make the perfect white sauce and I always put the sleeves in backward. So, I had to get out the thread picker and unstitch them and put them in right. The normalisation of slavery in American put it’s sleeves in wrong in the fabric of democracy from the very beginning. It is going to take a lot of diligent unpicking and resewing to create an garment fit to be worn with pride and true to the proposition that all people are created equal with Liberty and justice for all. But it can be done, Biden is giving it a go. The macerations of the far right are right on cue. Lie, gaslight, mislead, on and on. Life can be complicated but doing the right thing really is not. The golden rule, kindness, equality before the law, these are worth striving for. For an ill fitting garment is not a lovely or practical thing to behold, but it can be altered to fit, given the will to do so. And by the way, later in life I discovered you can buy this stuff called wondra flour and pour it into milk and viola....white sauce!
I am an anology-speaker as well - use them a lot ( maybe too much) - so your comment, Robin, is right up my alley! 😄 I agree with your view that we have a varied cloth of experience and history - the body that it is draped on changes as it ages, or we completely flub putting on those sleeves - and it is of utmost importance to keep looking in the mirror, acknowledging the condition of that fabric and it's fit, and working towards making those alterations. I am grateful for HCR and the community that has built up around her Letters. It has let me understand how very much I needed to look in the mirror to see at least some of the alterations to my own understanding of our US history are needed. I know my teen daughter's generation will have a much more nuanced historical garment to wear, even now, than I did as a young adult. That can only be a good thing.
Robin, I love your sense of common sense. “the sleeves in wrong in the fabric of democracy”.... a lot of us “white folk” are up to the task of unpicking and resewing. I see it as just due for all the “picking and sowing” done by slaves and claimed as agricultural profit by whites.
I too suffered through sewing classes Robin, and never could get the sleeves or zipper to fit right. Lots of time spent with the ripper. Your analogy made me smile thinking about those days, and made me think how perfectly it describes how America really did put the sleeves in wrong in the fabric of our democracy. It’s time to get to work with that ripper.
My mother (born in 1924) always said that the first thing she learned about knitting was that the three basic stitches are knit, purl, and rip (undo previous work).
Ahh Seattle, my home town. How is it faring these days? We have not been able to go back to our condo-friends and family there for almost two years now.
So true. Those of us who remember it before the freeway, before Amazon, can get quite nostalgic about it’s past. It’s funny but the small Welsh town were I live now is quite a bit like Seattle in the 50’s. Butcher, bakery, you know everyone on your street. My husband, who spent time in it as a youth remembers all the things that are gone now that he says made it better than now. I guess regretting change is just human. But embracing the the good, interesting and new keeps a person moving forward...the only way to go.
Joan, I learned a term, tink (the alphabetic opposite of knit), for undoing your work, one stitch at a time. One of many things I learned from Knitting Paradise, an online forum. ☺️
What a wonderful way to help us all understand the work ahead. I might like to make a lapel pin out of the thread picker in my drawer, which I have owned about since the days of incomplete history class. Thank you, thank you, Robin.
Wonderfully stitched Robin. Your analogy was thrilling. While I didn't suffer as you did in home ed., my fingers never felt as inadequate. At the end of the class, I managed to create a lustrous purple skirt. While not the best in the class, the skirt looked good enough. It was a miracle that I couldn't stop staring at it.
When I read McConnell's claim that "American pride was at its lowest point in 20 years", I was skeptical. So I googled it (https://news.gallup.com/poll/312644/national-pride-falls-record-low.aspx). Turns out he's right about the measure of American pride. Gallup's poll shows that pride in America was remarkably steady from 2000 through 2016 - hovering around 80-85% year after year. Until Trump took office. Then national pride fell 20 points in 3 years. I wonder why?
There are days when I am grateful for the TFG era, for forcing our hidden caste system into bright light. I and so many other privileged white people could begin to understand what we did not know. Much of it was not taught in the Virginia schools where I went to high school, especially anything about oppression of any non white culture. I have been an adult for a long time and certainly could have found out about these things. But I was “busy” believing voting rights acts, and months celebrating women, or various cultures had righted the wrongs. But once you know, you know. I believe there can be correction and healing AND patriotism, coexisting. It will involve pain, discomfort and sacrifice. The essential tonic is knowledge, coming to us via many dedicated historians and delightful younger generation sources like Amanda Gorman. My thanks to every one of you.
Yes, while it's painful (and embarrassing) to admit that Trump had to be elected for me to get all the way to anti-racism, his election was a powerful goad and a deep recalibration of my assumptions about the people of this country.
I find myself in a similar boat, although I had started fighting this battle in earnest after Michael Brown was murdered in Ferguson, MO by law enforcement. I had to really stretch my ways of thinking about race and law enforcement.
**In case no one knows, retired cop, use of force trainer and hostage negotiator, living in an almost entirely white region of Oregon.
The hill you had to climb was so much steeper than mine; you have my admiration. I do not mean that you started out as more racist than me (than I? I can never keep it straight), but that the cultures within which you were and are operating may have been more likely to give cover to implicit (and explicit) bias. Good for you for digging deep. We all have so much work to do.
I agree, Reid and Ally. I've always been open to all groups and view equality across races, genders, and religions, but being forced to think otherwise helped me to learn and engage in anti-racism thoughts and actions. I've grown a lot the last 5 years.
Ally, I am a former Oregonian. After my degree in Broadcasting (74’) at the U of O. I worked at a TV station in Medford, Oregon. A friends husband worked as a cop in Ashland, Oregon. He said once riding with his partner that they saw a POC on the street. His partner said “ya there are about six of them here and we know where they all live.” After having lived with a person of color at the U of O. It came as such a shock. I never considered myself a a liberal. There where a number of friends from the Broadcasting department working there. Every executive at the station there Were white male chauvinist. They had an executive little club called “the Jolly boys”. After a couple of years they had to let this little “Jolly girl” into their group after I moved into sales. The FCC was going to challenge their license. We made a big joke out of it and made our own club we called ourselves the “Jolly Pee-Ons.”
I grew up in Medford, and graduated HS in 1976. I'm sure you knew (or knew of) Tam Moore; he is one of my best friend's Dad. What TV station did you work for, and who was your friend's husband? I got my degree in Criminology from SOSC in 1981 and knew a fair number of APD.
Lost your email. The person I went was Steve Deaton. He was there in the later 70's . It was only shortly then he got a job with Portland PD and went on from there to become a pilot for United.
I worked at KEMD I had the Promotions position when we changed it to KTVL. We did that when we sold the KMED call letter with the AM radio station. I don't know Tam he most have been at the other station. The fires there are just unbelievable. I spoke to friends in Portland this morning they were talking about the protests DT that are turning violent at night. Still. With only few arrests. She said she went through DT yesterday and there were 150 motorcycles lined up getting ready to do soon. They left quickly!
I have found memories of Southern Oregon. My only Fame to claim was that I help Anne Curry get her first job in TV. She went on to go to the TODAY show on NBC. Did you now David Sourer? His Dad was Pres. at SOSC. His sister worked at the Hungary Woodsman. I work with David at then KMED when I first got there. Good remembering with you .
Except that Michael Brown was not murdered . The grand jury and Eric Holder agreed.
From the liberal leaning WaPo
“So we wanted to set the record straight on the DOJ’s findings, especially after The Washington Post’s opinion writer Jonathan Capehart wrote that it was “built on a lie.” From time to time, we retroactively check statements as new information becomes available. In this case, the Justice Department has concluded that Wilson acted out of self-defense, and was justified in killing Brown.”
Legally justified in the existing context is one thing. Morally justified, including justification of that context, would be something else. If our police were trained to see people of color as us, not them; if trained to act to reduce violence, not inflict superior violence; then Michael Brown and a long list of other people would be alive today.
I agree that he was not prosecutable for murder, and I am normally more careful with my language than that.
The problem that I see with this "justification" is that (and I said this at the time, and was very unpopular in my non-cop social set) that in a very narrow window of time, to wit: the confrontation while the cop is seated in his patrol car and Mr. Brown is reaching in through the window <as I recall without looking up the details> that is a justified shoot. BUT: why was he seated in his patrol car while talking to Mr. Brown, why was he even talking with Mr. Brown in the first place, and did he say or do anything that may have provoked a violent response?
President Obama through his DOJ disagrees with you.
From the DOJ report.
This morning, the Justice Department announced the conclusion of our investigation and released a comprehensive, 87-page report documenting our findings and conclusions that the facts do not support the filing of criminal charges against Officer Darren Wilson in this case. Michael Brown’s death, though a tragedy, did not involve prosecutable conduct on the part of Officer Wilson.
“This conclusion represents the sound, considered, and independent judgment of the expert career prosecutors within the Department of Justice. I have been personally briefed on multiple occasions about these findings. I concur with the investigative team’s judgment and the determination about our inability to meet the required federal standard.
This outcome is supported by the facts we have found – but I also know these findings may not be consistent with some people’s expectations. To all those who have closely followed this case, and who have engaged in the important national dialogue it has inspired, I urge you to read this report in full. “
Not the result you wanted, but a conclusion based on fact.
There is a version of American history that starts out with, "Once upon a time..."
That is the history I was taught. (I'm 70) It is a myth, a fairy tale, not only because of what is told, but because what is left out.
America would not be the nation it is without slavery and genocide, starting from when the first Europeans set foot on this continent. That is a fact, a fact that colors all that this nation has accomplished. If we can, as a nation, acknowledge that fact, we can truly realize our great potential, and begin to make the myth a reality. That was the message of Martin Luther King.
But that myth is the basis of an entrenched power structure that will hold onto it with a death grip, because if the myth dies, so must the power structure.
This will not be easy.
I haven't read much from the 1619 Project, but what I've seen is most impressive. The 1776 "Project" is a joke by comparison. The loudest GQP voices on history education and race are willfully ignorant about both.
Gerald Horne, one of our most hard-working historians, concurs with 1619's view of slavery in the Revolution.
Horne, Gerald. The counter-revolution of 1776: slave resistance and the origins of the United States of America. New York University, 2014. 349p index afp ISBN 9781479893409, $39.00.
Horne (Univ. of Houston) holds a distinctive view of watershed historical dates. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 brought political order to Britain and encouraged free trade. This facilitated massive slave imports into the American colonies, destabilizing colonial societies with the specter of racial conflicts and rebellious slaves allied with foreign invaders. Horne also asserts the less-familiar importance of 1772. That year's landmark Somerset decision by Lord Mansfield effectively banned slavery in England, signaling a trend in favor of rights for Africans. In June 1772, Rhode Islanders defied imperial authority by burning HMS Gaspee. Colonists' determination to continue profiting from "the slavery trade" ultimately led to independence, but 1776 was partly a counterrevolution against London's nascent antislavery sentiment. This narrative is often about white anxieties in Britain, the Caribbean, and North America. Readers seldom hear the voices of free and unfree Africans, though their actions (flight, rebellion, everyday resistance) speak clearly enough. Horne's interpretation emphasizes material factors over political philosophy and ideas in general. It directly challenges conventional views of the American Revolution but, based on extensive evidence, deserves close reading. Summing Up: Recommended. Academic and large public libraries; undergraduates and above.
Choice Vol. 52, Issue 4, Dec 2014 American Library Association. Contact permissions@ala-choice.org for permission to reproduce or redistribute.
I just have to say that I LOVE being on this forum with a bunch of historians. Not a single day goes by that I don't learn something vital and accurate. Thanks to you all.
I so agree. None of this was taught when I was in school.
Lynda, when I was in school, there was an essay contest every year, sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. My mother enrolled me every year, I suppose because she thought “people would talk” if she didn’t, and I wasn’t old enough to rebel. I did as little work as I could get by with. We were given time during class, when we should have been learning *anything* else, to work on these essays. This is by way of saying that any teacher who had taught us anything that went against the Glorious Cause narrative would have lost her (always her) job.
I had a few friends when I was working that did the entire foolish Daughters of the Confederacy thing up to dressing up and re-enactment. I always thought it was ridiculous, but honestly I didn't realize the harm it was doing until much later.
For those essays & poetry submissions, be sure to avoid the phrase “Civil War. Instead use “War Between the States.” lol
My New Englander's view: it's The War to Fulfill America's Promise. But I just say or write "Civil War."
Oh the good ole DAR! Ugh
The DAR is a very different organization than the DAC. Both have their issues, but the DAC are just plain racist.
For the past 10 years, I’ve been indexing for the DAR Genealogical Research System, a tool to help history students, researchers, scholars and teachers. Not an “ugh.”
Ditto!!
Same here.
Thanks back at ya, Reid. We learn much from you as well.
In every course, I ask students who among them plans to be a teacher. With many business or IT majors, few if any answer Yes, especially when I taught history at a business school. My reply: "WRONG. You answered a question not posed. I didn't ask who will be a professional educator; the question is, who will purposely impart information, knowledge and/or wisdom?" Once they realize what's at issue, they understand that we all teach others: children, peers, friends, co-workers, even our bosses. (Among the worst is when we train someone who will take our job. Argh!) This also means that we're all students too, and should be throughout life.
The point: we all act as teachers, whether we know or wish it. And most LFAA readers have something to offer. So, now that we know, seize the opportunity!
My thoughts exactly! SO grateful to have these lessons to wake up to each day.
TPJ, as one of the fellow historians in this conversation group, I concur that some of the most interesting work published in the last 5-10 years is reassessing not just US and North American colonial history (and how I wish people would start paying more attention to Canada in discussion of the era before the invention of the USA), but also British and European history. The impact of the Cromwellian Interregnum on the psyches of British people has been understudied. The tactics Cromwell used in Ireland against Catholics served as a blueprint for genocide in the colonies, and the expansion of the plantation system from Ulster to the colonies, with its parallel expansion of the kinds of enslaved and pressed labor developed in order to effect it, has not been discussed sufficiently by either British or US historians.
One of the biggest problems we have is that "American" history has almost always been a closed shop: Historians outside the USA have, until recently, eschewed studying US history. This is changing, but slowly. As a British historian whose background is anything but British, I find I have a different perspective on the history of the British Isles, as I am not particularly influenced by some emotion-driven notion of "patriotism" in the work I do. I am not saying that American-born historians are incapable of being critically engaged--far from it. But we have these jokers whose "education" in US history was probably taught in high school by football coaches (that's who taught US history in my high school and many others) who have absolutely no idea of how to think critically about the past. Unfortunately, they appeal to the basest emotional instincts of the dominant white population in order to demonize everyone else.
And never forget the text books that shaped the curriculum everywhere. If Texas didn’t adopt a text book, it was/is dead on arrival, as the big publishing houses well knew. Authors were carefully edited and teachers required to follow the prescribed program. I published a textbook for junior college communications with a major publisher in 1986. It took my co-author and I four years to respond to all the editing and for the company to bring the book out.
I was a teacher in a very progressive public school later. Happily, in our system teachers were free to dispense with textbooks. It made more work for teachers but such better opportunity to help students of all ages learn research skills, questioning, and discernment.
So I mentioned this in an earlier comment, but I've been thinking about it all day.
When I was in school, there was no Google. Our town, when I was young, had no bookstores: as I mentioned, the closest we had was the Hallmark store, and the "lurid paperback" rack at the supermarket, and of course, the magazine racks, and least half of which were up high with only the top edges showing. My parents got us a World Book Encyclopedia set, twenty-some volumes of the "authoritative history of everything." The county library had what it had, and there was a card catalogue, but its curation was a bit haphazard.
The real Authority was the textbooks we were given in our classes, because it consisted of material we had to memorize and regurgitate, though typically only once. There was no real synthesis of ideas, just discrete sections with discrete globs of things to memorize, regurgitate, and forget. But we all knew that if it was in the Textbook, it was right, and the teacher was wrong.
Now, I can go online and learn how to install and mud drywall (that's been a home project, and we did a good job), gather enough information to write an algorithm for reproducible floating-point sums, get an overview of global warming trends (with data), read three competing histories of the attack on Pearl Harbor, order a book on John Dee's Enochian Magick.... If I can ask the question, I can get answers.
It's like something out of Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night.
So how DO you approach the teaching of history? Can it be summarized?
When I taught third grade my class and I researched and wrote and published neighborhood histories. We began with the neighborhood around our school, which included many olh houses as well as the site of the first gristmill in our county. We discussed how we could learn what the neighborhood was like 150 years earlier. We walked downtown to the main branch library and discovered the Sanborne insurance maps as well as old city directories. We found a history of Asheville ( our city) houses. We knocked on doors and interviewed people. Eventually we divided the research into pieces and kids wrote different sections. We invited the man who lived on the gristmill site to talk to us. We had discussions about how you could decide which was the correct answer when one source gave a different date than another. It was a fascinating project for all of us. We integrated language arts, social studies, research, etc. These were 8 and 9 year olds, and at the end of the year we went to a City Council meeting where a few of the kids got up and gave reasons why the neighborhood should be designated a historic district.(It did).
Like that. We are skewed in our objectivity (accuracy) by our emotion-driven notions.
Thanks, Linda. I hadn't considered the take-over of Ireland as prelude to other colonial endeavors. That makes perfect sense to me.
The 1619 Project Podcast is available. I highly recommend it.
The 1619 Podcast was excellent. If there are degrees of excellent, it was very!
Excellently excellent
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/podcasts/1619-podcast.amp.html
I second this. The written version is even better because more expansive, but the podcast is a wonderful summary.
Thank you Kelly.
I have learned so much more about our history as a country in the last 10 years, about America as a whole, about my own state (NC) in particular. That history that l learned on my own is much more complex than the version l was taught in school. Economic forces were usually the drivers of history. I want to recommend Colin Woodard whose two books, “American Nations” and “American Character” taught me things I did not know. Check out the book descriptions on Amazon.
As I recall the 1619 view of slavery arrived as a special section of our Nytimes one Sunday. I read it and found it fascinating and plausible. I was early educated in the NY state public education system. I feel it is correct that we learned mostly the great myths about our country.
Thank you TPJ for bringing, Horne, Gerald. The counter-revolution of 1776: slave resistance and the origins of the United States of America. New York University, 2014, to our attention. I am taking the long way before returning to Gerald Home's work.
I was somewhat lost after finishing today's Letter. Only some memories of my Social Studies classes in elementary school came to mind. Seeing lean-tos and the Indian's clothing, so different from what we wore wafted into my mind. Feeling patriotic or like a 'Girl Scout' when getting into the Brotherhood spirit as a schoolgirl. It felt good widening our circle of people when in Social Studies classes. The hours there were as mini dramas. There was the sense of play absent from my academic of math and reading classes.
'The department is proposing two priorities to reach low-income students and underserved populations. The Republicans object to the one that encourages “projects that incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives into teaching and learning.” (The Letter). I want to be in the classes for the low-income students and underserved populations; they sound a lot more interesting. Why aren't classes that incorporate racially, ethnically, etc., diverse perspectives taught to all the children? I would go farther than the Department of Education.
While we will delve into this White v. Other war that the Republicans are waging, doesn't this present a great opportunity for us to learn our American History differently? Won't we 'educated Whites' enjoy taking bites from a revised American History curriculum, in addition to fighting the current Civil War? I'm back to Gerald Home's work, TPJ. Heather is sending us back to school!
Thank you, TPJ.
Same back at ya, RD. It was good to meet onscreen through Heather's Herd. Keep the comments coming!
There is an excellent podcast of the 1619 project available on Stitcher as well as other podcast platforms
Indeed you are right. "But that myth is the basis of an entrenched power structure that will hold onto it with a death grip, because if the myth dies, so must the power structure. " See my post on my experience as a researcher of US history.
And this is the exact reason for the 'Big Lie'. The myth is rapidly crumbling.
As far as Mc Connell's train of thought that even discussing racism, here in NH, the newly Republican majority (a result of the Nov. election) has been falling in lockstep w/him, just as the southern states mentioned have done. They have passed HB 544, a gag order that prevents essentially anyone from even discussing racism or offer any diversity training or teaching such concepts. I sincerely hope that the ALCU will challenge this in court. As Dr H said, it IS unconstitutional re Freedom of Speech guaranteed in the Constitution. I truly fear that the super majority SCOTUS would go along with this UNCONSTITUTIONAL train of thought.
Turned 71 today and looking back to the 60’s and 70’s, it looks like the same ol’ same ol’ to me. I’d love to see this has come up to be healed but I thought that then also. Just seems like circles to me, fighting the same old battle over and over again.
I turn 71 in two weeks and have had similar thoughts. But then when we went into Iraq and Afghanistan I wondered, “What’s the end game? Will these be two more long, pointless wars? Did we learn anything from Vietnam?” Guess not.
What was learned from Vietnam was not to send a draftee army to fight an imperial war. The antiwar movement was fueled by the draft calls; you'll notice the large antiwar movement that exists today, when the fighting and dying only affects 1.5% of the population.
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Elaine,
Happy birthday to you!
When you've got a job as big as the job America has now, you can't just dig your shovel in, scrabble around a little, sweat a little, and say you're done with it. Our project has to be more like archaeology, I think: dig carefully, dust things off, look at them in the light (definitely with direction from HCR), analyze and synthesize and act. Then dig a little more. I'm not, by the way, suggesting that we should do it slowly. There is an urgency in the air now, and it provides, no, demands energy. Let's roll up our collective sleeves, energize our minds and hearts, and get it done. I've got three score and ten-plus behind me, and of course there are and will be times when I mutter, "Damn. I thought we did that already," to myself.
I want to do that too and I try very hard not to feel helpless, but in a state where it will fall on deaf ears and where my friends and family think I am crazy and a radical leftist, it is hard.
Crazy and a radical leftist? Wear it like a badge of honor!
Much sympathy to you Lynnda, and Nance too. Even here in bluest MA, we often encounter something similar, especially with the crises in racial justice and policing. Even moderates imagine that real law enforcement reform will leave them exposed to nameless, faceless danger. (Though the faces cannot be discerned, they are almost always dark ones.) Most who will not stay silent, and who celebrate last year's protests, see friendships strained or lost. Yet progressives and moderates reach out and find each other, achieve new understandings, make wonderful new friendships, and build community. Cf. Letters from an American.
I try to be proud of what I believe and sure in the knowledge that I've taken the high road and done my homework. But it's really difficult when your brother tells you that many of our "mutual friends and family" have deleted my posts on FB because they make them so mad. I want to say - then why don't they try to discern what's really going on. But I don't.
Oh, Lynnda, I am so, so sorry. Right now I'm a lefty in a pretty red little town, but I've got good friends, and this forum . . . although I suspect my sister will never speak to me again. My thoughts are with you.
I blame Trump and Fox"news" for the extreme divide we are in. I cannot get my brother to see that we are no longer discussing Left vs Right issues, but we are discussing Democracy vs Authoritarian/corruption/craziness/and on and on.
Nancy 100%. The best part of digging for knowledge is that we never get dirty, at least not much.
PS, we saw what you did in using "three score and ten." Please confirm. (Or not; I may be wrong. Never rule out that possibility.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEjW9Pxildo
So nice of you to write, TPJ. I love The Clancy Brothers (Tommy Makem, too), and I'd never heard this song with the "three score and ten." I was referring to my age, which is three score (60) and (10, plus. . . ) so, 74, and fast closing on 75. It's taken me such a long time to heal from doing work I thought was good, then returning to it years later, only to find it erased. I helped knock down the unnecessary Caesarean section rates where I lived in the 70s, only to find them soaring 20 years later. Sigh. I had a friend who was in the Peace Corps and managed the digging of wells for people who had little access to water. She visited nine years later and could barely find the sand-filled holes. Well, you know what I mean. When we make change, we work hard, and we want it to stick. I'm getting better at facing what I see is probably a reality, but right now, I'd give a lot just to see things move . . .
So I was wrong, and the connection is serendipitous. Oops!
My parents' early Makem/Clancy record is among my first musical memories. I had the great privilege of finally seeing Tommy about 20 years ago. He and Liam C made several fine records together. You are in for a treat.
The world is littered with aid and development projects that look like failure, but in fact, success is real, though finite. I had some success with a project fighting cattle disease in Zambia in the 1990s Such efforts often do achieve something for a while, including yours.
That's what I keep telling myself :) It's good to have confirmation. Thanks!
Happy Birthday 🌸🌺🌼
Happy Birthday, Elaine! Cheers!
Yes, some in America can't let go of feeling like being the White Masters of the Universe. We keep coming back to it. It's old and it's new again. It is also so boring, ugly and dangerous, still.
Happy Birthday, Elaine!
Happy Birthday!
I agree, it’s not easy Ralph, but we are making progress in becoming a more just nation once again with the election of a mensch.
I agree with you. I am the same age as you. Born and raised in a rural town in NC. Our history books never taught us about slavery and the white man’s foray into raping, lynching, and denial. I was surprised that Anne Frank’s book was required reading though.
Here's a gem that's not likely to be in the textbooks in the near future: TJ Loves Sally 4 Ever
Written by James Ijames
Directed by Pascale Florestal
In Partnership with
Boston Conservatory at Berklee
http://www.speakeasystage.com/tj-loves-sally/
Right on Ralph!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till
Ralph, Wait! You mean John Wayne didn't win the West?? George Washington didn't chop down his daddy's cherry tree?
Seriously, your points are well taken. I've got a few years on ya, and I learned the same -you'll pardon the expression - white-washed version of American History you describe.
At least when I was in what is now called 'middle school', we did learn civics, by which I mean, the mechanics of how it's all supposed to work.
When my daughter was in middle school in NC, in the 1990s, civics had become a mere shadow of its former self, and was bundled into 'social studies', which was a mish-mash of some history, some geography, and very little clarity and NO depth. I was horrified.
I have never been a fan of home schooling, but if I had school age kids now, and the local system followed the Trumpian dictates, I would become a home schooler in a skinny minute.
Sobbing doesn’t help, but it’s an appropriate reaction. I will miss Democracy and loathe the Autocracy when it takes control.
Don’t surrender yet, Nancy. To paraphrase John Paul Jones, we have just begun to fight! And to quote the British-American naval commander, “If fear is cultivated it will become stronger, if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery.”
As you can tell from the responses to Dr, HCR’s “Letters...”, her readers are just beginning to draw up plans, decide on strategies, and create tactics, to do moral and intellectual battle with the “forces of darkness” who threaten our national existence. Far from conceding the contest, we are committed to confronting the evil and destroying it with goodness.
By banding together with like-minded people we can deliver mortal blows to self-serving falsehood with the keen-edged sword of truth! Unity, courage and perseverance are the arrows in the quivers of the righteous!
No need to sorrow or concede to the greedy, ignorant horde. We can and will win the day!
Bill 100%. I often say the same thing, but your eloquent exposition is much appreciated.
TPJ, thank you for that kind, dare I say, overly generous, response. On re-reading the copy I was struck by the perhaps florid style that I am all too likely to lapse into. I wanted to be comforting and encouraging, but the scent of flora was a bit overwhelming.
Anyway, thanks my brother!
I was born in the late 1940’s. In junior high and high school I suffered though domestic arts and sewing classes and I never seemed to get it right. I never learned to make the perfect white sauce and I always put the sleeves in backward. So, I had to get out the thread picker and unstitch them and put them in right. The normalisation of slavery in American put it’s sleeves in wrong in the fabric of democracy from the very beginning. It is going to take a lot of diligent unpicking and resewing to create an garment fit to be worn with pride and true to the proposition that all people are created equal with Liberty and justice for all. But it can be done, Biden is giving it a go. The macerations of the far right are right on cue. Lie, gaslight, mislead, on and on. Life can be complicated but doing the right thing really is not. The golden rule, kindness, equality before the law, these are worth striving for. For an ill fitting garment is not a lovely or practical thing to behold, but it can be altered to fit, given the will to do so. And by the way, later in life I discovered you can buy this stuff called wondra flour and pour it into milk and viola....white sauce!
I am an anology-speaker as well - use them a lot ( maybe too much) - so your comment, Robin, is right up my alley! 😄 I agree with your view that we have a varied cloth of experience and history - the body that it is draped on changes as it ages, or we completely flub putting on those sleeves - and it is of utmost importance to keep looking in the mirror, acknowledging the condition of that fabric and it's fit, and working towards making those alterations. I am grateful for HCR and the community that has built up around her Letters. It has let me understand how very much I needed to look in the mirror to see at least some of the alterations to my own understanding of our US history are needed. I know my teen daughter's generation will have a much more nuanced historical garment to wear, even now, than I did as a young adult. That can only be a good thing.
Well wrapped up! You drape your arguements peruasively around a "corps" of essential truth.
Robin, I love your sense of common sense. “the sleeves in wrong in the fabric of democracy”.... a lot of us “white folk” are up to the task of unpicking and resewing. I see it as just due for all the “picking and sowing” done by slaves and claimed as agricultural profit by whites.
Terrific analogy, Robin!
Good morning, Lynell!
Morning, Ally!! (I'm way ahead of you; time-wise, that is!
Yes you are! And I'm an early riser out west.
I too suffered through sewing classes Robin, and never could get the sleeves or zipper to fit right. Lots of time spent with the ripper. Your analogy made me smile thinking about those days, and made me think how perfectly it describes how America really did put the sleeves in wrong in the fabric of our democracy. It’s time to get to work with that ripper.
You're probably safe, as long as the ripper isn't named Jack.
My mother (born in 1924) always said that the first thing she learned about knitting was that the three basic stitches are knit, purl, and rip (undo previous work).
In the construction world, we call it 'New construction remodeling' whenever you have to take apart what you just built.
Ahh Seattle, my home town. How is it faring these days? We have not been able to go back to our condo-friends and family there for almost two years now.
It really depends on who you ask. Seattle is a marvelous city from my perspective, and I've been here since 1980.
So true. Those of us who remember it before the freeway, before Amazon, can get quite nostalgic about it’s past. It’s funny but the small Welsh town were I live now is quite a bit like Seattle in the 50’s. Butcher, bakery, you know everyone on your street. My husband, who spent time in it as a youth remembers all the things that are gone now that he says made it better than now. I guess regretting change is just human. But embracing the the good, interesting and new keeps a person moving forward...the only way to go.
Joan, I learned a term, tink (the alphabetic opposite of knit), for undoing your work, one stitch at a time. One of many things I learned from Knitting Paradise, an online forum. ☺️
What a wonderful way to help us all understand the work ahead. I might like to make a lapel pin out of the thread picker in my drawer, which I have owned about since the days of incomplete history class. Thank you, thank you, Robin.
Love this analogy Robin.
Wonderfully stitched Robin. Your analogy was thrilling. While I didn't suffer as you did in home ed., my fingers never felt as inadequate. At the end of the class, I managed to create a lustrous purple skirt. While not the best in the class, the skirt looked good enough. It was a miracle that I couldn't stop staring at it.
Yes, sewing miracles do happen...so glad you had your’s😊
When I read McConnell's claim that "American pride was at its lowest point in 20 years", I was skeptical. So I googled it (https://news.gallup.com/poll/312644/national-pride-falls-record-low.aspx). Turns out he's right about the measure of American pride. Gallup's poll shows that pride in America was remarkably steady from 2000 through 2016 - hovering around 80-85% year after year. Until Trump took office. Then national pride fell 20 points in 3 years. I wonder why?
There are days when I am grateful for the TFG era, for forcing our hidden caste system into bright light. I and so many other privileged white people could begin to understand what we did not know. Much of it was not taught in the Virginia schools where I went to high school, especially anything about oppression of any non white culture. I have been an adult for a long time and certainly could have found out about these things. But I was “busy” believing voting rights acts, and months celebrating women, or various cultures had righted the wrongs. But once you know, you know. I believe there can be correction and healing AND patriotism, coexisting. It will involve pain, discomfort and sacrifice. The essential tonic is knowledge, coming to us via many dedicated historians and delightful younger generation sources like Amanda Gorman. My thanks to every one of you.
Yes, while it's painful (and embarrassing) to admit that Trump had to be elected for me to get all the way to anti-racism, his election was a powerful goad and a deep recalibration of my assumptions about the people of this country.
I find myself in a similar boat, although I had started fighting this battle in earnest after Michael Brown was murdered in Ferguson, MO by law enforcement. I had to really stretch my ways of thinking about race and law enforcement.
**In case no one knows, retired cop, use of force trainer and hostage negotiator, living in an almost entirely white region of Oregon.
The hill you had to climb was so much steeper than mine; you have my admiration. I do not mean that you started out as more racist than me (than I? I can never keep it straight), but that the cultures within which you were and are operating may have been more likely to give cover to implicit (and explicit) bias. Good for you for digging deep. We all have so much work to do.
I echo what Reid said below. I only wish there were many more of you in the profession.
I agree, Reid and Ally. I've always been open to all groups and view equality across races, genders, and religions, but being forced to think otherwise helped me to learn and engage in anti-racism thoughts and actions. I've grown a lot the last 5 years.
Ally, I am a former Oregonian. After my degree in Broadcasting (74’) at the U of O. I worked at a TV station in Medford, Oregon. A friends husband worked as a cop in Ashland, Oregon. He said once riding with his partner that they saw a POC on the street. His partner said “ya there are about six of them here and we know where they all live.” After having lived with a person of color at the U of O. It came as such a shock. I never considered myself a a liberal. There where a number of friends from the Broadcasting department working there. Every executive at the station there Were white male chauvinist. They had an executive little club called “the Jolly boys”. After a couple of years they had to let this little “Jolly girl” into their group after I moved into sales. The FCC was going to challenge their license. We made a big joke out of it and made our own club we called ourselves the “Jolly Pee-Ons.”
I grew up in Medford, and graduated HS in 1976. I'm sure you knew (or knew of) Tam Moore; he is one of my best friend's Dad. What TV station did you work for, and who was your friend's husband? I got my degree in Criminology from SOSC in 1981 and knew a fair number of APD.
Lost your email. The person I went was Steve Deaton. He was there in the later 70's . It was only shortly then he got a job with Portland PD and went on from there to become a pilot for United.
I worked at KEMD I had the Promotions position when we changed it to KTVL. We did that when we sold the KMED call letter with the AM radio station. I don't know Tam he most have been at the other station. The fires there are just unbelievable. I spoke to friends in Portland this morning they were talking about the protests DT that are turning violent at night. Still. With only few arrests. She said she went through DT yesterday and there were 150 motorcycles lined up getting ready to do soon. They left quickly!
I have found memories of Southern Oregon. My only Fame to claim was that I help Anne Curry get her first job in TV. She went on to go to the TODAY show on NBC. Did you now David Sourer? His Dad was Pres. at SOSC. His sister worked at the Hungary Woodsman. I work with David at then KMED when I first got there. Good remembering with you .
Stay safer.
Thank you!
Except that Michael Brown was not murdered . The grand jury and Eric Holder agreed.
From the liberal leaning WaPo
“So we wanted to set the record straight on the DOJ’s findings, especially after The Washington Post’s opinion writer Jonathan Capehart wrote that it was “built on a lie.” From time to time, we retroactively check statements as new information becomes available. In this case, the Justice Department has concluded that Wilson acted out of self-defense, and was justified in killing Brown.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/03/19/hands-up-dont-shoot-did-not-happen-in-ferguson/
https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-holder-delivers-update-investigations-ferguson-missouri
Legally justified in the existing context is one thing. Morally justified, including justification of that context, would be something else. If our police were trained to see people of color as us, not them; if trained to act to reduce violence, not inflict superior violence; then Michael Brown and a long list of other people would be alive today.
I agree that he was not prosecutable for murder, and I am normally more careful with my language than that.
The problem that I see with this "justification" is that (and I said this at the time, and was very unpopular in my non-cop social set) that in a very narrow window of time, to wit: the confrontation while the cop is seated in his patrol car and Mr. Brown is reaching in through the window <as I recall without looking up the details> that is a justified shoot. BUT: why was he seated in his patrol car while talking to Mr. Brown, why was he even talking with Mr. Brown in the first place, and did he say or do anything that may have provoked a violent response?
Did you know the sun's going to rise in the west tomorrow? They're wrong. Which frequently happens, and involves both Ds and Rs.
President Obama through his DOJ disagrees with you.
From the DOJ report.
This morning, the Justice Department announced the conclusion of our investigation and released a comprehensive, 87-page report documenting our findings and conclusions that the facts do not support the filing of criminal charges against Officer Darren Wilson in this case. Michael Brown’s death, though a tragedy, did not involve prosecutable conduct on the part of Officer Wilson.
“This conclusion represents the sound, considered, and independent judgment of the expert career prosecutors within the Department of Justice. I have been personally briefed on multiple occasions about these findings. I concur with the investigative team’s judgment and the determination about our inability to meet the required federal standard.
This outcome is supported by the facts we have found – but I also know these findings may not be consistent with some people’s expectations. To all those who have closely followed this case, and who have engaged in the important national dialogue it has inspired, I urge you to read this report in full. “
Not the result you wanted, but a conclusion based on fact.