Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 11

June 14-15, 2025: Revolutionary War Figures: The Continental Army

[On June 14th,1775, the Continental Army was formed at the SecondContinental Congress in Philadelphia. So for the 250thof that momentous military moment, I’ve AmericanStudied a handful of iconicRevolutionary War figures, leading up to this special weekend post on thathistoric anniversary!]

Threetelling details about the formation and evolution of the Continental Army.

1)     New England Origins: Having grown up inVirginia and now spent more than half of my life in Massachusetts, I’m well awareof the longstanding debates over where the Revolution & thus the UnitedStates really began (and of course my other brief hometown, Philadelphia, canstake its own claim in that argument). I’m not necessarily trying to weigh inon that question in an overarching way here, but it is important to note thatthe first colonial armies were mustered in New England states—first Massachusetts in April 1775 (notlong after Lexington & Concord), and then NewHampshire, RhodeIsland, and Connecticutsoon after. Those armies seemingly convinced the Second Continental Congress ofthe need for a more truly nationwide force, and on June 14th theyvoted to establish the Continental Army (and a daylater elected Virginian George Washington as its commander; sorry NewEngland).

2)     Invading Canada: In March, the historian StacySchiff wrote an excellentop-ed for the New York Times (that’s a gift link if you don’tsubscribe) tracing the long and mostly very silly history of American leaderstoying with the idea of invading and/or annexing Canada. Obviously that goalwas at least significantly different during the Revolutionary War, and so itisn’t particularly surprising that the first major use of the Continental Army—almostimmediately after its creation, in fact—was to send Philip Schuyler’sNew York regiments to invadeour neighbor to the North. But I nonetheless agree with the headline atthat last hyperlinked article—that this was a hasty and ill-advised invasion,one almost certainly doomed to fail (and failit did). Perhaps the best way to put it is this: while the Continental Armywas initially created as a defense force (and mostly used as such throughoutthe war), once an army exists, it seems very difficult for its commanders notto want to use it for attacks as well.

3)     A Wartime or Standing Army?: An awareness ofthat fact was no doubt one significant factor in the widespreadAmerican opposition, both at the time of its creation, throughout theRevolution, and most especially into itsaftermath, to the Continental Army remaining in place as a standing army(rather than being defined as a wartime one that would be dissolved once saidwar was completed). It’s quite difficult, 75 years into the full explosion ofour military-industrialcomplex, to contemplate a United States without standing armed forces (andof course the relative absence of them didn’t end up being a great thing inthe Early Republic). But as with any aspect of our founding, I think weshould treat this concept as one that can and should still be debated—andbetter remembering the framing debates over the Continental Army can help us doso.

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Rev War figures you’d highlight?

June 13, 2025: Revolutionary War Figures: YA Novels

[On June 14th,1775, the Continental Army was formed at the SecondContinental Congress in Philadelphia. So for the 250thof that momentous military moment, I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of iconicRevolutionary War figures, leading up to a special weekend post on thathistoric anniversary!]

On threegroundbreaking historical novels that reflect the evolution of young adultliterature.

1)     JohnnyTremain (1943): Esther Forbes’ Newbery Medal-winning novelfollows its title character from his life in 1773 as a 14 year oldsilversmith’s apprentice (a career cut short when he suffers a debilitatinghand injury early in the novel) through his gradual connection to the Sons ofLiberty and participation in the Boston Tea Party (among other events),building to a climax set against the April 1775 battles of Lexington andConcord. Although Forbes creates Johnny’s 1770s Boston with depth and nuance,there’s never any doubt that the Sons are on the right side of history, athread that likewise climaxes in the novel’s concluding section with a movingspeech from James Otis(whom the other Sons had often dismissed as an insane old man) about theRevolutionary sacrifices that will be necessary and appropriate so “that a mancan stand up.” Johnny Tremain is,let’s say, a Revolutionary historical novel for the Greatest Generation era.

2)     MyBrother Sam is Dead (1974): James Lincoln Collier and ChristopherCollier’s NewberyHonor-winning (and National BookAward nominated!) novel offers a far more murky and (often) dark vision ofthe Revolution. The narrator, Tim Meeker, is torn between his loyalist fatherand Continental Army soldier brother in the early years of the Revolution;while we might expect transformations or reunions from a young adult novel,instead Tim’s father is abducted by pirates and dies of cholera on a prisonship, one of Tim’s friends is decapitated by the British, and Sam is eventuallyexecuted by the Continental Army (for stealing cattle, a crime for which he hadbeen framed). This is a world where not only are loyalties divided and choicesuncertain, but death and brutality seem to await regardless of what choices onemakes; when Tim reveals in the conclusion that he has been writing the bookfrom 1826, his survival seems to be the novel’s version of a happy ending. My Brother Sam is Dead is, let’s say, aRevolutionary historical novel for the Vietnam War and Watergate era.

3)     TheAstonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The PoxParty (2006): M.T. Anderson’s NationalBook Award-winning novel, the first in a two-volume series (the second, TheKingdom on the Waves, was published in 2009), is the story of auniquely talented African American slave in Revolutionary Boston who findshimself and his mother used (and she killed) for social and medical experimentson race, escapes slavery and joins the Continental Army, and eventually (in thecourse of the series) joins the British forces in Virginia instead due to hisopposition to American slavery. The novels wed Gothic tropes (Octavian’s Bostonhome is very much a Gothic haunted house, for example) to revisionist histories(his Massachusetts slaveowners are in league with Virginia planters to pursuetheir racist agenda, complicating our narratives of both American slavery andthe Revolution), with the result a historical fantasy that imagines a fardifferent nation and world than either of the prior novels had. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothingis, let’s say, a Revolutionary historical novel for the multicultural and Obamaera.

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Rev War figures you’d highlight?

June 12, 2025: Revolutionary War Figures: Benedict Arnold

[On June 14th,1775, the Continental Army was formed at the SecondContinental Congress in Philadelphia. So for the 250thof that momentous military moment, I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of iconicRevolutionary War figures, leading up to a special weekend post on thathistoric anniversary!]

On the benefits and the limitations to remembering our mostinfamous traitor the way we do.

I’m not going to argue that we shouldn’t remember BenedictArnold as one of our first, and one of our most enduring, national traitors,because, well, he was. Compared to the contestedand still controversial treason accusations leveled at his contemporary AaronBurr, Arnold’s traitorous acts were far more overt and undisputed—when Major Andre was caught andArnold’s plan to hand over the fort at West Point to British forces discovered,Arnold immediately went over to the British side and helped lead their wareffort for the war’s remaining two years; after the Revolution he settled inEngland and lived out his remaining two decades of life in that adoptedhomeland.

So Arnold was a traitor to the Revolutionary army and cause,and remembering him as such is certainly accurate to the specific histories andevents. Doing so is also beneficial on a broader level, as it forces us to recognizethe Founding Fathers and their iconic Revolutionary peers as no less human andflawed than any other leaders or people. Arnold was one of the Revolution’sfirst war heroes, playing a decisive role in the early victory atSaratoga and other conflicts; yet just two short years later, politics andpreferences within the Continental Army, coupled with financial difficulties (perhapsdue to lending money to the Continental Army, which would be a textbookdefinition of irony), led Arnold to cast his lot with the same forces he hadhelped defeat at Saratoga. 

Yet there’s at least one significant downside to rememberingArnold as a traitor, or more exactly to the collective blind spot that suchmemories reveal. After all, the most simple yet most commonly ignored fact ofthe Revolution is this: it represented an act of treason against the colonists’Royal government, and each and every American involved in it was thus atraitor. (There was a reason why BenFranklin worried, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, abouteveryone hanging separately if they did not hang together.) Awareness of thatfact might not change our collective perspective on the Revolution and itsleaders—but might it not at least shift our understanding of the loyalists, of those whosided (lawfully) withEngland during the war? As a soldier who sold out his comrades, Arnold wasof course something more than just a loyalist—but the point here is thattreason, during the Revolution, was a loaded and complex concept however welook at it.

LastRevolutionary figure tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Rev War figures you’d highlight?

June 11, 2025: Revolutionary War Figures: The “Black Regiment”

[On June 14th,1775, the Continental Army was formed at the SecondContinental Congress in Philadelphia. So for the 250thof that momentous military moment, I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of iconicRevolutionary War figures, leading up to a special weekend post on thathistoric anniversary!]

Threetelling details about the Continental Army’s longstanding, largely AfricanAmerican 1stRhode Island Regiment.

1)     Fraught Origins: If the existence of a 1770sarmy regiment dominated numerically by African American soldiers is no doubtsurprising, one of the main origin points for this unit will likely be less so:throughout the first few years of the war, a number of slaveowners chose to send theirslaves to fight rather than join the Continental Army themselves (with theslaveowners still receiving a good bit of the soldiers’ pay, natch). When theArmy, desperate for more troops, changedthe rules in February 1778 to allow Black soldiers to volunteer theirown service, Rhode Island (still a slave state, as they all were in 1778) tookthings one step further: the state’s GeneralAssembly voted to allow the enlistment of “every able-bodied negro, mulatto, orIndian man slave,” promising that every one who so enlisted would “beimmediately discharged from the service of his master or mistress, and beabsolutely free.” The worst and best of America, right there in one moment andmilitary unit.   

2)     Two Brave Battles: Not too long after thatshift, the 1st Rhode Island saw its first significant combat, in theAugust 1778 Battleof Rhode Island (mostly fought near the island city of Newport). The 1stwere tasked with defending an important position that was under sustainedassault by the British, and specifically by very dangerous Hessian mercenaries;the 1stfought off three distinct attacks, helping win a pitched battle that the Marquis deLafayette would call “the best fought action of the war.” It was the firstof many battles the 1st would take part in, but here I’ll highlight onemore, a far more tragic and equally inspiring conflict: the May 1781 Battleof Pine’s Bridge (New York), when a small band of the 1st wereambushed by a far larger contingent of British troops. The regiment’s ColonelGreene and eight Black soldiers were killed, and itwas reported that the soldiers “defended their beloved Col. Greene so wellthat it was only over their dead bodies that the enemy reached and murdered him.”

3)     A Culminating Presence: The 1stRhode Island was one of the only Continental Army units to serve until the endof the Revolution, only disbanding when the entire army was disbanded in November1783. That meant for example that the regiment was part of the Revolution’sfinal significant battle, playing an important role in the October 1781 Siegeof Yorktown. And while there was not much major combat over the two yearsafter that point, the regiment continued to serve an important role, guardingthe city of Newburgh, New York from potential British invasion and even takingpart in a planned but ultimately aborted expeditionto capture the British Fort Ontario in Oswego. From its origins to itsmultiple endpoints, you can’t tell the story of the Continental Army nor of theAmerican Revolution without a prominent place for the 1st RhodeIsland Regiment.

NextRevolutionary figure tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Rev War figures you’d highlight?

June 10, 2025: Revolutionary War Figures: Molly Pitcher

[On June14th, 1775, the Continental Army was formed at the SecondContinental Congress in Philadelphia. So for the 250th of that momentousmilitary moment, I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of iconic Revolutionary Warfigures, leading up to a special weekend post on that historic anniversary!]

On the iconicwar hero who might or might not have existed, and why she matters in any case.

I can think offew more AmericanStudies ways to analyze popular memory and prominence thanthrough thetwelve rest stops on the New Jersey turnpike—and by that measure, MollyPitcher and ClaraBarton are the two most famous women in New Jersey history and culture (ifthat last phrase isn’t an oxymoron—I kid, Jerseyites, I kid). Pitcher’s is alsothe only one of the twelve rest stop referents that wasn’t an actual name, andthat might not even link to an individual figure—some historians believe thatthe name does refer to one woman, Mary Ludwig Hays,who followed her husband and the Continental Army to the Battleof Monmouth and found herself not only serving water to the soldiers buteven takingover her wounded husband’s artillery job; but others have linked the nameto a number of other Revolutionary-era women who performed one or another ofthose roles (camp followers, water carriers, and so on), includingMargaret Corbin.

So Molly Pitcheris as much a folkloric as a historical figure, one not unlike Paul Bunyan, JohnHenry, or, perhaps more accurately, Central Massachusetts’s own local legend JohnnyAppleseed. Because like Appleseed’s inspiration John Chapman (about whomsee that hyperlinked, wonderful Guest Post by William Kerrigan), women likeHays and Corbin most definitely existed; the details of their lives andexperiences are as partial and uncertain as most any 18th centuryhistories, even those of theRevolution’s most prominent leaders, but there’s plenty of information outthere, such as at the various stories linked in my first paragraph’s closingsentences, and the Molly Pitcher legend provides an excellent starting pointfor researching and learning about these historical figures. Even absent suchresearch, any collective memory of “Molly Pitcher” itself adds women to ournarratives of these Revolutionary war battles and histories, producing a morefull and accurate picture of those histories as a result.

I’d take thatargument one step further, however. I’ve written on multiple occasions,including in this poston Judith Sargent Murray and this oneon John and Abigail Adams, about the striking cultural, social, andpolitical voices and roles of Revolutionary-eraAmerican women (including not only Murray and Adams but also PhillisWheatley, AnnisBoudinot Stockton, and others). Indeed, it’s fair to say that such womenhelp us to see the era’s possibilities for gender and society as likewiserevolutionary, and as foreshadowing and influencing the19th century women’s movement. That some of these women,including Adams and Stockton, achieved such success in relationship to theirhusbands’ lives and work—just as, that is, Hays and Corbin did in relationshipto their husband’s wartime efforts—reflects some of the era’s limitations andobstacles; limitations and obstacles that all these women, like Molly Pitcher,pushed well beyond.

Next Revolutionaryfigure tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Rev War figures you’d highlight?

June 9, 2025: Revolutionary War Figures: Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys

[On June14th, 1775, the Continental Army was formed at the SecondContinental Congress in Philadelphia. So for the 250th of that momentousmilitary moment, I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of iconic Revolutionary Warfigures, leading up to a special weekend post on that historic anniversary!]

On the less than noble side to one of the Revolution’s folk heroes.

This is a tough post for me to write: Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys might not have the national reputation of the Concord Minutemen, but intheir native Vermont and throughout New England they’re definitely folk heroes; and I know thatmy Mom grew up (just outside of Boston) as a big fan. And there’s no questionthat their May 1775 surprise capture of Fort Ticonderoga represented one of the Revolution’s most significant victories, not onlytactically but also symbolically; this was only a month after Lexington andConcord, with the very status of the Revolution still up in the air, and thevictory at Fort Ticonderoga thus helped make clear that America’s war effortwas to be a serious and ongoing one.

I’m not here to challenge those histories (as far as I know Ticonderoga wasall that and more)—but the Green Mountain Boys didn’t come into existence in1775, and the details of their founding and virtually all of their otheractions are far less admirable. Not to put too fine a point on it: the Boyswere a local goon squad, organized by Allen and compatriots in 1770 to intimidate New York landowners into leaving the area (thenpart of New Hampshire) and ceding the so-called “Wentworth” land grants to locals. Asfar as I can tell the Boys didn’t generally take violent action, preferringthreats and intimidation, but at least one genuinely violent event resultedfrom these conflicts: the 1775 “Westminster massacre,” in whichapparently only one or two landowners died but many more were affected. Moreover,the Boys didn’t graduate from these local acts to Revolutionary ones so much astemporarily pause for the latter—as early as 1778 Allen and company were back in Vermont and focused once again on the land grant battles (aswell as the distinct possibility, one Allen negotiated for with the British forsome time, of Vermont becoming aseparate British province!).

So what would it mean if we remembered these different sides to Allen?Those who critique “revisionist history” would argue that I’m seeking toundermine his heroism, to tear down an American icon, and so on. Part of myresponse would be that both elements must be included in any accurate historyof the man, his military importance to the Revolution as well as his more shadylocal endeavors. But another and more significant part would be that Allenoffers a far more historically meaningful portrait of the Revolutionary era, amoment in which hugely defining and world-altering events existed side by sidewith the most petty and minor (and at times, indeed, ugly and divisive)conflicts. If anything, an awareness of that history makes the defining eventsthat much more impressive still—in 1775, the 18th century equivalentof the Sons of Anarchy biker gang played an instrumental role in a victorywithout which there might not be a United States.

Next Revolutionaryfigure tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Rev War figures you’d highlight?

June 7-8, 2025: What’s Next for Kyle

[This pastweekend, my younger son and co-favorite-GuestPoster Kyle Railton graduated from high school. As I wiped awayproud Dad tears, this week I’ve AmericanStudied a handful of texts and contextsfor this momentous occasion—leading up to this special weekend post on what’snext for the new grad!]

After themulti-year, multi-part, multi-emotion process that is the college search, withjust a few days remaining until the May 1st deadline, Kyle committedto the University of Michigan! I’d say that I don’t know what makes me prouder,that he’ll be attending one of the nation’s top public universities or that he navigatedthe process and decision so thoughtfully, but the truth is I didn’t need any ofthat to be as proud as punch of my amazing, inspiring younger son. You know I’llkeep you all posted on all that’s next for both him and his brother!

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Graduation texts or topics you’d share?

June 6, 2025: GraduationStudying: That Sunscreen Speech

[This pastweekend, my younger son and co-favorite-GuestPoster Kyle Railton graduated from high school. As I wipe awayproud Dad tears, this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of texts and contextsfor this momentous occasion—leading up to a special weekend post on what’s nextfor the new grad!]

On threeparticularly stand-out moments from MarySchmich’s famous 1997 column (long falsely attributed to Kurt Vonnegut,and eventually turned into ahit song by none other than Baz Luhrmann):

1)     “Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimesyou’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’sonly with yourself.” I’m not sure I know a more apt phrase than “Comparison isthe thief of joy.” This is an incredibly hard piece of advice to take, and we’reall gonna fall short of it plenty no matter what. But I do believe in doing ourbest to judge ourselves against our own journey, rather than what we see ofothers’ (which is never how they would see their own in any case, of course).

2)     “Get to know your parents. You never know whenthey’ll be gone for good.” Man alive do Ifeel this one in June 2025, just a couple days after what would have been myfolks’55th wedding anniversary. I most definitely got to know my Dad,and will always be eternally grateful for all that I learned from him. But thesecond sentence of the quote is still profoundly true nonetheless—there is noway to prepare for losing a parent, you got to go there to know there (one ofmy Dad’s favorite quotes), and all we can do is our best to make the most ofevery second we have with those we love.

3)     “Wear sunscreen” (which is the speech’s firstand last piece of advice). As someone who grew up in the generation locatedsmack dab in between the prior total lack of skin health awareness and thesubsequent extremely knowledgeable sense of the sun’s dangers, I certainly agreewith this advice in specific terms. But what I also like about it is that, amidsta speech that largely emphasizes living in the present and not worrying overlymuch about the future (perspectives I mostly agree with—“Noday but today,” indeed), this deceptively simple phrase reminds us thatlife is long, and we want to make sure that our long lives are as healthy inevery sense as they can be. Graduates can feel invincible, at least in their ownskin (ie, probably not as much in the larger world in 2025), but the truth is we’vegot to take care of that skin to truly make it last.

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Graduation texts or topics you’d share?

June 5, 2025: GraduationStudying: The Graduate

[This pastweekend, my younger son and co-favorite-GuestPoster Kyle Railton graduated from high school. As I wipe awayproud Dad tears, this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of texts and contextsfor this momentous occasion—leading up to a special weekend post on what’s nextfor the new grad!]

On one aspectof the iconic1967 film that hasn’t aged well, and two that still feel very relevant.

In a 1997 columnrevisiting The Graduate for its 30th anniversary, Roger Ebertapologizes for his initial 1967 review; more exactly, he apologizes to the characterMrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) for having initially sided with “thatinsufferable creep,” Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock, over her, whom he nowsees as “the most sympathetic and intelligent character in” the film. I firstsaw the film around that same 1997 moment and very much agreed with Ebert’slater take, and moreover saw Benjamin’s relationship with Mrs. Robinson’sdaughter Elaine (Katharine Ross) as similarly creepy rather than romantic (heessentially stalks her for much of the second half of the film, and I don’tblame her for looking rather nonplussed as they pull away together on thatclimactic bus). Elaine is also ridiculously quick to forgive Benjamin forhis extended affair with her mother, which he is still in the midst of when hefirst goes out with Elaine. Basically, both romantic relationships and theportrayals of the main female characters in this film are a mess, and at thevery least come out looking far different in the 21st century thanthey apparently did in 1967.

On theother hand, one aspect of Mrs. Robinson’s character has aged very well: the Simon & Garfunkel songnamed after her that was written (or rather adapted)for the film (Paul Simon had a slightly different, not-yet-recorded song-in-progresscalled “Mrs. Roosevelt” that director Mike Nichols convinced him to revise). “Mrs.Robinson” is a fascinating glimpse into American culture in the late 1960s, onethat certainly begins as an ode to a suburban married woman amidst a midlifeaffair but that evolves into a far broader and deeper examination of a societyin the midst of deepening and destructive malaise. The final verse about Joe DiMaggioand the disappearance of shared heroes gets the most attention, but I would highlighta series of lines in the penultimate one: “Going to the candidates’debate/Laugh about it, shout about it/When you’ve got to choose/Every way youlook at it, you lose.” While of course those lines could still be from theperspective of the title character, I would argue they ring even truer for anew graduate, someone emerging into a future where it feels that there are nogreat choices (something about which, I’ll be honest, I worry a great deal whenit comes to both of my sons and their generation).

Andspeaking of graduates and their choices, I would argue that the film’s singlemost iconic line has also aged all-too-well into our present moment. At agraduation party at his childhood home, Benjamin is cornered by family friendMr. McGuire, who says to him, “I want to say one word to you. Just one word…Plastics.”When Benjamin asks for a bit more, McGuire simply adds, “There’s a great futurein plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?” It’s safe to say thatBenjamin does not, in fact, think about it, but it seems to me that we as anaudience are meant to—not because there’s any there there, but instead quitespecifically because there’s not. In a moment when young people, and especiallyyoung men around the age of high school and college graduates alike, areapparently devotinga great deal of their time, energy, and resources to the mystical and to mymind entirely fabricated world of crypto and bitcoin and the like, seeking tofind a great future in these largely unexplained and (again, to my mind)unsubstantiated concepts, we would do well to collectively revisit this 1967scene and consider just why it feels so silly.

Lastgraduation connection tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Graduation texts or topics you’d share?

June 4, 2025: GraduationStudying: Du Bois’s Speech

[This pastweekend, my younger son and co-favorite-GuestPoster Kyle Railton graduated from high school. As I wipe awayproud Dad tears, this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of texts and contextsfor this momentous occasion—leading up to a special weekend post on what’s nextfor the new grad!]

On two ofthe many vital 2025 lessons from a 1930 speech to high school graduates.

I wrote agood bit about W.E.B. Du Bois’s 1930 address “Reflectionsupon the Housatonic River,” delivered to the graduates of Searles HighSchool (in his hometown of Great Barrington, MA), in this priorpost. In lieu of a full first paragraph here, I’d ask you to check outboth the speech and my post if you would, and then come back for a couplefurther thoughts.

Welcomeback! One of my favorite things about Du Bois (a very long and competitivelist, as readers of this blog know well) was how much he loved rivers, and hislove of the Housatonic River of his childhood in particular contributed to the publicationin his NAACP magazine The Crisis of the first poem by none otherthan Langston Hughes, as I discussedin this post. He opens his speech with a recognition that that love, andthus the speech’s titular subject, might seem silly, that “on hearing thesubject of my speech, some of you may have thought of it as a joke.” But it isanything but, and not just because of his personal affiliation with andfondness for this particular river. Instead, the central subject of Du Bois’sspeech is an overarching argument for taking better care of our rivers and all ournatural spaces, an impassioned plea that, as he concludes his speech, we “shouldrescue the Housatonic and clean it as we have never in all the years beforethought of cleaning it, and seek to restore its ancient beauty; making it thecenter of a town, of a valley, and perhaps—who knows?—of a new measure of civilizedlife.” Never has that call been more necessary than here in the summer of 2025.

Suchenvironmental conservation is a key part of Du Bois’s speech, but I would arguethat he makes the case for it through an even more overarching concept: that ofwhat we collectively owe to the communities that we are part of. Earlier thisyear, the film historian and American Studies scholar VaughnJoy focused her excellent reviewof High Noon on the defining American debate between the individualand the community. Like both Vaughn and me, Du Bois was a lifelong advocate forthe communal emphasis, for the idea that we are all profoundly connected to oneanother and the concurrent concept that society only functions at all (muchless approaches its more perfect unions) when we seek to strengthen suchcommunal connections. And he also ends this moving speech, just before thatquote about rescuing and restoring the river, with an appeal to his audiencebased precisely on that sentiment, through the lens of the high school fromwhich they all had graduated: “And so I have ventured to call to the attentionof the graduates of the Searles High School this bit of philosophy of living inthis valley.” If America is to survive, and certainly if has a chance to thrivein the years ahead, we must all hang together, not just out of necessity butout of such communal connection.

Nextgraduation connection tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Graduation texts or topics you’d share?