Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 25

February 10, 2025: Love Letters to the Big Easy: New Orleans and America

[Lastmonth I got to return to myfavorite American city for the 2025 MLA Convention.So for this year’s Valentine’s Day series I’ll be offering some love letters towhat makes New Orleans so unique, leading up to a special tribute post thisweekend!]

On how NewOrleans helps us better engage America’s defining creolizations.

I’vewritten a good bit about New Orleans in this space: from this earlycity-centric post inspired by Mardi Gras and my first visit tothe city; to this one fromthe same blog era on one of my favorite American novels and abook that’s as much about New Orleans as it is about its huge,multi-generational cast of characters, George Washington Cable’s The Grandissimes (1881).Those posts illustrate a few of the many reasons why I believe New Orleans isso distinctly and powerfully American, as I hope will this week’s subsequent postsin their own complementary ways. And as I’ll highlight a bit more in tomorrow’spost, the responses to and aftermaths of Hurricane Katrina likewise reveal someof the worst as well as the best of American history,society, culture, and art; on that final note, I should highlight anothertext I could definitely have featured in this week’s series and one of myfavorite 21st century American novels, Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones (2011).

To saymuch more eloquently than I ever could a bit more about why I’d define NewOrleans as so deeply American, here’s one of the central characters from Treme that I didn’t get to analyze in this post, SteveZahn’s DJ DavisMcAlary. As a radio DJ, and a highly opinionated person to boot, Davis isoften ranting, much of it about the best and worst of his beloved New Orleans(and all of it a combination of communal and self-aggrandizing, convincing andfrustrating). But my favorite Davis monologue, in the opening scene of theSeason 4 episode “Dippermouth Blues,” is far quieter and more thoughtful.Coming out of playing a hugely cross-cultural song, Davis calls it, “A stellarexample of McAlary’s theory of creolization. Tin PanAlley, Broadway, the Great American Songbook meet African American musicalgenius. And that’s what America’s all about…‘Basin Street, is the street, whereall the dark and light folks meet.’ That’s how culture gets made in thiscountry. That’s how we do. We’re a Creole nation, whether you like it or not.And in three weeks, America inaugurates its first Creole president. Get used toit.”

Those ofus who loved thataspect of Obama and evencalled him “the first American president” as a result didn’t have to “getused to” anything, of course. And as for those whom Davis is addressing moredirectly in those closing lines, well to say that they seem notto have gotten used to it is to significantly understate the case(which of course David Simon and his co-creators knew all too well, as thatfinal-season episode of Treme mayhave been set around New Year’s 2008 but was made and aired in late 2013).Indeed, when I was asked by audiences during my book talks for We the People about whywe’ve seen such an upsurge in exclusionary rhetoric and violence over the lastdecade and a half, I’ve frequently argued that backlash to Obama—as arepresentation of so many perceived national “changes”—has been a centralcause. Which is to say, it’s not just that we need to “get over” the reality ofour creolized history, culture, and identity—first the we who love thoseelements need to do a better job making the case for them, both as valuable andas foundationally American. There’s no place and no community through which wecan do so more potently than New Orleans.

Next loveletter tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Cities you’d love on?

February 8-9, 2025: Inspiring Sports Stories: Aidan and Kyle Railton

[For thisyear’s Super Bowl series, I wanted to highlight inspiring American sports storiesand figures, past and present. Leading up to a special pre-Valentine’s tributeto my two favorite American athletes!]

I couldwrite about my sons in every post and ad nauseum (probably literally for y’all,but #sorrynotsorry), but here I’ll restrain myself and just a highlight a fewof the many reasons why I’m so proud of their athletic accomplishments:

1)     Aidan’sGuest Post on Strava and social media in running;

2)     Kyle’s current role as an IndoorTrack captain;

3)     Aidan’s blossoming connection to the VanderbiltUniversity Running Club, for which he’s already a leader as a freshman;

4)     And Kyle’s commitment to mentoring and teaching younger runners, the subjectof one of his phenomenal college application essays.

Valentine’sseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Inspiring sports stories or figures you’d highlight?

February 7, 2025: Inspiring Sports Stories: FSU Student-Athletes

[For thisyear’s Super Bowl series, I wanted to highlight inspiring American sports storiesand figures, past and present. Leading up to a special pre-Valentine’s tributeto my two favorite American athletes!]

As I nearthe conclusion of my 20th (!) year at Fitchburg State University, I wantedto share quick examples of a handful of the many amazing student-athletes I’vetaught across those two decades. These folks stand out for their record-breakingaccomplishments, but they also represent the vast majority of suchstudent-athletes at FSU, a school that can’t offer athletic scholarships, thatstill demands an exceptionally challenging balance of its student-athletes, andthat would be infinitely impoverished without folks such as these:

1)     Amy Fahey

2)     AidanHanratty

3)     DianaOkongo

4)     CameronMonette

5)     OliverCookson

6)     JennaMorse

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Inspiring sports stories or figures you’d highlight?

February 6, 2025: Inspiring Sports Stories: Jaylen Brown

[For thisyear’s Super Bowl series, I wanted to highlight inspiring American sports storiesand figures, past and present. Leading up to a special pre-Valentine’s tributeto my two favorite American athletes!]

On twoinspiring layers to the most recent NBA Finals MVP.

I wrote brieflyabout the inspiring stories behind Boston Celtics superstar Jaylen Brown in thisSaturday Evening Post Considering History column on the Celtics. In lieuof a full first paragraph here I’d ask you to check out that column if youwould, and then come on back for more on what makes Brown such an inspiringsports story.

Welcomeback! Brown’s social and political advocacy and activism are without doubt themost inspiring layers to his career and life, far beyond the basketball court,and were nicely traced in this excellent WilliamRhoden essay for Andscape. It’s not just that he’s so committed to thoseefforts, but also the language and ideas on which they depend—look at the homepage for his 7uiceFoundation, for example, which leads with “A History of Systemic Racism”! I’vewritten before in this space about the 2015-2017 BostonGlobe Spotlight investigationwhich revealed that the mediannet worth for Black families in Boston was $8, a statistic that is as complicatedas statistics always are but that nonetheless captures quite definitivelythe legacies of systemic racism in the city for which Brown plays professional basketball.Brown’s foundation represents a direct and vital response to such histories andrealities, and that alone makes him one of our most inspiring contemporary athletes.

But as hisexcellent HotOnes interview reminded us,there’s even more to Brown than his combination of athletic and activistachievements. A Berkeley grad who was offereda NASA internship, became the youngest person ever to deliveran invited lecture at Harvard when he did so at the age of 21, and in his roleas an MIT MediaLab Fellow co-founded theBridge Program which mentors Boston high schoolers of color who areinterested in STEM, Brown was described by certain scouts as “toosmart” for the NBA before he was drafted in 2016. Obviously thatperspective is caught up in all kinds of limited and prejudicial mindsets thattell us more about those holding them than they ever could about Brown. Butthere’s no doubt that he’s a unique professional athlete in any sport, and fromany time period, one who exemplifies the best kind of Renaissance person that alsocan and should inspire all of us to be our most multilayered and best selves.

Lastinspiring story tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Inspiring sports stories or figures you’d highlight?

February 5, 2025: Inspiring Sports Stories: Chubbtown

[For thisyear’s Super Bowl series, I wanted to highlight inspiring American sports storiesand figures, past and present. Leading up to a special pre-Valentine’s tributeto my two favorite American athletes!]

On two contrastingand equally important ways to contextualize an inspiring family story.

I don’timagine I have to convince readers of this blog that sports are more than just adistraction or entertainment, that they connect to all the layers of oursociety and community and history. One of the most striking instances of suchconnections for me is the fact that I first learned about the unique andamazing American community of Chubbtown,Georgia, through a pregame story on the running back Nick Chubb, then playingas a stand-out at the University of Georgia. Chubb has since moved into theNFL, as has , the equally talented defensive lineman Bradley Chubb. Both Nickand Bradley are related to the historic Chubbfamily, one of the oldest-recorded multi-generational African Americanfamilies in our history (with recordsdating back to the pre-Revolutionary days) and the founders of Chubbtown, acommunityof free Black folks established in the mountains of Northwest Georgia in1864, during the depths of the Civil War (and as an escape from that conflict).

Chubbtownis far from the only community founded by African Americans during andimmediately after the Civil War, as anyone who has read Zora Neale Hurston’s TheirEyes Were Watching God (1937) knows; Hurston setsmuch of her novel in such a community, one based closely on her owninfluential childhood experiencesin Eatonville, the first incorporated all-Black city in America. Andremembering such communities overall allows us—or perhaps forces us is the betterphrase—to engage with the 1923 Rosewood massacre,when another all-Black community in Florida was largely destroyed by whitesupremacist domestic terrorists. The late JohnSingleton’s 1997 film portrays both that community and that massacre withnuance and power, and I would say we can’t commemorate the Chubbs and Chubbtownwithout a complementary examination of that story and these frustratinglyfrequent and foundational American historiesof racial terrorism.

At thesame time, we talked a great deal throughout my 20th Century AfricanAmerican Literature course this past Fall semester about not allowing suchhistories to dominate our collective memories of the truly multilayered andoften profoundly inspiring stories of Black history. This year marks the 250thanniversary of the firstrecorded stories of the Chubb family, making their saga a particularly strikingand symbolic such inspiring story in early 2025 (and one that can, for example,complement, challenge, and transcend collective memories focused only on the250th anniversary of white-centered stories and figures from theAmerican Revolution). That story extends far beyond Chubbtown, but it became deeplyinterconnected with this community, one that produced two iconic 21stcentury athletes who can, like so much of the best of sports in our histories,offer a window into better remembering every layer of that setting and story.

Nextinspiring story tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Inspiring sports stories or figures you’d highlight?

February 4, 2025: Inspiring Sports Stories: Babe Didrikson Zaharias

[For thisyear’s Super Bowl series, I wanted to highlight inspiring American sports storiesand figures, past and present. Leading up to a special pre-Valentine’s tributeto my two favorite American athletes!]

On two ways to connectand parallel the pioneering athlete to legendary men, and one key way not to.

1)     Multi-Sport Achievements and Fame: I’ve alwaysthought of Jim Thorpe as the20th century’s most talented athlete, what with his stunning andgroundbreaking successes in Olympic track and field, football, and baseball,among other sports. But in researching this post, I realized that Didrikson Zaharias has a seriouscase for the same title: I had long known about her unparalleled successesas a professional golfer, but she also won two track and field gold medals (andone silver medal) at the1932 Summer Olympics and was an All-Americanin basketball, again among many other athletic accomplishments. Althoughsports lend themselves particularly well to lists and rankings and debatesabout who was the best, the truth is that both Thorpe and Didrikson Zahariasshould be remembered as truly exceptional and influential athletes, figureswhose early to mid 20th century, runaway crossover successes in bothamateur and professional sports helped pave the way for the sports world tobecome the national and global phenomenon that it remains to this day.

2)     Larger-than-life Persona: Born Mildred EllaDidrikson, DidriksonZaharias would later claim that she gained the nickname “Babe” when she hitfive home runs in a youth baseball game. That might or might not be true (herNorwegian immigrant mother supposedly called her “Bebe” throughout her life),but even the uncertainty helps illustrate Didrikson Zaharias’ embrace of alarger-than-life persona that echoes that of her potential namesake Babe Ruth. Forexample, she long claimed to have been born in 1914 (rather than her actual1911 birth year), perhaps to exaggerate her youthful accomplishments yetfurther. And she complemented the athletic successes I detailed above with alifelong series of forays into the worlds of celebrity and popular culture: singingand playing harmonica on severalpop songs for Mercury Records; performing on the vaudeville circuit; tryingher hand as a pocketbilliards player, as in a famous multi-day match against billiards championRuthMcGinnis; and marryingprofessional wrestler George Zaharias, the “CryingGreek from Cripple Creek.” Like Babe Ruth, Didrikson Zaharias’ athleticaccomplishments would have been more than enough to cement her fame and legacy;but like Ruth, she clearly wanted all that culture and life had to offer.

3)     Shattering Stereotypes: Jim Thorpe and Babe Ruthare two of the greatest American athletes of all time, and linking any otherathlete to them is (I hope and would argue) a sign of respect. Yet at the sametime, I did so at least somewhat ironically, to help engage with theparticular, unquestionablygendered limits which Didrikson Zaharias continually encountered and yetchallenged and destroyed. (Certainly a Native American athlete like Thorpefaced his own barriers and challenges, of course.) The most overt such limits,many of which called into question Didrikson Zaharias’ gender itself, arenicely encapsulated by this quote, from sportswriterJoe Williams in the New York World-Telegram: “It would be muchbetter if she and her ilk stayed at home, got themselves prettied up and waitedfor the phone to ring.” In the last few years of her life, Didrikson Zahariasdeveloped a close, quite possibly romanticrelationship with fellow golfer Betty Dodd, a relationship neither woulddescribe as romantic due to the limits of their early 1950s society. Yet at thesame time, in those final years Didrikson Zaharias shattered all limits onefinal time: diagnosed with colon cancer in 1953, she continued to golfprofessionally until her 1956 death, winningmultiple tournaments including the last two she entered. A towering andinspiring sports legend to the last.

Nextinspiring story tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Inspiring sports stories or figures you’d highlight?

February 3, 2025: Inspiring Sports Stories: The Celestials

[For thisyear’s Super Bowl series, I wanted to highlight inspiring American sports storiesand figures, past and present. Leading up to a special pre-Valentine’s tributeto my two favorite American athletes!]

For mymoney, the most inspiring American sports story and figures are those at theheart of my podcast, TheCelestials’ Last Game: Baseball, Bigotry, and the Battle for America. Ifyou haven’t had the chance to check out that podcast yet I’d really appreciateit, so I’m going to end this post here and ask you to take a listen if you havea chance (and if you’re pressed for time, I’d say theSeventh Inning in particular is among the best work I’ve ever done)!

Nextinspiring story tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Inspiring sports stories or figures you’d highlight?

February 1-2, 2025: January 2025 Recap

[A Recapof the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

December30: 2025 Anniversaries: King Philip’s War: My annual historic anniversariesseries kicks off with the 350th anniversary of a tragic earlyAmerican conflict.

December31: 2025 Anniversaries: Lexington and Concord: The series continues with twoimportant ways to add to our Revolutionary memories for the 250th.

January 1:2025 Anniversaries: The Erie Canal: For the 200th anniversaryof its opening, three figures who helped construct the Erie Canal.

January 2:2025 Anniversaries: Two 1875 Laws: The Page Act, the Civil Rights Act,and the worst and best of America, as the series remembers on.

January 3:2025 Anniversaries: 1925 Literature: A link to a Saturday Evening PostConsidering History column where I argued for complementing The Great Gatsbywith other 1925 lit.

January4-5: 2025 Anniversaries: Five 1975 Films: The series concludes with quickthoughts on what five class 1975 films can tell us in 2025.

January 6:Great Society Laws: Civil and Voting Rights: For the Great Society’s 60thanniversary, a series on its groundbreaking laws kicks off with three pivotalcivil rights acts.

January 7:Great Society Laws: Education and the Arts: The series continues with twospecific laws and one broader effect of the Great Society.

January 8:Great Society Laws: Economic Safety Nets: Three distinct and equally importantways that the Great Society created safety nets, as the series acts on.

January 9:Great Society Laws: Medicare and Medicaid: How the Great Society reflected twodistinct ways of thinking about health care, and why the second is stillurgently needed.

January10: Great Society Laws: Immigration and America: Theseries concludes with one definitively inclusive thing the 1965 Immigration Actdid, one more complicated effect, and the bottom line.

January11-12: The Great Society in 2025: A special weekend follow-up on wherewe are in January 2025, and why we need to fight for the Great Society now morethan ever.

January13: Spring Semester Previews: Graduate Research Methods: For my Springsemester previews series, I wanted to focus on skills we’ll be working on in myclasses this semester, starting with the combination of clarity and nuance inmy Grad course.

January14: Spring Semester Previews: First-Year Writing II: The series continueswith a film I’m for the first time hesitant to share with my First-Year Writingstudents, and why that makes it even more important to do so.

January15: Spring Semester Previews: Major American Authors of the 20C: How creativeassignments can complement and strengthen analytical writing, as the seriesteaches on.  

January16: Spring Semester Previews: American Literature II: Why I’m stillcommitted to including longer works in my literature classes despite thechallenges.

January17: Spring Semester Previews: The Short Story Online: The series concludeswith the unmistakable frustrations of generative AI, and how I’m trying to pushback.

January18-19: Spring Semester Previews: My Scholarly Work and You: A special weekendpost on my ideas for a next public scholarly podcast, and how you all can help!

January20: Misread Quotes: MLK’s Dream: To build on my annual MLK Day post on themisunderstood King, a series on misread and -remembered quotes, starting withKing’s most famous one.

January21: Misread Quotes: Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural: The seriescontinues with why one of our most justifiably famous inaugural addresses needsto be remembered more accurately.

January22: Misread Quotes: The Constitution: Three sections of the Constitutionthat conservatives consistently get wrong, as the series reads on.

January23: Misread Quotes: The Bible: And three sections of Scripture about whichI would say the same.

January24: Misread Quotes: Churchill on Politics and Age: The series concludeswith a Churchill quote that never happened, and why it’s even wronger thanthat.

January27: Musical Activism: “We Are the World”: For the recording’s 40thanniversary, a musical activisms series kicks off with three figured who embodythe multiple layers of “World.”

January28: Musical Activism: Live Aid and Farm Aid: The series continues with an overblowncontroversy at one benefit concert that helped produce another enduring one.

January29: Musical Activism: Post-9/11 Songs: How connections to political andhistorical events can change what songs mean and do, as the series plays on.

January30: Musical Activism: Artists United Against Apartheid: Two Americancontexts for an inspiring 1985 musical activism.

January31: Musical Activism: Endorsements: The series concludes with threeexamples and types of political endorsements from musicians.

Super Bowlseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Topicsyou’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

January 31, 2025: Musical Activism: Endorsements

[Fortyyears ago this week, the musical supergroup USA (United Support of Artists) for Africa recordedtheir single “We are theWorld” (it would drop on March 7th). So this week I’llAmericanStudy that effort and other examples of musical activism!]

On threeexamples and types of political endorsements from musicians.

1)     Elvisand the Polio Vaccine: I said in that hyperlinked post much of what I’dwant to say about the role playedby Elvis Presley (among other celebrities) in helping make the new andfrustratingly (if not necessarily, here in early 2025, surprisingly) controversialpolio vaccine palatable to the American public in the 1950s. A moment thathelpfully reminds us, when we’re quick to complain about the outsized influenceof celebs in our moment or on the public, that it’s been thus for at least halfa century now.

2)     Elvis and Nixon:As that Time article indicates, the most-requested photo from theNational Archives is the one that captures the December1970 Oval Office meeting between the President and the King. It wasn’t anendorsement exactly—Nixon was in between campaigns at the time, and Presleywasn’t there to support any particular policy or the like—but it nonethelessreflects that the intersection between musical celebrities and political figuresis likewise nothing new.

3)     Sinatraand Multiple Campaigns: My man Bruce Springsteen might have eclipsed therecord over the last few presidential campaigns, but for a good while nomusicians had endorsed more such campaigns than did Frank Sinatra. And likely noother has crossed party lines in the way Ol’ Blue Eyes did—campaigning with FDR in1944 and JFKin 1960 but later endorsingRonald Reagan during his 1980 campaign. Much as those shifts might haveangered particular supporters, I think they do reflect, as I believeSpringsteen’s certainly do as well, artists genuinely sharing theirperspectives (which, to be clear, was also the case with Kamala’s endorsers inthis last campaign, who despite false stories to the contrary werenot paid for their support).  

JanuaryRecap this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Activisms you’d highlight?

January 30, 2025: Musical Activism: Artists United Against Apartheid

[Fortyyears ago this week, the musical supergroup USA (United Support of Artists) for Africa recordedtheir single “We are theWorld” (it would drop on March 7th). So this week I’llAmericanStudy that effort and other examples of musical activism!]

On two Americancontexts for another 1985 musical activism.

Firstthings first: South Africa is not the United States, and it’s important to notethat the 1985 musical supergroup Artists UnitedAgainst Apartheid, and their protest song “Sun City,” were explicitlyand entirely focused on that African nation and its policies of racial segregation.There are of course additional, complex layers to that focus, including the SunCity resort and casino, located in the semi-autonomous-but-ultimately-still-part-of-South-African-and-thoroughly-tied-to-Apartheidstate ofBophuthatswana, that the group and song were overtly protesting andboycotting (a concert venue at which, frustratingly enough, a number of contemporaryartists and groups had been and continued to be more than happy toperform). This blog is called AmericanStudies, and so I’m going to focus therest of this post on a couple American contexts for this musical activism; butthere’s plenty more to say about its South African contexts, and if folks wantto add to them in the comments below I’d be very appreciative as always.

Oneparticularly striking American context for the supergroup is just how diverse acollection of artists rockerSteve Van Zandt and hip hop producer Arthur Baker assembled for therecording session and the song that they created. In his bookon the project critic Dave Marsh called it “the most diverse line up ofpopular musicians ever assembled for a single session,” and I can’t disagree: you’dbe hard-pressed to find another group that included DJ Kool Herc and RingoStarr, Grandmaster Melle Mel and Hall & Oates, Bob Dylan and AfrikaBambaataa, Bono and Gil Scott-Heron, and literally countless others. And theresulting song reflects that diversity, as it moves back and forth between hiphop and rap verses, rock ones, and a chorus that brings the multiple voices andstyles together. A great deal has been made of the groundbreaking1986 collaboration between Run-D.M.C. and Aerosmith, and rightly so—but nearlya year earlier, the “Sun City” sessions and song likewise featured thesemultiple musical genres, and could be seen as helping pave the way for futuresuch collaborations and cross-overs.

The other Americancontext I want to highlight here is far, far more complex. By his own admission, SteveVan Zandt’s initial interest in opposing Apartheid came when he learned thatthe policy had been based in part on Native American reservations in the US,and thesong’s lyrics reflect that intersection with the repeated lines “Relocationto phony homelands/Separation of families, I can’t understand.” And then there’sthis: Sun City had been developed by the South Africanhotel tycoon Sol Kerzner and his Sun International group; and just over adecade after Van Zandt’s supergroup, Kerzner opened anotherresort and casino, this time as a joint venture with a Native Americantribe: Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. I’m not suggesting for a second that aNative American casino is the same as an Apartheid one; indeed, the two could beseen as polar opposites. But the same South African tycoon was behind both,which at the very least reminds us that, to quote Trip in Glory, “We’reall covered up in it. Ain’t nobody clean.”

Lastmusical activism tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Activisms you’d highlight?