Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 35

September 2, 2024: Fall Semester Previews: 20C Af Am Lit

[As my 20th(!) year at Fitchburg State University kicks off, I’ll focus my Fall Semesterpreviews on one thing I’m especially excited about for each of my courses. Leadingup to a special post on a new scholarly project I’m very excited about aswell!]

Five yearsafter I got to teachit for the first time, I’m very excited for my second opportunity to teachour 20th Century African American Literature survey (a complement to19thCentury African American Lit that I got to teach a couple semesters back). Byfar the best part of that first section was the student presentation component:I asked each of them to pick one cultural figure/text from a list featuring a varietyof examples and categories (music, TV, film, theater, art, and more), or to suggesttheir own if they preferred, and in the final few weeks of the semester theygave short presentations on a few layers to their chosen subject. I stillremember the student presentation on Otis Redding, one ofthe true stand-out moments in my first 19 years at FSU! So while I’m changingvarious aspects of the syllabus this time around, you best believe I’m keepingthis presentation component, and I can’t wait to see what stands out this timearound!

Next previewpost tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatare you excited to teach or work on this Fall?

August 31-September 1, 2024: August 2024 Recap

[A Recapof the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

July 29:Martin Sheen Studying: Youthful Origin Points: A series for the legend’s 84thbirthday kicks off with three foundational moments that helped make the man.

July30: Martin Sheen Studying: Catholic Activism: The series continues with agreat example of art imitating life.

July31: Martin Sheen Studying: Estévez Legacies: Two important ways that Sheen’sbirth and legal name have carried on, as the series rolls on.

August1: Martin Sheen Studying: The West Wing: The iconic actor was almostPresident Bartlett, and two ways to AmericanStudy the one who was.

August2: Martin Sheen Studying: The series concludes with two ways the sitcompushed our cultural boundaries, and one way it happily did not.

August3-4: A Proudly Tearful Tribute: Before we dropped my older son at college,a tribute to a few of the countless ways the boys have inspired me.

August5-18: Birthday Bests: I won’t link them all individually here, but this wasthe start of my annual series highlighting some favorite posts from each of theblog’s now 14 (!) years.

August19: NashvilleStudying: Three Origin Points: A series on my son’s newhometown kicks off with three communities that together built the city.

August20: NashvilleStudying: Cholera: The series continues with how a devastatingepidemic connected Nashville to the nation and the world.

August21: NashvilleStudying: The Fisk Jubilee Singers: They were from Memphis,but I couldn’t resist dedicating one post in the series to this amazingcultural group.

August22: NashvilleStudying: Altman’s Film: AmericanStudies contexts for three ofthe many character in Robert Altman’s sweeping masterpiece, as the series singson.

August23: NashvilleStudying: Kane Brown: And speaking of singing, a tribute toour favorite new country artist who’s a lot more.

August26: American Catholics: Maryland: In honor of Elizabeth Ann Seton’s 250thbirthday, a series on American Catholics kicks off with ideals and realities ofthe Catholic colony.

August27: American Catholics: Anti-Catholic Prejudice: The series continues withthe frustratingly long reach of conspiracy theories.

August28: American Catholics: Elizabeth Ann Seton: For her 250th,three telling stages in the life of the first American Saint.

August29: American Catholics: The Catholic Worker: Three telling details aboutDorothy Day and Peter Maurin’s groundbreaking newspaper, as the series rollson.

August30: American Catholics: Carlo Acutis: The series concludes with what’s familiar,what’s new, and what’s complicated about the young man likely to be the first21st century Saint.

FallSemester previews start Monday,

Ben

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

August 30, 2024: American Catholics: Carlo Acutis

[250 yearsago this week, ElizabethAnn Seton was born in New York City. The first US-born Saint, Seton isone of the most famous individual examples of an American Catholic, so thisweek I’ll analyze her and other American Catholic histories!]

[NB. I’mstretching the limits of AmericanStudying with today’s blog subject, ashe was born in England and lived most of his tragically brief life in Italy. Buthis maternal great-grandmotherwas from New York City, and plus my wife thoughtfully suggested this excellent conclusionto the week’s series so I’m going with it!]

On what’s familiarabout the young man likelyto be the newest Saint, what’s new, and what’s especially complicated.

1)     Saintly Simplifications: I’m quite sure thatthe childhood stories told about any individual who ended up canonized as a CatholicSaint would read like a fairy tale, but it’s particularly striking to read suchsaintly simplifications for a kid wholived from 1991 to 2006. My personal favorite such sentence from Acutis’ Wikipedia page isdefinitely, “Also an animal lover, he became very angry when he encounteredyoung people who trod on lizards.” But a close second, from that same section “Actsof Kindness,” is, “While at the beach, he used an inflatable boat, snorkel, andfins to retrieve rubbish in the ocean.” As the father of two young men who caredeeply about both the environment and our animal friends, I don’t doubt thatAcutis also had such views and put them into practice at times; but he was alsoa boy, not a saint, and descriptions or details that lean too hard into thelatter make him feel like a constructed persona rather than the real humanbeing he undoubtedly was.

2)     Digital Details: A significant part of Acutis’real humanity was that he grew up in the internet age, and to my mind the mostinteresting details of his life and identity reflect those digital contexts. Hewas apparently both drawnto and skilled at the use of coding and web design programs like Dreamweaverand Java, and despite passing away at the age of 15 he created two fullwebsites: first a page for his parish, Milan’s Santa Maria Segreta; andthen, far more fully and tellingly for his future canonization, a site Acutis beganin 2004 and launchedin October 2006 (just days before his death) that catalogued all of theworld’s Eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions among other Catholicconnections. It stands to reason that the “firstMillenial Saint” (as Acutis is frequently known) would have such digitaldetails in his biography, but this was clearly a kid who was particularly andmeaningfully interested in the possibilities of linking the internet toCatholicism.

3)     Church Controversies: Acutis’ story is aninteresting and impressive one, but it is of course far from the most prominent21stcentury story about young people and the Catholic Church. I’m hesitant tosay too much more than that here, both because this has got to be one of themost fraught subjects I’ve ever included in a post (a competitive list to besure) and because I know we’re all already quite familiar with that subject. ButI can’t conclude a series on American Catholicism without acknowledging thisstory—which was very much initially uncoveredby American reporters, and has featured countlessAmerican priests and churches—and I have to admit being at least a littlesuspicious of the timing of the Vatican’s plans to canonize a teenage boy. Ofcourse canonization will continue to be a thing for the Catholic Church, and ofcourse that process will likely include both modern figures and younger people.But at the very least, we can’t let this inspiring individual draw ourattention away from what is unquestionably the more overarching and significantstory.

AugustRecap this weekend,

Ben

PS. What doyou think? Catholic histories or contexts you’d highlight?

August 29, 2024: American Catholics: The Catholic Worker

[250 yearsago this week, ElizabethAnn Seton was born in New York City. The first US-born Saint, Seton isone of the most famous individual examples of an American Catholic, so thisweek I’ll analyze her and other American Catholic histories!]

Threetelling details about DorothyDay and Peter Maurin’sgroundbreaking newspaper.

1)     The Origins: Day and Maurin published the first issue of TheCatholic Worker on May Day 1933, launching not just this new periodical butreally the whole of their Catholic Worker Movement in the process. ApparentlyMaurin preferred the name TheCatholic Radical, but Day, rooted in both her prior experiences withCommunism and her overall sense of solidarity with all who labor in any way, successfullyadvocated for calling it The Catholic Worker. Clearly that chosen titleand the newspaper’s contents (largely written byDay, both in that initial issue and for most of them thereafter) didresonate with readers, perhaps especially in that Depression-era moment, andafter an initial print run of 2500 copies (which Day sold in New York’s UnionSquare, calling out “Arise, ye prisoners of starvation” while she did so) thecirculation numbers exploded to 20,000 in September 1933 and 150,000 by 1936.

2)     The Tides of History: The Great Depression wasonly the first of many significant historical events with which The CatholicWorker engaged forthrightly and controversially. The next such controversy didsignificantly affect the paper’s circulation numbers—Day was committed to an unpopularpacifist stance during World WarII, and as a result circulationdecreased by 75% during the war, from a high of nearly 200,000 to 50,000. Butthis trend in no way affected Day and the paper’s dedication to takingprincipled stances on unfolding histories, as illustrated just five years afterthe war: in the July 1, 1950 issue the paper publisheda letter from the African American nurse, educator, and Catholic activist HelenCaldwell Day Riley that represented an early and powerful argument forwedding the Catholic Worker Movement to thenascent Civil Rights Movement.

3)     The Price!: I’m not sure I’ll ever write amore striking sentence in a blog post than this one: the price for each issueof The Catholic Worker hasremained steady at 1 cent (that’s one pretty penny) from that first May1933 issue up to the present moment. If you want an annual subscription(which gets you the paper’s seven issues a year by mail), however, you do haveto be willing to shell out 25 cents (that’s one shiny quarter). I genuinely can’timagine a more impressive way to put philosophy and ideology into practice thanthat, and I’m apparently not alone; according to this2023 The Nation article, the paper still has more than 25,000subscribers. Amen to that!

LastCatholicAmericanStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Catholic histories or contexts you’d highlight?

August 28, 2024: American Catholics: Elizabeth Ann Seton

[250 yearsago this week, ElizabethAnn Seton was born in New York City. The first US-born Saint, Seton isone of the most famous individual examples of an American Catholic, so thisweek I’ll analyze her and other American Catholic histories!]

On three tellingstages in the life of the first American Saint.

1)     Conversion: ElizabethAnn Bayley (1774-1821) was born in New York City to a prominent Episcopalianfamily who raised her in that church; when she married WilliamMagee Seton at the age of 19, she continued to practice that faith, passingit on to their five children who were born between 1795 and 1802. But when William’srecurring tuberculosis brought the family to Italy and he passed away while inquarantine in the winter of 1803, Elizabeth was taken in by William’s Italianbusiness partners Filippoand Antonio Filicchi and introduced to Catholicism. When she and her childreneventually returned to America, Elizabeth gradually completed her conversion,being first received into the Catholic Church at NewYork’s St. Peter’s Church (one of the few in the city at the time, as anti-Catholiclaws had been in effect until just a few years before) in March 1805 andthen receiving confirmation from the nation’s only Catholic Bishop, Baltimore’s John Carroll,in 1806.

2)     Good Works: When she was just a childElizabeth helped her stepmother, CharlotteAmelia Barclay, who was active in social ministry efforts in the city; as amarried woman she continued those efforts, including as a founding member ofthe Societyfor the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children (1797). So when Elizabethfound herself in that precise situation, it was no surprise that she onlydeepened her charitable efforts, including as the founder of a congregation ofnuns known as the Sistersof Charity of St. Joseph’s (leading to her nickname of “Mother Seton”). Butshe also extended her charitable efforts to educational endeavors, with hermost lasting legacy likely being the 1809 founding of the Emmitsburg, Maryland SaintJoseph’s Academy and Free School. Since Elizabeth’s own religious story wasvery much one of education, experienced when she was a young widow in need of communalsupport in a variety of ways, this combination of good works was quiteappropriate.

3)     Sanctification: Elizabeth died (like herhusband, of tuberculosis) at the tragically young age of 46in January 1821, but the Sister’s of St. Joseph’s continued to foundschools and other communal and charitable organizations over the remainder ofthe 19th century. Those legacies certainly made Elizabeth worthy ofcanonization as a Saint, but thatprocess proceeded quite slowly, no doubt due in part to the lack of anyAmerican-born Saints. It formally began with her receiving the title Servant ofGod in 1940, and after a child’s miraculous healing was attributed to prayersto Seton in 1952, she was beatifiedin March 1963. But sanctification requires at least two miracles, and itwas a second such miraculous healing, of a man given hours to life withmeningitis in 1963, that cemented her case and led to her September1975 canonization by Pope Paul VI. It’s hard for me to say how much of thatposthumous story really had to do with Elizabeth, but I do value thesewords of the Pope’s: “All of us say this with special joy and with theintention of honoring the land and the nation from which she sprang forth…ElizabethAnn Seton was wholly American!”

NextCatholicAmericanStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Catholic histories or contexts you’d highlight?

August 27, 2024: American Catholics: Anti-Catholic Prejudice

[250 yearsago this week, ElizabethAnn Seton was born in New York City. The first US-born Saint, Seton isone of the most famous individual examples of an American Catholic, so thisweek I’ll analyze her and other American Catholic histories!]

On the frustratinglylong reach of conspiracy theories.

My first-everconference paper, way back in 2001, focused on Catharine Maria Sedgwick’sunique and compelling historical novel HopeLeslie, or, Early Times in the Massachusetts (1827); I’ve also writtenabout the book multipletimes in this space (including for one of my earliest postsback in November 2010), and would still argue a quarter-century after thatconference and a decade and a half after that post that Sedgwick’s book is oneof the greatest 19th century American novels. But of course it’s notperfect, and one of its most glaring failings lies in both the intentions andthe identity of its central villain, Sir Philip Gardiner (SPOILERSfor this 200-year-old novel in what follows). Sir Philip presents himself as a newand important Puritan arrival to Massachusetts (the novel is set in the “earlytimes” of the late 1630s, just after thePequot War), but is gradually revealed to be a secret agent of the Vatican,working to infiltrate this Puritan colony and take it over on behalf of hisevil Catholic masters. He and his youthful page (and secret lover) are alsorevealed to be cross-dressers, connecting this overarching anti-Catholicplotline to stereotypical images of Catholics as both morally and sexuallytransgressive among other sins.

It's also noteworthythat Sir Philip is both a secret Catholic and a new immigrant, as it has beenthrough discriminatory narratives about both of those communities (in directconjunction with one another) that anti-Catholic prejudices have manifested themselvesmost consistently in American history. That combination was at the heart of muchof the anti-Irish xenophobia of the 1840s and theKnow Nothing Party; played a significant role in the late 19th century’svirulent and violent anti-Italianxenophobia; and was likewise central to the rise and anti-immigrantemphasis of the 1910s and 1920s SecondKu Klux Klan (and that period’s much broader immigration restrictionsas well). At the core of each of those distinct but parallel anti-Catholicmovements have been what I can only describe as conspiracytheories, visions of American Catholics as entirely under the sway of amanipulative and malignant Vatican (or Pope, or Cardinals, or priests, or whatever)and thus as owingallegiance to a foreign power in direct opposition to the U.S. Constitution(rather than, y’know, as protected in their religious practices and beliefs bythat same Constitution, like every other person in the country).

Thoseconspiracy theories about American Catholic allegiance were never simply afringe belief, even when they did not dominate national politics as they did inthose particular and certainly extreme moments. But they reached a new level ofprominence and potency with the1960 presidential election and the very much mainstreamfears that if elected president, the practicing Catholic John F. Kennedy wouldowe his first allegiance to the Vatican rather than the country he’d beleading. It’s certainly ironic that in our own moment, some of the most extremepolitical figures use their Catholic faith as a rationale for taking those profoundlyreactionary positions (I’m looking at you, Catholicson the Supreme Court, and notjust about abortion or birth control either). But while we can and shouldcriticize that use of religion as a shield for hateful and hurtful views, wealso have to make sure to resist any implication that Catholicism is in any wayin conflict with American laws or ideals—an entirely inaccurate perspective thathas been much too central for far too long in American history.

NextCatholicAmericanStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Catholic histories or contexts you’d highlight?

August 26, 2024: American Catholics: Maryland

[250 yearsago this week, ElizabethAnn Seton was born in New York City. The first US-born Saint, Seton isone of the most famous individual examples of an American Catholic, so thisweek I’ll analyze her and other American Catholic histories!]

On ideals,realities, and why both are important parts of the story.

One of thefirst things that schoolkids learn about the origins of the English Colonies inAmerica—or at least one of the first things that my aging brain remembers learning,and I think this was the case for my sons in elementary school as well—is that Maryland was founded as a havenfor Catholics in that “New World.” As those hyperlinked articlesillustrate, that fact is indeed accurate: theCalverts, father George (the 1st Baron Baltimore) and his sonCecilius (the 2nd Baron Baltimore), requested a royal charter fromKing Charles I to found a new colony between New England to the North andVirginia to the South that would be more welcome to Catholic immigrants thanwere those two; and they named it Maryland after Charles’ Catholic wife, France’sHenrietta Marie. While the percentageof Catholics in the new colony was never more than 10% of the total Englishpopulation, it was still significantly higher than in those more exclusionarycolonies; and in 1649, Maryland’s assembly passed the “ActConcerning Religion” (also known as the Toleration Act) in an effort toensure that those Catholics and all those in the colony would have the promisedreligious freedom.

But thereasons why the Toleration Act was necessary at all begin to reveal some darkerrealities behind those inclusive ideals. After a group of (Protestant) Puritansfounded the new Maryland community of Providence(modern-day Annapolis) in 1642, one of their leaders, WilliamClaiborne, decided to take over the colonial capital of St. Mary’s, usingreligious prejudices to stir up the population against the Catholics. For twoyears Claiborne and the Puritans dominated the colony, an era that came to beknown as “ThePlundering Time” due to their mistreatment of and thefts from Catholics.Although the younger Calvertbrother Leonard recaptured St. Mary’s in 1646 and convinced the assembly topass the 1649 Toleration Act, just a year after that law Puritans took over thelegislature and instituted a new colonial government that prohibited Catholicismentirely, leading for example to the burning of numerous originalCatholic churches. The two factions continued this back and forth battling insubsequent decades, but regardless of who was in power in a particular moment,clearly this was not a colony where Catholics could necessarily feel any safer normore secure than they would have in the more overtly Protestant colonies.

A communitythat professes inclusive ideals yet too often features exclusionary attitudesand actions—feels about right for American origin points, no? But just as Idon’t think we can only remember the U.S. founding through the lens ofhypocrisy or the like, I’d likewise argue that every layer of Maryland’sfounding and early histories comprises an important part of the story. Marylandwas the third distinct English colony chartered on the continent (Connecticutand Rhode Island had by this time also been founded but were created byexisting New England communities), and it was the first of those not only tode-emphasize Protestantism, but also to carve out an overt and official spacefor religious diversity (RogerWilliams had done the same in his founding of Rhode Island). Even ifindividuals and communities failed to live up to that promise, and even ifthose exclusionary forces at times dominated and even led the state (as theyhave far too often in American history as well of course), the existence ofthis colony and those ideals makes a huge difference in how we think about boththe history of American Catholics and the story of religion and community inAmerica as a whole.

NextCatholicAmericanStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What doyou think? Catholic histories or contexts you’d highlight?

August 23, 2024: NashvilleStudying: Kane Brown

[This pastweekend, I dropped off a piece of my heart in Nashville. So instead of myannual Charlottesville series, this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful ofNashville contexts, leading up to a post on the city in 2024!]

On threeexemplary songs from one of the city’s (and country’s) up and coming stars.

1)     “Thank God”: I’ll admitthat this pretty but extremely sappy ballad, a duet with Brown’ssinger-songwriter wife Katelyn(Jae) Brown, is probably the least interesting Kane Brown song I’ve heard.I’m starting this post with it partly because it feels like something that two ofthe married musician characters in Robert Altman’s film might have recordedtogether, and thus a nice transition from yesterday’s 1970s cultural text totoday’s 21stcentury Nashville artist. But it’s also the case that what stands out themost to me about Brown is his multigenerational and to my mind very American familyidentity and heritage—he’s the productof a multiracial marriage and has Cherokee ancestry as well—and so I lovethat there’s a musical representation of his own continuation of thatmultigenerational story through his marriage to Katelyn and theirblossoming family (they have two daughters and a son on the way).

2)     “Grand”: “Grand” was thelead single off Brown’s third studio album, Different Man (2022), but itwas the first song of his that my sons and I heard, and to us it seemed todefine Brown quite specifically as a hip hop artist (and I think you’ll agreeif you give it a listen at that hyperlink). Yet that album was released by his(country music) label, RCARecords Nashville; and charted highest on the Top Country Albums Billboardlist, as all of his albums to date have. As much as I love Brown’s personalheritage and identity, I think I might love even more the concurrent (and Iwould argue deeply interconnected) ways in which he has begun to build a musiccareer that so fully and effortlessly crosses genres, making Brown an artist whois equally adept at crafting hip hop anthems like “Grand” alongside country bangerslike “One Mississippi”(from the same album).

3)     “Fiddle in the Band”: Thatmulti-genre musical identity seems to have been central to Brown’s career sinceits 2014 origins, butI’m not sure he’s ever expressed it as clearly nor as powerfully as on his mostrecent single, 2024’s “Fiddle in the Band.” I don’t know if I’ve loved a momentin a song as much in many years as I do that song’s second verse: “I’m like aburnt CD from ’03 in a Mustang/You never knew what was comin’/So I can’t helpbut be R&B with a touch of twang/Air guitars and dashboard drummin’.” AsBrown puts it in the chorus, “Took a trip to Music City/Brought a little bit ofeverything with me.” He certainly did, and I’d say that exemplifies not justthis impressive young artist, but where Music City is here in 2024 as well.

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Nashville connections you’d highlight?

August 22, 2024: NashvilleStudying: Altman’s Film

[This pastweekend, I dropped off a piece of my heart in Nashville. So instead of myannual Charlottesville series, this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful ofNashville contexts, leading up to a post on the city in 2024!]

AmericanStudiescontexts for three of the many compelling characters in Robert Altman’s sweepingmasterpiece Nashville(1975):

1)     Linnea Reese (Lily Tomlin): As usualwith an Altman film, most every character in connected to multiple others aswell as distinct layers of the film’s plot and themes, and that’s certainly thecase for Linnea: she’s a Gospel singer who is recording tracks with yesterday’ssubjects the Fisk Jubilee Singers when the film opens; but she’s also the wife of Ned Beatty’sDelbert Reese, a sleazy, philandering lawyer who is constantly trying toland both other women and political contacts (such as with the never-seen presidential candidate Hal Walker,a fundraising concert for whom provides one of the film’s main throughlines). SinceWalker is a Republican candidate, we can assume that Delbert sees himself as a wannabeRepublican political operative; and since Linnea is the devoted mother of twodeaf children as well as an artistic partner to the Jubilee Singers, I’m goingto go out on a limb and suggest her politics are different from her husband’s.All part of the social mix inAltman’s depiction of this Southern city.

2)     Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson): One ofthe figures to whom Delbert makes those frequent political connections is hislegal client and another Nashville musical talent, country singer and Grand Ole Opry star Haven Hamilton. The film’sopening cuts back and forth between Linnea’s session with the Jubilee Singersand Haven in a neighboring recording studio, where he’s quite symbolicallycutting “200 Years,”a patriotic track for the upcoming Bicentennial (and one of many songswritten specifically for Altman’s film, which ultimately features more thanan hour of musical performances, nearly all of original songs). A number ofprominent country musicians expressedoutrage at Altman’s film, and it’s likely due to the character of Haven,the most explicitly country & western of the film’s many musicians and onewho does indeed use his music to express a stereotypical (if not at all inaccurate)form of mythic patriotism. But I’d argue that juxtaposing Haven with Linnea inthat opening sequence gives us an immediate sense that Haven’s is just onelayer within a truly multilayered musical scene (pun intended).

3)     Opal (Geraldine Chaplin): Tryingto surreptitiously listen to both of those opening recording sessions is Opal,an English visitor to Nashville who claims to be a journalist for the BBC. Opaldoes indeed preserve her impressions of the city on a tape recorder throughoutthe film (as in that hyperlinked scene at what she humorously calls “anAmerican junkyard”), but there are other cluesthat she is not an actual journalist but rather an obsessed fan. Either way,Opal is definitely portrayed as both a tourist (and thus an outsider to the community)and a stand-in for the audience (and thus our way to gain insider access to allthese locals). That she’s an Englishwoman in those roles, in a film that makessuch a big deal of the upcoming Bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence,can be read as another ironicjoke in a film full of them. But it’s also a reminder that when it comes toa place as deeply rooted as late 20th (or early 21st)century Nashville, all of the rest of are to some significant degree foreigners.

LastNashville context tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Nashville connections you’d highlight?

August 21, 2024: NashvilleStudying: The Fisk Jubilee Singers

 [This pastweekend, I dropped off a piece of my heart in Nashville. So instead of myannual Charlottesville series, this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful ofNashville contexts, leading up to a post on the city in 2024!]

On two of themany vital legacies of a cultural and historical artistic project.

While the kindsof post-slavery and –war debates and questions I discussed inthis post were central threads to the Reconstruction era, the period wasalso intensely focused on the future, and more exactly on howto help African Americans become a full part of this new American communitywithin that future (or, for far too many Reconstruction actors, how to stop them from doing so).Chief among the progressive responses to that question was an emphasis on education, onethat took place in every community and at every level but that included thefounding of a number of new AfricanAmerican colleges and universities. One of the earliest such post-warinstitutions was Fisk University,founded in Memphis as the Fisk Free Colored School just six months after thewar’s end by members of the American Missionary Association. By 1871, thanks tothe vicissitudes of Reconstruction among other factors, Fisk was struggling tostay afloat financially, and its treasurer and music director, George White,decided to found a choral group that could tour to raise funds and awarenessfor the university’s community and efforts.

That groupembarked on its first national (and eventually international) tour on October 6th,1871, the beginning of a more than 18-month period of performances. Early inthe tour—facedwith one of their many encounters with racism and hostility, this time inColumbus, Ohio—White and the performers decided to name themselves the JubileeSingers, a tribute to thespiritual and cultural vision of a “year of jubilee” after emancipation. Bythe end of the tour, the Jubilee Singers had more than lived up to that name,achieving a series of stunning triumphs that included performances at the Boston World’s PeaceJubilee and International Music Festival, at the WhiteHouse for President Ulysses Grant, and (when the tour was extended to anoverseas leg in 1873) for England’sQueen Victoria. In an era when nearly all of the representations of AfricanAmericans onstage were performed by whites in blackface—whether in overtly racistminstrel shows or in slightly more nuanced productions such as Tom Shows—it’sdifficult to overstate the importance of this group of talented AfricanAmerican performers taking and commanding the stage, offering an alternative tothose constructed representations and giving voice to their own identities,stories and histories, and communities in the process. That’s one legacy of theFisk Jubilee Singers, and it continuesto this day.

The Fisk JubileeSingers also connected, overtly, immediately, and importantly, to theaforementioned questions of historical memory, however. They did so first andforemost through their choice of repertoire, which in its initial iterationfocused almost entirely on African American slave spirituals (what W.E.B. DuBois would later call, in his beautiful, multi-part engagement with the genrein The Souls of Black Folk, “sorrowsongs”). I believe it’s not at all inaccurate to say that by arranging andperforming their versions of these songs, the Jubilee Singers helped keep themalive, indeed helped turn them into a foundational and ongoing genreof American music that could endure into future generations and would influenceevery subsequent such genre. In so doing, I would argue that they providedone middle ground answer to the post-Reconstruction debate between Alexander Crummelland Frederick Douglass I highlightedhere—a way to carry forward communal memories and voices of slavery withoutdwelling in the most horrific and traumatic elements, to build on thathistorical legacy but at the same time to take potent and inspiring ownershipof it for new purposes and goals. That’s a model of the best of Reconstruction,and precisely the kind of story and history we need to remember if we’re tomove beyond the most limited and mythologized collective memories of theperiod.

NextNashville context tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Nashville connections you’d highlight?