Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 51

February 29, 2024: Leap Years: 1948

[In honorof this once-in-four-yearsphenomenon, I wanted to highlight and AmericanStudy a few interesting leapyears from American history.]

On acouple significant election contexts beyond “Dewey Defeats Truman.”

Don’t get mewrong—“DeweyDefeats Truman” was a unique historical moment, and the shot of a jubilant Trumanholding a copy of that November 3rd Chicago Tribune is one of the more rightfully iconic 20thcentury photographs. The moment also reminds us of just how much Americannewspapers have always been affiliated with partisan politics: the Tribune was a solidily Republican-leaningpaper with no love lost for the incumbent Democrat, and its choice toallow veteran political analyst ArthurSears Henning’s electoral prediction to determine their next day’s front page(the paper went to press prior to the close of polls on the West coast) was nodoubt due at least in part to editorial wishful thinking. It’s easy to decrythe partisanship of contemporary newspapers and news media (for more on which see thispost), but in truth that’s been part of their identity throughoutAmerican history.

But evenif the Tribune had gotten itsprediction right, the 1948 presidential election would still be a hugelysignificant one. For one thing, there was South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond and his third-party runas a Dixiecrat (or, officially, States’ Rights Democrat). Few American historieshave been more influential than the long, gradual realignment of politics,race, and region, a story that starts as far back as AbrahamLincoln and Andrew Johnson and extends right upto our present moment. Yet despite that century and a half longarc, the splintering of the Democratic Party at the 1948national convention represents a striking and singular moment, afulcrum on which those political and social realities permanently shifted.There were all sorts of complicating factors, not least Thurmond’sown secrets and hypocrises when it came to race—but at the broadestlevel, few election-year moments have echoed more dramatically than did theDixiecrat revolt.

Foranother thing, both Truman and Dewey used the mass media in an unprecedentedway in the campaign’s closing weeks. The twocampaigns created short newsreel films that were played in movie theatersacross the country, reach an estimated 65 million filmgoers each week. Thefirst televised1960 debate between presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixonis often described as the first nationalpolitical moment of the media age—or even as a momentthat “changed the world”—and certainly its live broadcast to anational audience represented something new in American electoral politics. Butsince so much of politics in the media age has not been live, has insteadcomprised constructed and produced media images and narratives, it’s fair tosay that Truman’s and Dewey’s competing movies likewise foreshadowed a greatdeal of what was to come in the subsequent half-century and more of elections.

Last leapyear studying tomorrow,

Ben

PS.Thoughts on this year or other leap years that stand out to you?

February 28, 2024: Leap Years: 1904

[In honorof this once-in-four-yearsphenomenon, I wanted to highlight and AmericanStudy a few interesting leapyears from American history.]

On five ofthe many cultural legacies of the 1904World’s Fair (also known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition) in St. Louis.

1)     Fair Foods: As is often the case with largepublic events like fairs, the 1904 World’s Fair didn’t necessarily debut manyof its striking innovations, but it did feature them and thus bring them tomore widespread attention. That was never more true than with itsculinary highlights, a partial list of which includes: hamburgersand hot dogs, ice cream cones, cottoncandy, Dr. Pepperand 7Up sodas, and PuffedWheat cereal. Visitors to this epic fair could truly eat their way intoAmerican history!

2)     Flight: The WrightBrothers’ first manned flight had taken place less than six months beforethe fair’s April 30th opening, and as you’d expect flight became acentral focus for the fair’s exhibits. That included the famous “AirshipContest,” which promised a $100,000 prize (nearly $3 million in ourcurrent society) to any flying machine which could successfully navigate the“Aeronautic Concourse” while traveling at 15 miles per hour or higher. Althoughno vehicle won the prize, the fair did feature a ground-breaking act of flight,as ThomasScott Baldwin and Roy Knabenshue’s dirigible became the first such airship to flyin public.

3)     The SummerOlympics: The modern version of the Olympic Games began in 1896 in Athens, and thesecond games were held in conjunction with the 1900Paris Exposition. So it made sense that the first games heldoutside of Europe would be similarly paired with the 1904 Fair, but in fact Chicagowas initially awarded the 1904 games and they were only moved to St. Louiswhen the fair organizers threatened to hold an alternate contest. Partly forthat reason, and partly because St. Louis was more difficult to reach, Olympics founder Baron Pierre deCoubertin did not attend, nor did many international athletes (nearly 600of the 651 competing athletes came from North America). But holding the gamesoutside Europe at all, and in the US specifically, was a significant stepnonetheless, and one tied to the 1904 World’s Fair.

4)     KateChopin: Chopin, one of America’s most talented turn of the 20thcentury authors and both a native and longtime resident of St. Louis, was only54 when she attended the fair on August 20th (she had bought a seasonticket and had attended many prior times as well). That day was one of thehottest of the summer, however, and that night Chopin called her soncomplaining of a severe headache. It is believed that she had a cerebralhemorrhage; the next day she fell unconscious, and she died without waking on August22nd. She would be prominently buried in the city’sCalvary Cemetery, one more reflection—as was the World’s Fairitself—of the deep interconnections between St. Louis and this ground-breakingliterary voice.

5)     “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis”: I don’t want toend on that tragic note, so here’s one more way the World’s Fair continued toecho into American culture long after it closed its gates on December 1st.The aforementioned song was written in response to the fair and recorded bymany artists over the years (perhaps the first being Billy Murray’s version, recordedwhile the fair was still ongoing), but became especially prominent through Judy Garland’s performance in the1944 movie Meet Me in St. Louis. Thanksto that film, and the late 20thcentury Broadway musical adaptation of the same title, the 1904World’s Fair seems destined to stay in our collective memories beyond eventhese various, striking influences.

Next leapyear studying tomorrow,

Ben

PS.Thoughts on this year or other leap years that stand out to you?

February 27, 2024: Leap Years: 1848

[In honorof this once-in-four-yearsphenomenon, I wanted to highlight and AmericanStudy a few interesting leapyears from American history.]

On howthree distinct events within a 10-day period helped change America and theworld.

On January 24th,1848, JamesWilson Marshall found gold on the property of Johann/JohnSutter’s in-construction sawmill on the American River near the smalltown of Coloma, California. Marshall had been gradually migrating West from hisNew Jersey birthplace since 1834, and in 1845 reached the settlement of Sutter’s Fort, a cross-culturaloutpost in the Mexican territory of Alta California. Sutter, the town founderand alcalde, employed Marshall to help run his businesses, although that workwas interrupted by Marshall’s 1846-1847 service in John C.Frémont’s California Battalion during the Mexican American War (theend of which, on which more in a moment, brought California into the UnitedStates). When Marshall returned he began work helping construct a new sawmillfor Sutter, and in the process he found gold in the river nearby. Over the nexttwo years the resulting Gold Rush wouldbring hundreds of thousands of settlers to California, both from elsewhere inthe US and from around the world, and forever change the arc of American andworld history.

Just aweek after Marshall’s earth-shattering find, his former military commanderreceived far less positive news. Frémont, whose Mexican American War activitieswere controversialto say the least, had been undergoing a military trial forcharges of mutiny, disobedience of orders, and other related offenses since hisAugust 1847 arrest at Fort Leavenworth, and on January 31st,1848 he was court-martialed on the charges of disobedience toward asuperior officer and military misconduct. President James Polk, who hadbeen president and thus commander-in-chief throughout the war and Frémont’sactivities, granted him a partial pardon, commuting his dishonorable dischargeand reinstating him into the army. But Frémont found that outcomeunsatisfactory and resigned his commission, moving back to California andcontinuing to lead exploratory excursions there (while also profitingfrom the Gold Rush, natch). In 1850 he became one of the firsttwo Senators from California, running as a Free Soil Democrat—and that splinterparty’s evolution into the Republican Party took Frémont with it, and in 1856he became the RepublicanParty’s first presidential candidate, a vital step toward 1860, AbrahamLincoln, and the coming of the Civil War.

The GoldRush and the Civil War were without question two of the most prominent Americanhistorical events of the mid-19th century; but just two days afterFrémont’s court-martial, another, equally influential historical event tookplace: the February 2nd,1848 signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. I’vewritten about that treaty and its pernicious (and ironic, given that the treatyitself guaranteed citizenship and rights for Mexican Americans who remained inthe new US territories) effects for Mexican Americans many times, including inthis Saturday Evening Post ConsideringHistory column and this blogpost (as well as thisHuffPost piece on the best literary representation of the treaty and itseffects, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s The Squatter and the Don [1885]). But of course the treaty didnot just affect those American communities—it also fundamentally reshaped thenation, not only through all the territories (and very quickly, in California’s case, states)it added to the US, but also through all the new communities (including MexicanAmericans but also numerous native nations and Chinese Americans among others)it likewise made part of the expanding US. Few, if any, individual Americandays have had more lasting national significance.

Next leapyear studying tomorrow,

Ben

PS.Thoughts on this year or other leap years that stand out to you?

February 26, 2024: Leap Years: 1816

[In honorof this once-in-four-yearsphenomenon, I wanted to highlight and AmericanStudy a few interesting leapyears from American history.]

Onsignificant global, cross-cultural, and national trends within a single year.

You wouldthink that a catastrophic historic phenomenon wherein the eruption of a volcanocaused a drastic shift in global temperatures for an entire year would be atleast somewhat well known. But speaking for myself, I only learned about the “Yearwithout a Summer”—in which the record-breaking 1815eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Tambora caused severe climate change andfreezing temperatures throughout 1816, leading to the even more evocativenickname “EighteenHundred and Froze to Death”—just over a year ago, while researching this post on thePanic of 1819. But whether we remember it now or not, this global catastrophehad drastic effects throughout the world in 1816, including a number of importantones in the United States (along with the arc that culminated in theaforementioned 1819 panic): from the failure ofcorn crops throughout New England to the mass migrations to the Midwestthat led to statehoodfor Indiana (in 1816) and Illinois (in 1818) to the eventual founding of theMormon Church (as Joseph Smith’s family were one of countless residents wholeft Vermont farms during this year, in their case moving to the community ofPalmyra, NY that would be sofoundational in his personal and spiritual journey).

It’s hardto imagine that any other 1816 story could be as significant as that global andcatastrophic one, but of course the year featured many other American events,including ones that likewise influenced ongoing histories and trends. A numberof them reflected the complicated, evolving Early Republic relationship betweenthe US government and Native American nations. For the first few decades afterthe Constitution, the federal government dealt with native nations inindividual and distinct ways, treating them as the unique communities they were,and 1816 saw an exemplary (if as everfraught) such moment: the August signing of the Treatyof St. Louis between the US government and the nations within the ThreeFires Confederacy (the Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi). Yetanother 1816 treaty foreshadowed the drastic and tragic change in theseUS-native relationships: on March 22the federal government signed a treaty with the Cherokee, agreeingto return land that had been illegally seized as part of an 1814 conflictbetween the US and the Creek nation; but GeneralAndrew Jackson, who had been involved in that 1814 war, refused to honor thetreaty, a blatant step toward his eventual, exclusionary presidential policy ofIndian Removal.

Jacksonwould not be elected president until 1828, but 1816 saw its own influential presidentialelection (as has every AmericanLeap Year since 1788). In that contest, James Monroe, who had been servingas Secretaryof State in the administration of his fellow Virginian founder JamesMadison, received the Democratic-Republican nomination and handily bested theFederalist nominee, New York Senator (and also a Constitution signer) Rufus King. The sizeof Monroe’s victory was due in part to a splintering and disappearing FederalistParty: King would be the party’s last presidential nominee, and for the nextfew years the US had only one national political party, leading to the nickname“The Era ofGood Feelings.” As I wrote in that hyperlinked post, there were of course tensionsand divisions beneath that seeming unity, and many of them would coalesce aheadof Jackson’s 1828 election. Yet for at least a decade, the United States becamea one-party system, another striking legacy of this important Leap Year.

Next leapyear studying tomorrow,

Ben

PS.Thoughts on this year or other leap years that stand out to you?

February 24-25, 2024: Biden and Anti-Immigrant Narratives

[For this year’s annualnon-favorites series, I wanted tohighlight moments when important and in many ways impressive Americans gave into white supremacist prejudices, modeling the worst of our national communityin the process. Leading up to this special weekend post on our own moment.]
I don't normally write posts here in immediate response to current events; that's somewhat more for my Saturday Evening Post Considering History column. And I'm not entirely doing that in this case either. But a couple days ago I had a Twitter thread go viral, and it was on a topic very much related to the week's series: on a very frustrating way in which President Biden is giving into anti-immigrant narratives and xenophobia; and on the longstanding legacy of such moments in American history. I hope you'll check out that thread, and I hope we can all resist these narratives and argue for inclusive alternatives. 
Next series starts Monday,Ben
PS. What do you think? 

February 23, 2024: Prejudicial Non-Favorites: London’s Fighting Words

[For thisyear’s annualnon-favorites series, I wanted to highlight moments when importantand in many ways impressive Americans gave in to white supremacist prejudices,modeling the worst of our national community in the process. Got grievances ofyour own to air, about anything and everything? Share ‘em for a therapeuticcrowd-sourced post, please!]

On an uglymoment when white supremacy took precedence over athletic supremacy.

I wassuper excited when I was invited toreview Cecelia Tichi’s book Jack London: A Writer’s Fight for a BetterAmerica (2015) for the American HistoricalReview. There were lots of reasons for my excitement, including howimportant Tichi’s book Shifting Gears: Technology, Literature,Culture in Modernist America (1987) was for my development as anAmericanStudier, and how much I appreciated her goal in this new project ofrecuperating London as a public intellectual (and thus a model for that role in21st century America as well). But I was also just super excited tolearn more about London, whom I knew largely as the author of hugely popular boys’adventures stories about wolves and sailors and that oneincredibly realisticand depressing story about a man who needs to build a fire inorder to keep from freezing to death and the dog who becomes a witness to theunfolding horrors (all of which of course was a central rationale behindTichi’s attempt to recreate the more socially and politically engaged sides ofLondon as both a writer and a public figure).

I’m nottrying to dwell on my one criticism of Tichi’s book here, but it turned outthat one of the things I learned about London was a frustratingly bigotedmoment that Tichi understandably but problematically minimized in her project.She did note (if still to my mind a bit too briefly) London’s lifelong fascinationwith Social Darwinism and that philosophy’s consistentlyhierarchical and racist worldviews; but it was in response to the controversial(at least for white supremacists) rise of early 20th centuryAfrican American boxing championJack Johnson that London would articulate much more overtly his own racism. InDecember 1908 Johnson became the first African American world heavyweightchamp, defeating the reigning champ Tommy Burns, and that historic moment led Londonto implore a retired white champion to return to the ring and defend hisrace. Covering the 1908 fight as asyndicated sportswriter, London concluded his column, “But now onething remains. Jim Jeffries must now emerge from his [Burbank, CA] Alfalfa farmand remove that golden smile from Jack Johnson's face. Jeff, it's up to you.The White Man must be rescued.”

Initiallyreticent, Jeffries did eventually emerge from retirement, facing Johnson in a July 4th, 1910 championshipbout in Reno. Jeffries was by this time so out of shape that “bout”probably isn’t the word, though, as he was quickly knocked down for the firsttime in his career and threw in the towel at that point. Given that whiteAmericans often find reasons to riot in both sporting events and racism(although not usually at the same time), it’s unfortunately no surprise thatJohnson’s victory led to riots around the country that lefta handful of African Americans dead and many more injured (riots, I’ll note,that to this day, when they’re remembered at all, are usually and all tootypically described with that deeply loaded phrase “race riot”).Perhaps it should be no more surprising that when an African American athletereached the pinnacle of his sport, theories of physical prowess and thesurvival of the fittest gave way to white supremacist bigotry and ignorance,even from an otherwise intelligent and (as Tichi convincingly argues) sociallyprogressive figure like Jack London. But it’s still frustrating to see howpowerful such white supremacist nonsense can be—although, to send this serieson a positive note, it’s also deeply satisfying to see it literally andfiguratively knocked on its ass.

Crowd-sourcedpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. So onemore time: what do you think? Other non-favorites (of any and all types) you’dshare?

February 22, 2024: Prejudicial Non-Favorites: Harlan’s Exclusions

[For thisyear’s annualnon-favorites series, I wanted to highlight moments when importantand in many ways impressive Americans gave in to white supremacist prejudices,modeling the worst of our national community in the process. Got grievances ofyour own to air, about anything and everything? Share ‘em for a therapeuticcrowd-sourced post, please!]

On ahistorical and a contemporary lesson from an iconic Justice’s prejudices.

In thispost on the United States v. Wong KimArk (1898) Supreme Court decision, I highlighted Justice John MarshallHarlan’s ugly and apparently lifelong exclusionary racisms (both in and beyondhis work on the Court) toward Chinese Americans. As I’ve done often in this week’sseries (I guess when your blog is past 4100 posts over 13.5 years you often havethought already about the things you’re continuing to think about!), I’d askyou to check out that post for the key quotes and details about Harlan’sideology to which I’m responding here, and then come on back for a couplefurther thoughts.

Welcomeback! Two years ago, historian Peter S. Canellos published a new biography ofHarlan, TheGreat Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America’s Judicial Hero(2022). I haven’t read Canellos’ book yet, so I don’t want to assume anythingabout any aspect of it, but that hyperlinked official Simon & Schuster descriptioncalls Harlan “the nation’s prime defender of the rights of Black people,immigrant laborers, and people in distant lands occupied by the US.” In manyways, especially in his frequent Supreme Court dissents that are apparently Canellos’principal subject, Harlan did indeed play that role. But the historical lessonhere is that white supremacy is a multi-tentacled thing, and I mean that notonly about the great legal mind who also had such a racist blindspot towardChinese Americans (including, as I noted in my above post, in his most famoussuch dissent), but also about the implicit exclusion of Chinese Americans fromSimon & Schuster’s phrase “the nation’s prime defender.” Not for that partof our national community, he wasn’t.

About amonth ago, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wascaught on camera telling a group of protesters advocating for a ceasefirein Gaza that they should “go back to China.” While there were and are somespecific and complicated contexts for Pelosi’s comments related to the fundingsources for this prominent protest movement, the bottom line is that a nationalpolitical leader—and one who during her career in the House representedSan Francisco at that—using the phrase“Go back to China” in any context is a very, very bad look, one that echoesmuch of the worst of anti-Chinese American prejudices and exclusions (includingHarlan’s). As we’ve seen time and again in recent years, most especially in theresponses to Covid, such anti-Chinese American attitudes and narratives arevery much still with us, and indeed seem shared across much of the politicalspectrum in striking ways (compared to how fully Trump and the MAGA movementexemplify certain other longstanding prejudices in our current moment, thatis). One more reason why Justice Harlan’s racisms are not only a non-favoritemoment, but one from which we can and must learn a great deal.

Lastnon-favorite tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other non-favorites (of any and all types) you’d share?

February 21, 2024: Prejudicial Non-Favorites: Anthony’s Priorities

[For thisyear’s annualnon-favorites series, I wanted to highlight moments when importantand in many ways impressive Americans gave in to white supremacist prejudices,modeling the worst of our national community in the process. Got grievances ofyour own to air, about anything and everything? Share ‘em for a therapeuticcrowd-sourced post, please!]

On acollective and an individual frustration with an inspiring figure’s worstquote.

In a long-agocolumn for my gig at Talking Points Memo on white feminism’s frequently andfrustratingly racist histories, I highlighted a particularly crappyline from legendary suffrage activist Susan B. Anthony: “I will cut offthis right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for theNegro and not the woman.” Check out both that hyperlinked column of mine andthat excellent hyperlinked story on race and the suffrage movement if youwould, and then come on back for a couple further thoughts on this quote andmoment.

Welcomeback! As I traced in that column, far too often both particular activistorganizations and the suffrage movement as a whole echoed Anthony’s perspectiveand excludedAfrican Americans. And that’s a significant layer to what makes thatperspectives so profoundly frustrating and counter-productive—as with so manyissues in American history (indeed, as with all of them, like allof our history overall), there was no actual way to separate out AfricanAmericans from the community as a whole, as African American women were just asmuch part of the push for women’s suffrage as any other group. The onlypossible arguments for treating race and gender as separate camedown to blatant racism and white supremacy, and for a movement dedicated toequality and justice to endorse those ideologies so consistently and fully wasnothing short of tragic.

It’s alsotragic, on a smaller but not insignificant scale, that a figure as impressiveas Susan B. Anthony took part in those practices and perspectives. I know thatshe knew better, especially when it comes to her long-term relationship withFrederick Douglass, to whom she was connected through theirshared community of Rochester among many other ways. As I highlighted inthis post, right at the end of Douglass’ life (literally on his last day),he and Anthony met to try to bury the hatchet and strategize about the women’srights movement of which he was such a lifelong ally. But as far as I’ve seen,Anthony never publicly took back her quote about race and suffrage, and shecertainly never became a public advocate for African American voting rights (inthe way, again, that Douglass was such an impassioned advocate of women’svoting rights). That makes this one telling quote an even more frustrating non-favoritemoment for sure.

Nextnon-favorite tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other non-favorites (of any and all types) you’d share?

February 20, 2024: Prejudicial Non-Favorites: Lincoln’s Mass Execution

[For thisyear’s annualnon-favorites series, I wanted to highlight moments when importantand in many ways impressive Americans gave in to white supremacist prejudices,modeling the worst of our national community in the process. Got grievances ofyour own to air, about anything and everything? Share ‘em for a therapeuticcrowd-sourced post, please!]

I saidmuch of what I’d want to say about this non-favorite moment in Chapter 3 of mybook OfThee I Sing, so will quote that section here:

“Such mythic patriotisms did not only target AfricanAmericans, and indeed the Early Republic myths of expansion and ManifestDestiny remained in force during the Civil War, as illustrated by anotherhorrific historical event: the December 26th,1862 execution of 38 Dakota Sioux Native Americans in Mankota, Minnesota,the largestmass execution in American history. Throughout 1862 white settlers continuedto pour into Minnesota (which had becomea state in May 1858) and onto native lands, while the U.S. govern­mentviolated treaties with multiple tribes and left many such communities starvingafter failing to deliver food in “payment” for that stolen land. In August, Dakota SiouxChief Little Crow led a six-week uprising against these invaders, a revoltframed throughout the U.S. not as an echo of the American Revolution nor as anoppressed people’s quest for liberty and justice, but as an illegal war againstthe expanding nation. When the uprising was put down more than 300 Dakota menwere sentenced to death by Governor HenryHast­ings Sibley; while President Lincoln commuted a number of thesentences, many of those men nonetheless remained imprisoned for life, and 38others were executed on Lincoln’s orders. The Sioux and Winnebago nations weresubsequently removed from the state to distant reservations, once again onLincoln’s authority. The era’s mythic patriotisms did not just divide Northfrom South, but continued to divide the expanding United States into thosecommunities perceived as part of that idealized nation and those overtly andviolently excluded from it.

Lincoln’sprominent role in both that horrific mass execution and the subsequent extensionof the Jacksonian Indian Removal policy reminds us that even Civil War eracelebratory patriotisms which embraced the United States in opposition to theConfederacy could too easily be wedded to their own mythic patriotisms, withthe same potential to discriminate and exclude. That’s an important rejoinderto any attempt to entirely distinguish the pe­riod’s Union and Confederatecelebratory patriotisms.”

Obviouslythis horrific moment connects to deeper and broader (and far more longstandingand ongoing) American issues and histories than just President Lincoln, andLincoln did commute a number of the death sentences. But to my mind neither ofthose things absolves Lincoln of his role in America’s largest mass execution,and one entirely linked to white supremacy (as it was to the subsequent removalpolicy for which Lincoln likewise bears responsibility). Ain’t none of usclean, to quote oneof my favorite lines from one of my favorite cultural works about Americanhistory and white supremacy, and this non-favorite moment is a frustrating but importantreminder that that maxim applies to even our most best president.

Nextnon-favorite tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What doyou think? Other non-favorites (of any and all types) you’d share?

February 19, 2024: Prejudicial Non-Favorites: Jefferson and Banneker

[For thisyear’s annualnon-favorites series, I wanted to highlight moments when importantand in many ways impressive Americans gave in to white supremacist prejudices,modeling the worst of our national community in the process. Got grievances ofyour own to air, about anything and everything? Share ‘em for a therapeuticcrowd-sourced post, please!]

On threefrustrating layers to a founding American exchange.

Back inAugust 2022, I dedicated one of mySaturday Evening Post Considering Historycolumns to the great Benjamin Banneker, and included there not only hisinspiring letter to Thomas Jefferson but Jefferson’s deeply frustratingresponses. Check out that column if you would, and then come on back for acouple more layers to this frustrating founding moment.

Welcomeback! Besides the fact that Jefferson was given and dropped the ball on such aclear opportunity to transcend the racism “of his times” (which as I argue in thatcolumn was never the only option “in his times” in any case), there are a coupleother deeply frustrating things about how myhometown icon responded to Banneker in this moment. For one thing, I’dcontrast Jefferson here with what I wrote about Ben Franklin’s evolution on theissue of immigration in thislong-ago post. We all hold prejudices at times in our lives, and perhapsespecially when we’re younger, and one of our most important life goals thushas to be to continue learning and growing in those ways (among many others ofcourse). Yet when Jefferson was presented with a pitch-perfect opportunity todo so, he instead (after a somewhat encouraging initial response) retreatedinto and even deepened his prejudices toward African Americans. For such anintelligent man, that’s a strikingly ignorant thing to do.

Andspeaking of intelligence: as I wrote in this otherSaturday Evening Post column, oneof Jefferson’s truly inspiring achievements was the founding of the nation’sfirst non-sectarian public university, a space dedicated the freedom of thoughtas well as religion (both far from a given in the early 19thcentury). It’s true (and important) that that educational and civic communityalso featured, and indeed depended upon, enslavedpeople in ways that contrasted quite clearly with its ideals. But just aswe can’t let the presence of slavery in every part of America’s founding keepus from fighting for the nation’s ideals (as enslavedpeople themselves did time and time again), neither should the Universityof Virginia’s frustrating flaws elide the importance of what an “academicalvillage” (as Jeffersondubbed the institution) could mean for individual and collective thought. ThatJefferson himself failed to live up to those thoughtful ideals in his exchangewith Benjamin Banneker is one more reason this moment is a decided non-favoritefor me.

Nextnon-favorite tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other non-favorites (of any and all types) you’d share?