Update. Because of Hunter's diary http://www.dailykos.com/...
I add this link http://en.wikipedia.org/...
This a second diary in honor of Black History Month, which grew out of "Negro History Week" -- the invention of Harvard-educated historian and son of former slaves, Dr. Carter G. Woodson in 1926. Dr. Woodson chose the date for "Negro History Week" to mark the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
This year Black History Month interests me for three reasons:
a) Obama
b) I have a passion for history and need to use it in my work (responsibly, I hope)
c) I came of age at the height of The Civil Rights Movement. It was THE domestic issue of the time. Fraught with tension, misunderstanding, violence, assassinations, but very much a time for soul-searching, for hope, for cleaning out and rearranging the furniture of our national mind.
Perhaps you feel the same way and would like to follow me below the fold to hear what the eminent black historian, Professor John Hope Franklin, says about the uses of history.
Even though my family came from Europe, and I was not directly involved in The Civil Rights Movement, our community experienced it as a sharp reminder to overcome prejudice......and as the renewal of the promise of America.
Because we are so acutely aware of race in the upcoming election and because many of us at Daily Kos simply can't ever get enough history -- especially history which helps us understand current events -- I have pulled out some lovely quotations from Professor John Hope Franklin on the uses of the past. Let us hope we can apply his lessons as we go forward.
HISTORY'S ROLE.
Professor Franklin wrote:
"... the historian is not in the business of protecting the morals of the people, but as the servant of the past is in the best position to provide a rational basis for present actions. . . .
SNIP
The people, yes, the people, shall judge. But they require a sound basis for making judgments. They will have that basis if and when they know what has happened, why it has happened, and consequently, how the public policies growing out of historical events or shaping those events can serve the common good. If, then they prefer to ignore their past mistakes and prefer to live in a world of fantasy and make-believe, they will deserve to suffer the fate of repeating the grave errors that they could easily have avoided."
When asked to elaborate on this, Professor Franklin answered (in a 1990 interview by Professor Richard Heffner) :
Well, I think it means that if people do not heed the lessons of history, if they indeed look at the historical past and ignore it, if they create instead a set of myths that they call the past, and then act upon the basis of those myths, which they created, these myths will undoubtedly lead them into policies and actions which are unrealistic, which are themselves misleading, and which of course will cause them to end up on the wrong side of a particular problem. I think that we have too much of that in our present as well as in our past. And I think that’s why we have such difficulty in being realists in this country, looking hard and long and carefully at the facts of history. I think that if we were to do that they would tell us a great deal about what we are, where we’ve been and they might even suggest – I say this tentatively – where we might be going.
HEFFNER: Why do you say that tentatively? Don’t you think that history could, would, should be a guide for the future?
FRANKLIN: Yes. I say it tentatively because I don’t want anyone to get the impression that I would imply that history repeats itself.
MISUSE OF THE PAST: Errors, Misinformation, and Subliminal Messages.
The Reconstruction Era, when black politicians first held office in America.
Franklin wrote an essays about the D. W. Griffith's 1915 blockbuster film, "The Birth of a Nation," a distorted portrayal of the Reconstruction Era, which greatly influenced the Ku Klux Klan.
Professors Franklin and Heffner discussed numerous examples of misinformation still circulating about Reconstruction. For example, damaging stereotypes based on misinformation were still being applied to black politicians running in 1990 when this discussion took place:
Professor Franklin said:
"... even in 1990 when there’s reference to say, a black candidate for public office in this year, sometimes you will see in the media a reference to the fact that this will be the first time, if the person is successful, if this black person is successful, it will be the first time since Reconstruction. That conjures up, you see, a whole set of notions about what went on during Reconstruction, you see. It’s not merely that blacks have not had any power since Reconstruction. It is also that when they had power they misused it, you see. This is what you call a kind of subliminal effect."
ACTIVISM. Historians can help build a better future.
Professor Franklin gives us good advice about how to mix history and activism, something he wished he had done even more of, despite the fact that he did so very much scholarly work of enduring value :
"... every historian is a human being, with deeply held beliefs, passions, desires, aspirations, criticisms about the present and the future, and wants to do whatever he can to improve their chances of a better world in which we live. If that is so, then he walks a kind of tightrope between, on the one hand, being certain that he is true to his principles of writing fair, objective, unadulterated history, on the one hand, and of advocating to the extent that he possibly can the improvement of our social order on the other."
SNIP
"I think there are opportunities, which maybe I missed, to be an activist. If not I, say, testifying in court to provide historical materials for arguments for equality, if not for marching from the outskirts of Montgomery into Atlanta, into Montgomery with Martin Luther King, if not for working on the Brown decision in the United States Supreme Court that outlawed segregation and segregated schools, perhaps also, if that was not enough, perhaps also in trying to organize a larger number of historians to become committed to using the data, materials of history, to illuminate the past in a way that a much larger number of the American public would understand it, and to use the materials of history to try to replace this superficial and disgustingly simplistic view of history on the part of Americans with an understanding of its complexities and it’s difficulties and the way in which it can indeed be used – appreciating those difficulties – the way in which it can be used to improve our chances for a better America in the future. "
Quoted From:
http://www.theopenmind.tv/...
"THE OPEN MIND"
Date: 7/22/1990
Host: Richard D. Heffner
Guest: John Hope Franklin
Title: "The Uses of the Past"
" Since 1956 as host of The Open Mind, the longest-running television interview program in public television, Professor Heffner has been interviewing many of the influential figures who have shaped our national history, or just inhabited the consciousness of modern America. "
RESOURCE:
The Digital Archive of "The Open Mind" is available for free at:
http://www.theopenmind.tv/...
MORE ABOUT PROFESSOR FRANKLIN:
Professor Franklin has had a long and distinguished career as a scholar and leader in academia.
He also served on the team that developed the 1954 Supreme Court decision ending the legal segregation of black and white children in public schools.
http://www.jhfc.duke.edu/...
"John Hope Franklin was born in Rentiesville, Oklahoma, in 1915, only fifty years after slavery had been abolished. His father practiced law and his mother taught elementary school, and from an early age the young Franklin learned the power of words and ideas. Following his father's lead, John Hope Franklin spent every evening reading or writing, a practice that continues to this day. From his parents he also learned how to survive and thrive in a time when the color line was indelibly drawn.
In academia, John Hope Franklin found the perfect environment for his insatiable intellectual curiosity and his fervent commitment to justice. "
---------------------BOOKS for further reading
"From Slavery to Freedom" first published in 1947, now updated in its eighth edition. Widely considered the definitive history of African Americans.
http://www.powells.com/...
"Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938-1988"
http://www.powells.com/...
Synopsis
'These essays are examples of first-rate scholarship. Even when treading his way through the most treacherous issue of American life, race, Franklin is a model for us all: diligent and ingenious in uncovering sources and then scrupulous in his use of primary materials. To read this collection is to be reminded of just how important John Hope Franklin has been in the historical profession.'--Dan T. Carter
Publishers Weekly
Readers will find these 27 essays eloquent, barbed, timely and outspoken. Franklin's assessment of a widening socioeconomic chasm between blacks and whites, his sweeping surveys of racism from the American Revolution to the Civil War and beyond, are hard-hitting. One piece links blacks' civil rights struggles to the campaigns of Amerindians, Puerto Ricans and Mexican-Americans for full equality. In another, Franklin faults D. W. Griffith's 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation , arguing that its distorted portrayal of Reconstruction made it a midwife in the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan. There are sharp profiles of James Ayers, white Civil War recruiter of black soldiers, and of Mississippi freedman John Lynch, who became a Republican Congressman and paymaster of the U.S. Army. A Duke University professor, Franklin insists that historians can play an active role in shaping public policy. He writes movingly of his first encounter with racism at age 16 and its searing effects.
http://browse.barnesandnoble.com/...
Excellent examples of how to use history for the commong good.