*The South*: The Past, Historicity, and Black American History (Part 1)

I’m very happy and honored to be the Keynote Speaker to the 38th Annual Kickoff Brunch for the University of New Mexico’s celebration of African American History Month.  I want Read more

The post *The South*: The Past, Historicity, and Black American History (Part 1) first appeared on Society for US Intellectual History.

Rice University to Relocate Statue of Its White Supremacist Founder

Rice University’s Academic Quadrangle will undergo a major redesign that will include moving the Founder’s Memorial statue of William Marsh Rice to a new location within the quadrangle.

William Marsh Rice was an oil and cotton tycoon, who when he died was said to be the richest man in Texas. He left the bulk of his estate to establish the Rice Institute for Literature. His will stipulated that only White students were allowed to enroll. From its founding in 1912 to 1965, no Black student was permitted to enroll. The university eventually won litigation allowing the educational institution to overrule the “Whites only” stipulation in its founder’s last will and testament.

The board of trustees of Rice University has decided the relocated statue will be presented with historical context and information about the university’s founder, including his ownership of enslaved people. A new monument of similar prominence will commemorate the beginning of the university’s integration a half-century after its opening.

“The board believes that the founding gift of William Marsh Rice is an essential landmark in our history, and the philanthropy of William Marsh Rice should be recognized,” the board’s statement said. “In addition, we acknowledge our founder’s entanglement with slavery, which is in stark contrast to the modern vision and values of our university.”

“We intend for the Academic Quadrangle to both fully acknowledge the history of our founding and founder, and to mark and celebrate the important evolution and growth of our university over time,” said Rob Ladd, chair of the board of trustees. “We believe the redesign will allow us to move forward as a community.”

The university has already implemented another recommendation that the Founder’s Memorial statue “should no longer be used as an iconic image of the university in its publicity.”

Pomona College Receives the Personal Archives of Myrlie Evers-Williams

Myrlie Evers-Williams, the long-time civil rights leader and former chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), is donating her personal archives to her alma mater, Pomona College in Claremont, California.

A native of Vicksburg, Mississippi, she attended what is now Alcorn State University in Mississippi, where she met her future husband Medgar Evers. After Medgar Evers was appointed field secretary for the NAACP in Mississippi in 1954, the couple worked together on voting rights campaigns and efforts to end school segreation. In 1962, their home was firebombed. On June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers was assassinated while standing in the driveway of his home.

After two all-White juries failed to reach a verdict in trials of the suspected murderer of her husband, Myrlie Evers moved to California. (Medgar Evers’ murderer later was convicted of the crime in 1994.) She earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology at Pomona College. Myrlie Evers ran unsuccessfully for Congress and then worked in advertising and directed community affairs for the Atlantic Richfield Inc. She later served on the Los Angeles Board of Public Works. In 1995, she was elected chair of the NAACP.

Now 90 years old, Evers-Williams has donated her extensive archives to Pomona College. The collection focuses on her life after moving to California in 1964; the Mississippi state archives are home to the Medgar Wiley and Myrlie Beasley Evers Papers, covering their early years in that state.

The collection, consisting of more than 250 linear feet of documents, ephemera and artifacts, contains thousands of items. Included are photos of her with presidents ranging from Kennedy to Carter to Clinton; buttons, pamphlets and photos from her own 1970 run for Congress; transcripts and correspondence from her 2007 testimony before Congress; and correspondence related to her preparation for the second Obama inauguration, where she gave the invocation. Personal items include her Pomona College ID card, a hardhat from her time as a Los Angeles Public Works Commissioner and the dress she wore while performing piano at Carnegie Hall, fulfilling a lifelong dream.

Pomona College will preserve the collection for both academic and, in time, public access through The Claremont Colleges Library, where archivists are organizing and cataloguing the material spanning six decades.

Columbia University to Acquire the Archives of Composer and Educator Tania León

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University in New York has announced that it will acquire the archives of Tania León, the noted composer, conductor, and educator. Her orchestral work Stride, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic in celebration of the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music.

A native of Havana, León left Cuba in 1967 and settled in New York. She found work at the Harlem School of the Arts as a substitute pianist for dance classes and later became the music director of the Dance Theater of Harlem. She has been visiting professor at Yale University, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, the University of Kansas, Purchase College, and the Musikschule in Hamburg, Germany, among others.

Alejandro L. Madrid, who has written her biography Tania León’s Stride, A Polyrhythmic Life (University of Illinois Press, 2022), writes: “I have no doubt that Tania León is one of the most important and accomplished composers of her generation. Her music has influenced several cohorts of composers in the U.S., Latin America, and Europe, while also serving as a bridge to positively acknowledge and accept the music and culture from Latinx composers as a serious interlocutor in European and American concert halls. At the same time, her advocacy and commitment to the advancement of marginalized communities of people of color has led to her pioneering work as a musical activist.”

Race & Justice Imperative Focuses on the Need for Sustained Political Energy

This year’s Race & Justice Imperative—a series of conversations with Black political leaders put on by the DC-based newspaper The Hill—came at an auspicious moment for Black power. More Black Americans were elected in 2022 than ever before, and the Congressional Black Caucus now boasts 57 members, a record. But the overwhelming consensus from the people who spoke, a mixture of Congresspeople, academics, and advocates, was that representation is not enough. It is crucial, they said, to keep up the momentum, even when an election isn’t right around the corner.

LaTosha Brown, cofounder of the Black Voters Matter FundThat ethos was perhaps best embodied by LaTosha Brown and Cliff Albright, co-founders of the Black Voters Matter Fund. When asked how they were organizing for 2024, they described themselves as already hard at work.

“There’s no such thing as an off year,” said Brown. “It is going to take us literally being relentless.”

Brown and Albright described the waves of voter suppression bills that they said have been introduced in 49 states and passed in 20 as important threats to counter—Albright described them as a “slow-motion insurrection.” They said that the bills were a response to Black strength at the polls.

DaMareo Cooper, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, agreed. He compared the current political climate to the backlash that occurred in the second half of the 1800s when the newly won right of African Americans to vote was made subject to various unfair limitations in an attempt to suppress the group’s newfound political power. He also agreed that mere representation was not enough.

“It’s good that we’re getting people into positions at higher levels of government,” he said. “But the policies that get created [are] also critical.”

The nature of what these policies could be was discussed by Alicia Garza, principal of the Black Futures Lab and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network. One of the Black Futures Lab’s projects is the Black Census, which she described as the largest survey of Blacks in 158 years. She said that for many of its respondents, it was the first time they had been asked what policies they wanted to see enacted.

According to Garza, the Census’s findings paint a very different picture of Blacks than the one that she says was publicized during the 2022 midterm elections, when Blacks were often portrayed as highly concerned about crime, which led to overly punitive public policy. Garza said that the survey showed that Blacks were actually predominantly concerned about the economy, then white nationalism, then voting rights, and then abortion rights. When the full Census is finished, Garza’s group plans to release a Black Agenda legislative road map that will impact policy. And although she’s happy to see more Black people in political roles, she said that it was important that they serve the actual agendas of Black people.

Another area where policy is being highly contested is education, particularly in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis has cracked down on Critical Race Theory, DEI positions at universities, and the College Board’s proposed curriculum for an Advanced Placement African American Studies class. Adriane Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC, traced the fights back to Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 campaign for the governorship of Virginia and argued that the damage is deeper than ignorance—it deprives younger people of a chance to develop empathy—empathy that will surely be necessary for the cause of racial justice to advance.

Dr. Darrick Hamilton, Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy at the New School and founding director of the Institute for the Study of Race, Power and Political Economy discussed economic plans that could help close the racial wealth gap. He emphasized that no one plan was a silver bullet, but that a combination of forward-looking policies, like baby bonds, which would give newborns a nest egg that they could later use to pay for college, purchase a home, or start a business, and backward-looking policies, like reparations, could make a difference.

Ultimately, however, the speakers emphasized that without continued energy and involvement, little progress is likely to be made, even with more Black representatives than ever.

“We do a disservice,” said Shropshire, “by focusing on Election Day as if it’s the only day when democracy happens.”

Jon Edelman can be reached at [email protected].

 

Study: Black Students Have Lower Completion Rates Than Other Racial/Ethnic Groups

Black students have lower six-year completion rates for degrees or certificate programs than any other racial or ethnic group, according to a recent Lumina Foundation-Gallup 2023 State of Higher Education study.Dr. Courtney Brown

These outcomes are a result of racial discrimination, high higher education costs, and several external responsibilities, the study found. Black student enrollment as a whole has fallen over the last decade.

A minority of Black Americans (35%) have associate degrees or higher, which may be an issue for career mobility and general well-being because even the well-paying jobs that do not require a degree may still require certification and training.

Black students in less racially diverse programs are more likely to feel discriminated against, physically and psychologically unsafe, and disrespected, which prompts them to abandon higher ed, the study found.

Black respondents in short-term credential programs (32%) reported feeling discriminated against at least occasionally compared to those in associate’s (16%) and bachelor’s programs (14%). And Black students at private for-profit institutions are more likely (34%) to report discrimination than those at public (17%) or private, not-for-profit institutions (23%), according to the study.

“The data is sad and distressing, but the fact that we now have the data, we can’t hide and say we don’t know anymore,” said Dr. Courtney Brown, vice president of strategic impact and planning for the Lumina Foundation.

As for external responsibilities, the study found that Black bachelor’s students are twice as likely (36%) as other bachelor’s students (18%) to have roles as caregivers or full-time workers.

The study also contains recommendations to help remedy such issues, such as offering campus childcare, increasing financial aid and scholarships, providing more coursework flexibility, appointing more people of color in leadership positions, and making sure policies have zero tolerance for discrimination.

Brown praised Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) as institutions with leaders who look like their students and provide a sense a belonging.

“But it’s not just up to HBCUs – it’s up to all institutions to ensure that they are inclusive, that they don’t discriminate against any individual, that they provide a welcoming environment, and that they’re working to ensure the success of every single student that they enroll,” Brown said.

 

Educational Institutions Play Vital Role in Teaching American Public

On Thursday evening, the president of the philanthropic Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Dr. Elizabeth Alexander and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch III came together to discuss the increasingly vital role public institutions play in teaching American citizens their country’s history, particularly the history of Black people.

Dr. Elizabeth Alexander, president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.“Florida is Exhibit A right now—[they have] a governor who has a national profile using his platform to ban teaching of an AP African American Studies course saying it has no educational value,” said Alexander.

Alexander praised Dr. Marvin Dunn, professor emeritus of psychology at Florida International University, who has pledged to continue teaching his syllabus as originally constructed before the 2022 passage of the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (WOKE) Act.

“The whole ‘WOKE’ bill says if you teach African American history to people, it will make them feel guilty and, therefore, you can’t teach it,” said Alexander. “Dunn is teaching on his own about lynching in Florida—there were more lynchings in Florida than Alabama. It’s a history that must be told and folks are doing it—but Dunn does it at a risk to himself and the people he teaches.”

Bunch agreed with Alexander’s concerns, calling Florida the “bellwether,” as 42 other states currenting have pending legislation that would prevent nuanced discussion about issues of race and racism in U.S. history.

“What’s amazing to me is, right now, there are 17 million high school and middle school students in parts of the country where that history can’t be taught,” said Bunch. “There’s a shadow over this, a sense that these stories, as important as they are, are not stories all Americans need to know. I’m worried that shadow [is] really effecting university professors and teachers.”

Bunch was the first director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the 19 museums of the Smithsonian Institution, which opened in D.C. in September 2016. Scholars from that institution joined experts from colleges and universities around the country, assisting the College Board for over a decade in the design of their AP African American Studies course, now banned in Florida.

Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch III.“It’s incumbent for those of us who care about history and culture to explain why history matters, why it’s important to understand these complexities,” said Bunch. “One of the great strengths of history is that it teaches you to embrace ambiguity. If you teach cut up facts, nuance, complexity, subtlety, debate don’t matter. Yet they shape what this country is.”

Bunch called this moment a “fight for all who care about education and the notion of America as a work in progress.”

“History is always divisive, and people are brave enough to understand that complexity—let’s give them some credit,” said Bunch.

Alexander said, in spite of the legislation in Florida and other states, she remains hopeful. By bringing a social justice focus to the philanthropy of the Mellon Foundation, Alexander said she has the opportunity to support arts, culture, and the teaching of history and humanities in higher education.

“People are doing incredible things. Lifting up under-recognized and under-resourced voices means we’re hearing so many different stories that people hold—and they hold their history forever—but now it’s available to so many more people,” said Alexander. “When you see people’s imaginations catalyzed and ready to go, that’s a hopeful thing all day long.”

Liann Herder can be reached at [email protected].