What-Ifs
I'm not a historian, so I offer something of an outsider's view. I must ask exactly what it is that Professors Norrell and Luker disagree about.
They agree that Washington should be viewed in the context of his own time. But Luker differs from Norrell by saying that Norrell wrongly offers Washington as a "model of leadership."
The term "model" implies that Norrell is recommending Washington's style as something that we should adopt today. Or perhaps Luker is saying that Washington's model of leadership is inappropriate in a larger, ideal sense. Or perhaps that it was just wrong for his time.
Is that what historiography is about? Is it about evaluating historical figures by comparing them to the present or to some ideal or some preferred alternative that didn't actually happen? Perhaps.
In any case, for me the interesting question is counterfactual, too: Was there another way in which Washington could have succeeded in building Tuskegee, expanding education of blacks throughout the South, and inspiring his generation of African-Americans? If we are going to indulge in "what-ifs," those are the ones I wonder about.
Jane Shaw asks: Was there another way in which Washington could have succeeded in building Tuskegee, expanding education of blacks throughout the South, and inspiring his generation of African-Americans?
Probably not. Washington had many achievments. The debate here seems to be whether his program could have resulted in advancing civil rights. The movement that resulted in this advance required that his program be rejected.
March 12, 2009 12:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
If only it was as simple as building schools and "inspiring his generation..."
I'll try to give it some "color commentary" in a separate blog post. I think TPM could have found some more diverse voices to discuss this book.
March 12, 2009 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dr. Shaw is *remarkably* ill-informed about the conditions of education in the South in BTW's lifetime. When African Americans were disfranchised, within his lifetime, they lost any authority over how tax dollars for schools were spent. So, tax money spent on schools became increasingly discriminatory against black children. That is the record within BTW's lifetime. A Southern city the size of Atlanta did not get its first public high school for African American youth until *1925* -- ten years *after* BTW's death -- and, then, only *after* black voters turned down tax levies to build additional white schools. So much for BTW's "expanding education of blacks" throughout the South!
March 12, 2009 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dr. Luker, when I spoke about expanding education of blacks, I was referring to Washington's creation of Tuskegee and its satellites.
March 12, 2009 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you have any idea what, at most, a tiny percentage of the South's African American students Tuskegee and its handful of satellites could serve? We're not talking "a thousand points of light" or "a dawn of a new era" here.
March 12, 2009 10:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Norrell suggests that this "model of leadership" transcends BTW's time by comparing him to Martin Luther King, Jr. So what might BTW's look like today? Conservatives love BTW (and indeed this book) because they see in him someone who did not argue for racial equality, who expected little from government, who had full faith in the liberating power of capitalism, and who thought that black folks had to work harder to civilize themselves if they wanted to enjoy freedom. As for me I think those positions were wrong then and wrong now.
And to Jade7243, speaking as one of the white folks who has yammered on too long on this site, I agree that there really should have been more diverse voices in this conversation.
March 12, 2009 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. That's a good idea.
Of course, there's no guarantee they'll necessarily agree with you. It seems pretty plain to me that awful lot of responsibility has been dumped on this one man through the years by what can only be described as back seat drivers. Every single one.
(Your righteous idealism is touching, by the way).
March 12, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me thank both you and Dr. Luker for bringing some balance to the discussion. Please don't take my criticism of "the white folks" talking about this in the wrong way -- I will admit to being really pissed off overreacting -- but the discussion of the legacy and impact a black civil rights leader without a single black opinion is just wrong.
In fact, the failure of TPM to include black historians in this discussion led me to contact (among others) Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Director of Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute) to ask him to weigh in. He suggested I also contact Dr. David Levering Lewis of New York University, author the Pultizer Prize winning biography of Du Bois.
Additionally, I "used the Google" to find out more about each of the people TPM asked to participate in this discussion. I felt if I learned more about you, I could better grasp your points of view.
The lack of diversity in this conversation treats this battle of philosophies as if it is a Dead Sea scroll. Take it off the shelf, dust it off, and "study" it as if it plays no role in how whites and blacks relate to each other -- and among ourselves -- today.
Yes, conservatives love BTW because his philosophy celebrates the "good Negro" who is comedic, compliant, cooperative and non-controversial. One can easily equate BTW telling "coon jokes" to his white benefactors to Michael Steele, hip-hop king of the RNC, showboating at CPAC. And do not Shelby Steele, Ward Connerly, Ken Blackwell, JC Watts, even Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell stem from the BTW school of thought? Go along to get along and get yourself ahead? (It's interesting to note that among the reviewers of Norrell's book is Shelby Steele -- he of the "bestselling" and prescient "A Bound Man: Why Obama Can't Win.")
Again, thanks for your input and balance.
March 13, 2009 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink