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A look at the historical roots of racism in WV, from a depressed mountaineer
The last of my four home states votes today. (Hey, if Hillary Clinton gets to be "from" Illinois, Arkansas, New York and Pennsylvania, then I should get to have some too.) West Virginia, the much-maligned and often-mocked place of my birth, is almost certain to deliver a 20 or 30 point knockout for Clinton. It is among the whitest and poorest states in the nation. It ranks either last or near-last in the following categories:
1. the percentage of foreign-born residents
2. the percentage of non-English speakers
3. median income
4. economic growth
About 96% of the population is white and about 3.5% black, with Native Americans outnumbering Asian Americans. Once a reliably Democratic state, the home of labor radicalism, it fell into the Republican column in 2000 because everyone was sure Al Gore wanted to take their guns away. There is a certain freethinking streak of heterodoxy that still runs through my family, but WV seems to have gotten more and more religious over recent years (hence the love of Dubya).
There has been much debate in the media about whether Barack Obama's total inability to win over voters in Kentucky and West Virginia means that these folks are racist. I don't know what to say. No one in my West Virginian family was willing to come to our wedding because they were afraid of consorting with Muslims, i.e. potential terrorists. They've hated and feared the government all their lives, and now they listen to Bush tell them to hate and fear other people. It is unbelievably depressing.
To reach deeper into history, though, there are real roots to the particular racism of this region. The poor white settlers who colonized Virginia and North Carolina were pushed long ago by wealthier slaveholders out of the fertile lands near the coast, which became dominated by plantations growing cash crops with slave labor. Many of these pioneers moved into the mountains and the foothills; places like Gastonia weren't as conducive to large scale agriculture, and thus eventually became the sites of textile development starting in the 1880s. But the mountains were never good for any agriculture, period, and not for much industry either, except for mining. Remote, isolated and homogeneous, these communities resented the wealth and lopsided political power of the planters in the east, and they abhorred the slave as both the tool of the planters and their potential competitor in poverty. They basically wanted nothing to do with slaves or slaveholders. It is no wonder that, when some of these settlers moved on westward, they set up laws in states like Illinois to forbid both slavery and settlement by African Americans. West Virginia broke off from Virginia when the Civil War came, because they had no interest in fighting to defend the South's "peculiar institution." Unionist strongholds could similarly be found in western NC and eastern TN.
Flashforward to today... I don't know how much this election can be connected to the Civil War, but there may be historical echoes of these nineteenth century attitudes and conflicts today. Outside of the arty college towns of Asheville and Boone, Obama got stomped in NC's mountain counties. West Virginia is pretty much this area writ slightly large. With the withering of industry and unions in WV, there is not as much of an organizational infrastructure for progressives in the state anymore. I've seen several old union halls, abandoned, with broken windows. It's sad. All I can say is that Obama's vaunted "50 state strategy," designed to reach out to Americans of all stripes in even the most conservative communities, runs aground on West Virginia. He can't win it now or in the Fall, and I seriously doubt that the baby-killing, gun-hating pantsuit-wearing She-Beast of conservative myth would have been able to win it either.
I've always been proud of West Virginia's motto, "Montani semper liberi" -- Mountaineers are always free! -- and I wish it were true. I'll stick with the credo of my adopted home state, NC: To be, rather than to seem.
Comments (150)
Thank you Akbar, this is excellent historical analysis. I liked this part:
I've always been proud of West Virginia's motto, "Montani semper liberi" -- Mountaineers are always free! -- and I wish it were true.
Nicely put, given that what you're implying in your post is that while the whites in that area do say and act in racist ways, it's not quite fair to say they ARE racists. They've basically been pushed into a situation and setting that teaches them to be racist.
I think of racial identities as learned forms of training. White people learn to perform their whiteness. So if they act racist, we should do less blaming of them as individuals and more blaming and analysis of what forces led them to be racist.
thanks again,
macon d
Stuff White People Do
May 13, 2008 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Macon,
Thanks for understanding that I didn't mean to condemn all mountaineers as horrible people... right after I posted the story I reread it and worried that it basically conveyed the meaning that, yes, everyone in WV is racist just because they won't vote for this one particular candidate, as if that could be a litmus test for anyone's moral character. I wanted to put certain prejudices in a context where, as you say, racism is "learned."
There is an interesting, if controversial, book by David Roediger called "The Wages of Whiteness" that you might find interesting, if you haven't already looked at it. It examines the origins of interracial hostility within the working class throughout American history:
http://www.amazon.com/Wages-Whiteness-American-Expanded-Haymarket/dp/1844671453/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210689816&sr=8-1
Anyway, thanks for the positive feedback! Let's hope Morganton and Charleston can keep the margin of defeat to something less than expected.
Esse quam videri!
May 13, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hate to shatter you crap theory with this post.
‘Applachia Virginia had no problem voting for African American Douglas Wilder in ‘89. Buchanan County, for example borders both West Virginia and Kentucky, is 97% white, and voted 90 percent to 9 percent for Clinton over Obama on February 12, but in 1989, it voted 59 percent to 41 percent for Wilder.
So, the notion that people are monolithically racist in Applachia and will not vote for Obama because of some sort of knee-jerk reaction to Obama’s ethnicity is largely false.’
May 13, 2008 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Typical of Obama supporters. Facing a blow-out defeat in WV, they blame racism. You do realize that Clinton can put WV in play in the general, right?? But no, you're too busy generalizing and stereotyping your neighbors. "If you don't support Obama, you are racist." Bulls*it!
Don't you see you are throwing away our chance for a new tomorrow??
Clinton '08
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/05/bizarro-day-at-tpmcafe.php
May 13, 2008 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
She can't put it into play in the general ... she was unable to win the nomination, so she won't be in the general.
Great post Akbar! I used to live down the street from WV and have family there. I think that the regional racial issues are there (and in Western PA as well). In the same way that Simone de Beauvoir said that "One is not born a woman, but becomes one", the region perpetuates a lot of generational fear of "otherness" for many of the historical reasons that you present, and those patterns perpetuate racial fear and antipathy.
Of course, de Beauvoir also said, "Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay." There are always currents of change and opportunities to discard those old models of thought.
May 13, 2008 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed. Hillary Clinton is the only Democrat who could put West Virginia in play in the general election. John Edwards might have done it, but, then again, he couldn't sway his own state one inch in 2004. Clinton stands a much better chance of winning this state (which arguably tipped the 2000 election) than Obama does in so many of the red states he has won (e.g. Idaho). We can't afford to write off states like West Virginia just because we think we're "better" than all the people of modest means who are just struggling to get by.
May 13, 2008 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Typical of Obama supporters. Facing a blow-out defeat in WV, they blame racism. You do realize that Clinton can put WV in play in the general, right??"
The problem there is the shit-loads of anecdotal evidence pointing to overt racism in WV - no matter how much you resort to playing the "You are playing the race card" prevent defense, that fucking dog just won't hunt.
May 13, 2008 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
SO NOW YOU ARE TRYING TO DISENFRANCHISE RACISTS??!! SO MUCH FOR YOUR SO-CALLED COMMITMENT TO DEMOCRACY! YOU THINK YOUR VOTE SHOULD COUNT MORE THAN A RACIST'S??? YOU ARE ELITIST!!
AND DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT RESPONDING UNTIL YOU READ THIS:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/05/bizarro-day-at-tpmcafe.php
May 13, 2008 8:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I *heart* you, Bizzaro Allsburg (wink)
So, have you been to the party at Hillaryis44, yet? It's a hoot!
May 13, 2008 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL, thank you, I thought you had lost your mind! Much love, with cookies - don't Hillary's girls bake? Someone told me they baked... I thought I smelled baking...
May 13, 2008 9:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Disenfranchise racists." And you even screamed it in capital letters.
What a hoot.
May 14, 2008 7:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
"SO NOW YOU ARE TRYING TO DISENFRANCHISE RACISTS??!! SO MUCH FOR YOUR SO-CALLED COMMITMENT TO DEMOCRACY!"
Its no so much disenfranchising racists, but putting Clinton's WV victory in the proper perspective. Thank go the country doesn't follow West Virginia's lead.
May 14, 2008 8:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Present -
In case you missed it, nowhere does it say that any group is monolithic.
Secondly, where did you get those numbers for Buchanan County? Could you direct me to a reliable source? As I understand it, the exit polls for that race were notoriously unreliable.
May 13, 2008 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
No one who lovingly defends their home state by putting attitudes in a more complete historical context is racist.
May 13, 2008 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does blaming history and teaching instead of individuals then absolve those individuals from change? Does it mean making decisions as a Democratic party based on those individuals inability to change? Maybe it does mean that... Maybe we should make sure we have a democrat that is white, because it's better at least than a republican that is white. I'm not saying he ONLY lost because he is black but he certainly lost to such a great degree because of these historical racial issues in WV.
May 13, 2008 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're missing something here, at least in my words. There's no question that Obama was always going to lose in this state because he is black.
The discussion moved to how we interact with history and experience, different folks describing the dualities they experienced in these areas and how that jibed with what they've studied later on.
Many of the posters were looking at the culture of the area in a manner beyond racism, while still explaining it in an historical perspective.
May 13, 2008 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I understand what the discussion is about. My last comment probably ended up in the wrong spot and was more focused on my own reaction than the discussion going on around me. Today is the first day I realized I know absolutely nothing about WV and this post has been my first WV history lesson (thank you!!!). Given this history, it sickens me to listen to the MSM and Hillary talking about how Obama has failed to reach these voters. What chance does he have? Maybe, considering the historical racial tension, fear of the unfamiliar, deficiencies in education (all over the country), I should be less surprised at today's events and instead happily suprised at how well Obama has managed to do in spite of it all.
May 14, 2008 12:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, yes, the really remarkable thing is not how poorly he has done in one or two states but how very well he has done everywhere else! I've supported Obama from the very start, but I never thought he really had a realistic chance of winning the nomination or the presidency. What has happened in the last six months is amazing!
May 14, 2008 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gotta thank Akbar as all of us should for the wonderfully conceived and written post. Best post I've seen here.
May 14, 2008 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
And if we had no electoral college, and elected the president by simply counting the votes, treating each vote the same, and giving the White House to he or she with the most votes, we wouldn't have to worry about WV or the racist vote. All of the fear being spread about how a Dem can't win without WV (even though Al Gore did it), and how Obama can't win WV, ergo Obama can't win, would be moot without the EC. Obama's extra votes (i.e. the ones you don't get credit for in the electoral college because the minute you get that one vote that puts you over the top, you receive all of the electors and the extra votes you get, as well as ALL of the votes your opponent got, are basically thrown away) in California and NY would cancel out the racism of PA, WV, OH, and NC. Imagine that, the candidate with the most votes would simply win, and we would no longer be held hostage as a nation by four fucking states (MI, OH, PA, and FL).
May 14, 2008 3:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Best thing about WV:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=DC8nDdPM_Qk
Seriously though: I grew up outside Pittsburgh, about 20 minutes from the WV border. It's a beautiful state, but it seems it's kind of gotten left behind. Not quite the South, not quite the North. I believe have the lowest education rates in the nation, as well as one of the lowest median incomes.
There's certain areas in that area (where I grew up), through Western PA, and WV, where coal and steel were king at one point. With those industries diminishing, certain areas have either had to really focus on revitalizing and bringing in new industries, or they start to drift into that ghost town feel. I don't know if you're familiar with Johnstown, PA, but it was a lively steel mill town back in the day. After the last flood, and the abandonment of the steel mill industry, it's just basically a dead town now. There's towns like that scattered all through Appalachia.
And then it becomes a self-perpetuating circle. The schools aren't great because the economy is not great, and because there's not a reliable pool of educated workers, new businesses don't choose that as their location, which keeps the local economy down, and so on and so forth.
May 13, 2008 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
The last flood? Do you mean 77?
May 13, 2008 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep. You familiar with Johnstown?
May 13, 2008 9:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am. Born and raised in a small town outside of Johnstown (and if you're from the area, I'll tell you where, but otherwise, no one's ever heard of it). My mother was born in Conemaugh. Lots of the family worked in the mills. And I remember the last flood like it was yesterday.
May 14, 2008 12:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
No way! Yeah, what town? My parents were both born and raised there. Pretty much my entire family back to when they immigrated lived in Jtown or at least in Cambria Co.
My parents moved to Pittsburgh the year after the flood so I never lived there, but I was always fascinated by the town. My dad grew up in Moxham and my mom lived in Moxham and then on a farm in Davidsville.
You ever go back?
May 14, 2008 8:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent description of the region and my perception of it, as well. I don't think that the answer is how to strategically avoid inherent racism in areas like this when it's time to run a political race. I think the answer is how to revitalize these areas economically. They relied on old steel or coal industries, typically, and once those were gone, nothing took their place.
May 14, 2008 7:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great post. Having been caught in anti- time in Elkins, I vowed never to bring my wife into the state so that she wouldn't experienced the Mississippi-style racism.
The only "industry" left in Elkins is government supported health care. The home care "professionals" include former convicts who steal from the dying.
Did I mention that a college education in Elkins doesn't mean the the holder of the degree won't openly bring up the "Jewish question."
But the country is some of the most beautiful I've seen. The better natured folks, descended from old Anglo-Celtic stock, and singing variants of songs that reach back some four centuries (though they don't know it) --can offer blessings, till
the Jewish thing comes up.
Obama could come to West Virginia with Christ and only get a bump of two points in today's election.
May 13, 2008 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you're dead on... if it weren't for Senator Byrd's bottomless barrel of pork, and government services in general, I don't know how WV would survive economically. If Obama campaigned with Jesus, a lot of people there would still think he is the Antichrist.
And, boy oh boy, the anti-Semitism is a whole other mess up in those mountains.
They do make some beautiful music, though.
May 13, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
down in that hollar, where i did dwell....
And the political machine, as you point out, makes Chicago seem tame.
It's easy for JFK's father to spread some dough and put the squeeze on it to swing that election. There is a particular family big in that realm. Even I wouldn't mention their names at this point, having a relative in Elkins.
May 13, 2008 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know, right! I have heard some hair-raising stories about political corruption in WV...
May 13, 2008 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very scary shit, my man. You don't ever want to get into a situation with the state cops if you're dealing with someone connected to that family. Even a health care worker abusing a relative. I'm going too far here.
Can't tell you how much it reminds of Mississippi. I think it's worse because there is no black population.
Again, great post. Thanks.
May 13, 2008 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great post. It is a very interesting history that you point out and that I have come across; specifically the animosity from wealthy slave and land owner versus individuals who were "forced" west. Do you know much or can you say anything about a population of people called Melungeons?
May 13, 2008 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow... I was totally ignorant of these people. There is a somewhat similar story around Robeson County in eastern NC, where the Lumbee people are thought by some to be the descendants of Native Americans who mixed with the "Lost Colony" of European settlers. Over time there was some mixing with African Americans as well. I am told that there were once FOUR separate school systems in Lumberton: one white, one black, one Native American and one mixed-race. It just goes to show the preposterous extremes to which racism will go.
Related to the WV topic... Steve Hahn's "The Roots of Southern Populism" is a great study of poor white people in the hill country of Georgia and how they developed a political consciousness in the nineteenth century... well worth a look
http://books.google.com/books?id=_LyGBzIYbgoC&dq=hahn+roots+of+southern+populism&pg=PP1&ots=gmGSYvzqv7&sig=L9EWcKbyHTCBRZgXVicsXhcE8O8&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fq%3Dhahn%2Broots%2Bof%2Bsouthern%2Bpopulism%26ie%3Dutf-8%26oe%3Dutf-8%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26client%3Dfirefox-a&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail
May 13, 2008 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really only know this group of people because of my research in Virginia and North Carolina. There is a body of research by Paul Heinegg, called free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Delaware and Maryland which traces the ancestry of individual families who who have (but aren't necessarily) surnames found among Melungeons. I believe surnames like Gibson and Collins extend all the way back to colonial America.
Some of the free people of color listed have pension files from the American Revolutionary War.
May 13, 2008 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fantastic link. Great project.
May 13, 2008 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
The forward written by historian Ira Berlin describes the nebulous history of colonial America with all it's permeations in legal, extra legal and social terms. Mr. Heinegg's impressive text is a narrative about the lesser known America. It is a vast collection of records left in the State Archives, County Courthouses and Historical Societies which report a different and complex colonial America. These records tell a much more accurate picture of our nation and country.
May 13, 2008 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can you mention even more specifically the scope of your research?
The names alone are useful in so many areas --some of those free blacks before the war came west. Were they free? Did they run from slavery? So many unknown stories. Thanks for link. It's quite useful for me at present.
May 13, 2008 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, thanks for the inquiry.
Can you mention even more specifically the scope of your research? I started out with the normal avenues of discovery when it comes to genealogy; census schedules, marriage records, death records and deeds.
A sundry of records led me to the 1850 Ohio Census where I found the family. I also found an 1886 obituary for my great great grandfather's father; later on, I found the obituary for his wife and an 1836 marriage record in Ohio. Most of the records pointed to Virginia's Albemarle County. I read many accounts of my surname possibly having connections with and to Melungeons. I tried to read every book I could get my hands on about Melungeons, people of color and colonial Virgina because of that obituary. I think it made me a better student of American history.
I started trying to look at the convoluted social history. One of the books(among others)I read was Notorious in the Neighborhood. It is amazing that narratives like Joshua D. Rothman is widely unknown. I had to find stories like Notorious in the Neighborhood to give me a glimpse of Virginia before 1800.
Records at the Albemarle County Historical Society and Charlottesville's courthouse say that my great great grandfather was there. These records include a census taken by the commissioner of said county in compliance with a Virginia state law to count all "free people of color." The sole purpose of this census was to provide the government of Virginia with a record and list of "free and colored people. With this census, these individuals were scheduled to be deported to Liberia. This was done under the auspices of the American Colonization Society.
The names alone are useful in so many areas --some of those free blacks before the war came west. Were they free?
My family were "free people of color." My family had a choice. Go to Liberia, go into slavery farther south or move to free soil like the Old Northwest Territory. My family showed up in Ohio.
Did they run from slavery? So many unknown stories. Thanks for link. It's quite useful for me
at present.
It think Virginia was about to outlaw slavery. There were economic reasons like the exhaustion of soil--tobacco is soil intensive-- which expedited the movement of people. I don't know under what specific circumstances my family left Virginia.
A have a picture of the brother of the person for whom I am named.
May 13, 2008 9:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I knew nothing about this. So, if I read you correctly your folks were in Ohio by 1830. I'm looking for some possible theories for a freed man reaching the northwest just at that time. This could be one.
What kind of family material do you have besides the picture?
One of the great problems of tracing non-whites in this time are a absence of cemeteries where they would have been buried. At least the records. In the case of Native Americans, they just disappear.
Another problem I've found is the anonymous status assigned to blacks and Native Americans. One can find many marriage records in the northwest from, say 1850---something like John Odell married Mary (no last name) on ...... These "Marys" would have been Native American women.
I'm sure that the issue is even more clouded with any "mixed race" issues.
Quite intriguing.
May 13, 2008 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just ordered the Rothman book. Others that you think crucial?
May 13, 2008 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I tried imagining this era with reading this list (not necessarily in order):
1)The Wolf By the Ears John Chester Miller
2)Foul Means Anthony S. Parent
3)Bound Away David Hackett Fischer and James C. Kelly
4)Slaves without Masters Ira Berlin
5)Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
Annette Gordon-Reed
6)People's History of the United States
7)Albemarle, Jefferson's County, 1727-1976
John Hammond Moore
8)Afro-Virginian History and Culture
edited by John Saillant
9)One Drop of Blood, The American Misadventure of Race Scott L. Malcomson
10)Nat Turner, Slave Rebellion In History and Memory Kenneth S. Greenberg
I have Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia but haven't read it yet.
May 14, 2008 2:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks. Have read one and perused another but the others look really good.
May 14, 2008 8:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I knew nothing about this. So, if I read you correctly your folks were in Ohio by 1830. I'm looking for some possible theories for a freed man reaching the northwest just at that time. This could be one.
The first record I have of them in Ohio is 1836. Within the past few months (I had been searching for a few years) I found them in 1840 Ohio Census. The obituary lead me to records in Virginia prior to 1833. I have one record where my ancestor appeared before a justice of the peace to swear he was he said he was. He appeared with men who I strongly believe are his uncle/cousins/brothers.
When I thought about how my ancestors made it to Ohio, I went looking for the activity of the Quakers (the Society of Friends) in the area. The Underground Railroad was very active in that part of Ohio. I don't know for sure if they were passengers on the Underground Railroad but the landed in the area. One thing for sure, the Society of Friends kept extensive marriage records.
What kind of family material do you have besides the picture?
After doing an exhaustive search on the Internet, I did some quick thinking and figured that a few of the males in my family were old enough to fight in the Civil War. I searched and searched and I finally hit pay dirt. Two. One lived and one died in Tennessee. After requesting and receiving the 96 page pension, of the one who lived, I went to Washington to visit the Memorial/Museum for African Americans in the Civil War. It was amazing to see his name among the Civil War Veterans. I am still working on the individual who fought in the American Revolutionary War. I found a relative of his who told me to join the Sons of American Revolution. She successfully joined the Daughters of American Revolution.
One of the great problems of tracing non-whites in this time are a absence of cemeteries where they would have been buried. At least the records. In the case of Native Americans, they just disappear.
This is very true. Fortunately I found the obituary of the Civil War Veteran which lead me to his grave. The headstone is plain and still barely standing. It is weather worn and engraved with military markings. I took a picture to treasure for the rest of my life.
Another problem I've found is the anonymous status assigned to blacks and Native Americans. One can find many marriage records in the northwest from, say 1850---something like John Odell married Mary (no last name) on ...... These "Marys" would have been Native American women.
The problem I had was is similar. I went to Salt Lake City to the great library of genealogy and found just that one record. It is just line 86. So-and-so married on this date in May 1836. I went to the county in which they lived and found it again. The 1836 document is/was rather plain. Some states kept better records than other states; for example the State Library of Virginia in Richmond has some incredible archives. I was able to view their rare collections and read descriptions of the people who shared my surname. Some were "negro" and some were "Indian." Sometimes the record described the persons color. My jaw dropped to see "negro" father and "Indian" child. As far as the marriage records, there is no way of knowing the parents of the bride; there is usually no maiden name unless it was written in someones bible or the state keep records like Virginia.
One of the other records for people of color were surety bonds. They had to swear to be the person standing before the law and that they would stay within a certain jurisdiction. Sometimes these records have more information than someone might think.
I'm sure that the issue is even more clouded with any "mixed race" issues.
Sometimes I think they really didn't know someone's "race." Each person had their own metric for measuring someone's "race." The census records sometimes depended on who they spoke with during the census interview. Maybe the neighbor didn't know the "race" of the person?
Quite intriguing.
I have more questions than I have answers even though I have eight years worth of records.
May 14, 2008 1:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
At the top of this, before the post head out:
(1) remember that you can access this string (not sure how long) through your profile so we can keep the conversation going -should you be interested.
(2) you cal ALWAYS contact me by e-mail at tcarpman@gmail.com,
not my real name, but the real me.
(3) Your research is especially interesting to me. Often when working on any project that delves into myriad aspects of culture, it is impossible to read fully in ancillary but important aspects of the subject.
(4) A may be able to help you put some of your information into some wider historical framework as this is one of things I do professionally.
(5) Any contributions to my project would be duly noted in print.
May 14, 2008 8:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Negro/Indian records make sense, as does your thoughts about how people identified the classification. Depending upon the region, these were identifications tried to forget and hide in many cases, ironically now, such peeling back of history seems essential to understanding lineage personally and in the greater realm of history, though I would suggest most emphatically that an individual sense of self relies profoundly on the greater historical and cultural context.
We can't know many of the details. In my case, my mother's people are easily traced to well known names as far back as the early 1600's, and additionally through Scottish names which now that side of the family explores in Scotland. My father's people left Russian during the pogroms at the outset of the 20th century. Jewish records were most often destroyed and it becomes impossible to find the certain village. This has been a real problem for memoirs and family histories for Jews after the holocaust. In this respect I highly recommend the work of Helen Epstein, an author who welcomes inquiries at her site. But read one of her books first.
If you are planning to write something on your quest (it would make a fine book, and perhaps you are, please let me know that also. I would encourage you and help you in any way that I can.
When placing personal history into a cultural context when a lot of that history has vanished, one turns to informed assumptions.
You have plenty. You are tracking down every lead. Impressive and fascinating. A deep thanks to you for taking the time to answer my inquiries.
May 14, 2008 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
On race identification, as you point out, the variety is all over the place though one can follow some of it directly within very recent memory.
In certain place in the South, certain Mestizos would be classified as whites due to straight hair, a characteristic of Native Indian Blood. The wide range of racial "categories" among Hispanics is impossible to decode.
I think of one issue in which a Jewish Argentine whose lineage was European claimed to be a "person of color" because he/she spoke
Spanish.
This kind of thing is political correctness gone a bit mad in my opinion. I asked a very political person about the nature of the classifications. I inquired about Jews. And I asked if I counted as
a person of color. The answer was pure Stalinist. "That depends upon what political beliefs you hold." A professor of ethnic studies said that. What a jerk.
I'm classified as white which seems about right to me. I can remember being told that I was from another "race" in the 60's.
This all points to the confusion and instability about the perception of race. It can't be solved by political rhetoric. No chance. It can be enlightened by historians and by examples of its inaccuracies --Tiger Woods and Barack Obama, are two.
Race classification in Hawaii is fascinating. Not enough is written on it. There's a movement before the UN by the descendants of orginal inhabitants to recover independence stolen very clearly in an illegal overthrow of a legal country more than a century ago.
Relating any specific study or quest --such as yours -- is enlightened deeply through comparisons throughout culture and history.
May 14, 2008 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Finally, if you are writing a book, please forgive any indication that I might be talking down to you in any way as a scholar or writer since you seem plenty good at it, and in the writing area quite accomplished compared with the lowly Blue Guy.
May 14, 2008 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
When I found the obituary which said my great great grandfather's father was from Albemarle County, I immediately planned at trip to Charlottesville. I was mostly intrigued because I knew this to be the home of Thomas Jefferson. Even though Monticello isn't directly in Charlottesville, I made a visit to Jefferson's house on the hill. I made the trip and it was so exciting to be in Thomas Jefferson's home. What a view of the University of Virginia.
Still the main reason I was in Charlottesville was to use the Albemarle Historical Soceity's library. I also made a trip to the University of Virginia's library. When I went in and told the librarian at the historical society my surname she knew it. She went directly to the vertical file and pulled out articles on the people who share my last name. Some of information of the people in the file were caucasians which didn't upset me. She also pulled out an amazing article about a historic foundation in Charlottesville trying to save a house built by an African American circa 1840. The shocking part of this tidbit was that he and I share first and surnames. I almost fell out of my seat. I most certainly made a copy of the article.
Without missing a beat, the librarian introduced me to The Magazine of Albemarle County History. She opened the well bound magazine to page 114. The name of the article: A Just and True Account: Two 1833 Parish Censuses of Albemarle County Free Blacks by Ervin L. Jordan, Jr. The article written in 1995 explores the names of families caught up in the attempt to record their names for deportation to Liberia. Mr. Jordan says, "these censuses are in several more detailed than the federal census of 1830." I believe some of the format from that census of people of color is the bases for all the censuses that followed. It really shows up in the 1850 Federal Census.
Mr. Jordan takes on several angles of life for the people enumerated. He talks about the men who served in the American Revolutionary War. Men, black men, men of color, who served in the Navy and Infantry respectfully. Mr. Jordon describes the kind of jobs African Americans had in Albemarle; for example some were employed in coopering, shoemaking, weaving, farmer, blacksmith or seamstress just to name a few. The census also includes how much land they owned, the number of people in their house hold, and their age. As I remember the 1830 and 1840 Federal Census, most of this information doesn't exist in those documents.
RememberNotorious in the Neighborhood by Joshua Rothman. In the review the reviewer mentions David Issacs and Nancy West. I believe David Issacs is Jewish? Nancy his wife is a person of color. They live in separate houses in Charlottesville due to the laws of marriage(it is not so bizarre that Loving case was in Virginia). Nancy West shows up in the 1833 census examined by Mr. Jordan and he writes about her and her husband. Notorious in the Neighborhoodis a more detailed account of their marriage. This story is worth the read alone.
Well Mr. Jordan's is well worth reading as well because the people listed are somehow related to me. I just haven't figured the familial connection just yet (it is slow process). When I was tirelessly going through this magnificent article and document there was a family that stood out. Sally Hemings and her children were listed among the people enumerated in this special census. I closely noted the age of Madison Hemings because he is same age as my great great great grandfather. I am far from saying I am related to Sally Hemings but I thought it was nonetheless interesting.
What is also interesting is the sheer number of family members in this document and article who share my surname. Mr. Jordan's body of work includes the person who served in the American Revolutionary War. I made contact with his descendant and again she told me to make an application for the Sons of the American Revolution.
Right now I am working between discovering records in Virginia and Ohio. So many records and so little time. I hope make another trip to Richmond and Charlottesville.
May 14, 2008 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
What I tried to do after learning about my family in Albemale County was to read books like Negro President by Gary Wills, Thomas Jefferson by Christopher Hitchens, Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis and Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton . I thought reading these political books would shed light on some aspect of the social life during colonial America. Sometimes it is very revealing. For example, I am re-reading Gary Wills' Negro President and last night, I came across the details of the three-fifths clause in the Constitution. Though this clause does not specifically deal with "free people of color" it says something about the "racial" attitudes of the time. Furthermore, the absence of mention of "free people of color" is more interesting because it makes it seem like they don't exist.
I find Jefferson's attitude toward Haiti very intriguing. After reading Hitchens and Wills, it seems like Jefferson or the people he represented--Southern plantation owners--couldn't fathom a free and sovereign black nation state so close to the shores of the United States. It upset the social order in the their minds and possibly could lead to disorder on their plantations. When I read books like these I wonder about our current relationship with Haiti.
May 14, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
THANK YOU! Amazing information. Melungeon. It reminds me of Turducken. I realize one is way more serious than the other, but if food is combined, but compartmentalized, you can imagine how it would extent to people. Turducken - a chicken, indside a duck, unside a turkey, all boned and sliced like a roast. I wonder about the language origins, or colloquial references for the word, Melungeon.
May 13, 2008 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
They had the same thing in Hancock County Tennessee. Now that the genealogy stuff is on the web 70% of white southerners claim some mixed race descent.
I've been to West Virginia number of times, about 80 miles away as the crow flies, and Eastern Kentucky a lot more. You Obamabots are just dead wrong about the racism there. Blacks and whites freely congregate and socialize in ways that you would never see in many Northern cities. Nobody thinks anything about interracial couples.
And I've been to places urbanites would never go. My brother and I (both of us are in interracial marriages) went to the Opry House (off 64 between Huntington and Morgantown) with our wives and no one said a thing or gave us a strange look.
When I was PhD student another student (white northerner) and I drove through Southern Georgia to attend an academic conference in Savannah. We saw a barbeque joint, a real one with a pit blowing grey smoke in the yard, and I did a quick 360 and pulled into the parking lot.
I swear to God. The guy was scared to get out of the car. Eventually, I coaxed him in and we ate some great smoked pork with incident. Afterwards, my buddy said, "Thanks, that was great. I never in a million years would go in a place like that if you weren't with me."
Can you believe that? A 6' 200+ pound guy afraid to eat in a barbeque restaurant because of those scary small town southerners.
A lot of the Obamabots on this site remind me of him. Stop insulting WV and Kentucky because they don't vote for your candidate.
May 14, 2008 3:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
You've been there so you know more than the people who were born and raised there. Right.
May 14, 2008 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
The better natured folks, descended from old Anglo-Celtic stock, and singing variants of songs that reach back some four centuries (though they don't know it) ...
Condescend much?
May 13, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry. I didn't mean that as a criticism.
If you read about the passing of folks songs through generations in any country or culture, it's always the case that the singers don't know the history of the songs beyond their family traditions.
When they become aware, as in the case of the famous singer Jean Ritchie, they change, influenced by scholars or record producers,
This is the delineation for scholars for identifying what is real folk material. But the last several decades has destroyed most of that tradition through media. The new generations everywhere watch Real World and listen to Hip-Hop.
A great purity in the human fabric has been lost.
Having said that, if I ran into some KKK woodsmen with a gun looking to hurt me or mine, I'd put a fucking bullet in his head.
May 13, 2008 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Additionally, folk music was a form of education back in the day. West Virginia is ranked in the top 5 of states in which students know various folk songs. Unfortunately, it's become "hillbilly music" and as such gets degraded in popular culture. From an anthropological standpoint, culture has forced a negative view of West Virginia. Hillbilly. Redneck. Evokes images of toothless people living in trailer parks. Or worse, scenes from Deliverance. As a result, I think it's created kind of an insider-outsider mentality in those areas.
The area I grew up in is much like that. A rural turned suburbia area, now most of the people from my hometown commute to Pittsburgh, since it managed to make the transition from being an all-steel down, but it used to be a rural mining area. I used to think my elementary school was being held together by rulers. Really, it was just measuring the rate of mine subsidence. But anyway, although the economy of my hometown is now a lot different, culturally, it's much like West Virginia. Identity is forged through faith, and self-reliance, and strong familial ties. And extremely strong ties and pride in the place in which you live. The mountains, the rivers. Ties to nature and all that. We hunt, fish, hike, camp. We think the mountains are the most beautiful area in the nation. So there's all that pride in the land from which you are born, but the rest of the country looks down on you. Call you a redneck. Says you're married to your sister. Thinks you have no "culture".
It ends up breeding distrust. Distrust of outsiders, of government. And most people that perpetuate those stereotypes have likely never set foot in West Virginia. They get forged through a series of cult films and the like. And I think it's that distrust that's at the root of a lot of the prejudice that exists. Fear and distrust of the outsider.
May 13, 2008 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn’t know that about the top states where students know folk songs. Speaks to the to deep river of the oral tradition, especially the Celtic for me in which so many branches are rich with songs, tales and poets. All part of the same thing anyway. Most ballads are stories, often variants of world mythic themes. A great wonder when carried back through time to find ancestors melodically, structurally or, dealing with the story/myth itself, its local nuances of the mega-story, the deep structure as a structural anthropologist would state.
Can you point me to the other states?
The insider/outsider mentality is perfect. There have been some attempts to show something more nuanced, the movie “Song Catchers” for one, though that might have placed in Kentucky. A mostly laborious piece of cinema, it does capture some of the insider/outsider confrontation at many levels.
Mining all through the areas you mention was the battleground for some of the greatest strikes in American history, the strikers adapting the old tunes to union songs, or in some spontaneous utterance of convergence, we heard some new songs come from singers of that tradition—most famously “Which Side Are You On.”
These songs went south with SNCC and CORE into the battles of the 60’s.
As you start to discuss, the deep understanding of a culture begins by not judging it, whether it be the mountain folk in West Virginia or the Ainu folk in Japan.
And, as you point out, explaining the difference between the two uses of "culture" is difficult. I’d like to have a say on your lower post in about an hour.
Five states you say? Kentucky, surely. Hispanic songs near Mexico?
May 13, 2008 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just learned it myself. Stumbled across while doing some research for a paper on Western PA.
It's a dissertation on teaching folk music - I haven't read all of it but it's pretty interesting, and includes a lot of interesting background on the subject. The tables that show the rankings are towards the end, near pg. 136 (it's a PDF, by the way.) It ranks children's songs, folk songs, and patriotic songs. Kentucky does very poorly on folk songs. Ironically, the so-called "cultural meccas" of NY and California don't do so great either.
But WV is top 5 for all three categories.
http://www.neflin.org/marilyn/Marilyn%20Ward%20Dissertation.pdf
I'm in and out today, but your comments about the strikes got me thinking about something else. I'll post it later once my thoughts congeal...
May 13, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Correction: Native Americans do not outnumber Asian Americans in WV. I misread the statistic. They're both slightly more than half of one percent, though.
May 13, 2008 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
A bigger number of Native Americans found in Mississippi. You may have looked, but if you examine a map that shows reservations in the states, you get the picture.
As sad aside on that, but related to your topic. When three civil rights workers were killed in Mississippi in 1964, their car was found on a reservation.
That would be Neshoba county. They were killed by KKK and cops from Philadelphia Miss. When that the "great communicator" Ronald Reagan announced his presidential run from that very town, a mall town, it was a purposeful announcement about race and politics as was noticed by some at the time.
The problem with history today (as something understood by most of the public) is that few know it other beyond test questions --sort of spread-sheet approach to the human condition.
A nice thing about the Obama campaign is that young people feel they are part of history. And in that participation, some may read history again beyond some easy test question like "How Did MLK's Speech ..... blah, blah...
May 13, 2008 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
sorry, I wrote "mall town" instead of "small town." There probably is a mall there today.
May 13, 2008 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bizarrely, as least in my stepsister's school, they're not using this election as a time to teach. They're not even talking about. Talk about a missed opportunity.
But about history - I think the biggest problem with history education, and the reason why so many are lacking in historical knowledge, is that it's taught in the worst possible way.
I speak from experience here. After I graduated college, with a liberal arts degree, I had taken exactly one history class, which was something about the civil war. Don't remember exactly, b/c I took it freshman year which was mostly spent outside of class and in parties.
I probably would have failed a 5th grade history test, my historical knowledge was so lousy. Why? Because everything I had learned had been taught and reinforced without any attempt at creating understanding. Literally, my tests all throughout elementary and secondary school were questions like, "What was the date of the Battle of Gettysburg?"
Dates. Places. Names. No understanding. No discussion. So it stayed in my head long enough for me to fill in the little bubble on the Scantron and then, poof! Gone. It wasn't till after I graduated college that I got interested in it on my own. Being able to choose my own books, resources, and methods let me actually learn something. There's a shift away from the dates-only style of teaching, but in social studies and history, it's lagging the most. Methods for teaching history are the least focused on now, and it's an awful development.
May 13, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
The issues you present about learning and teaching history, whatever the area--art or music, American or European, by example -- is that they are intertwined. But as presented in the academic sphere, especially in text books, the mode and material is
“discipline-specific.” Culture is not a construct of different disciplines. While snapshots of its dynamic nature can be brilliant, and there are some disciplines that are more open-ended than others in scope and methodology, the slices are too thin.
Take music history. Forty years back, an author of a standard text that covered Classical Music had to deal with music from about 1600-1950. But history keeps piling up, and every twenty five years, a music historian has to add new material, and even a new era.
At the same time, historians and musicians are now working in the period 1200-1600.
For a comprehensive text, history is getting longer at both ends, so to speak.
Add to this the emergence of ethnomusicology –technically in the anthro area in the 80’s, and jazz, folk and rock history.
A text can only sustain so many topics. Especially when its mode is basically an accumulation of facts, picked from a greater reality that the writer knows (or should) but not presented in the text. Put another way, the author knows how the facts are connected (sometimes) but doesn’t tell the reader how.
More history to teach. More facts. More pages. A kind of interaction that hit self-destruction long ago. The only to get through it was to start leaving more context and discussions out. Only the facts remain on a skeleton, and this is the offereing. Of course in terms of the reader, some are fat and need not eat. Some are hungry and the cracking bones seem mighty
Attempts to create more dynamic structures in the 80’s were widely praised but did not succeed in the market place. Well, not entirely, but mostly.
Take our present topic, West Virginia, local culture and folk songs. What’s important? Should we take a mountain song and trace if back to the Renaissance?
Should we follow its journey elsewhere? Wouldn’t the song’s movement between folk and aristocratic styles in 1600 be of special interest to us today, as we gently prod the nature of class and what is “cultivated. ” And we can play the song for students in its historical history. We can play the Anglo-Celtic song and follow with its West Virginia version.
And what of that song’s more recent journeys? One way went to Allison Krauss. Another way went to Hee Haw. And another way went south, crossing from poor whites to blacks in the civil rights movement (with altered lyrics). Wouldn’t that be interesting today?
Indeed, it’s the slicing up of culture into constructs that no longer can us anything really important of what matters to us that is counterproductive to a richer understanding of history. Following a song along some purposeful path of history brings me to one a understanding of what happens today. Both factually and poetically.
OMG is crap-speak on the net. PHD can be crap-speak for history, in the spectacles of academic myopia.
May 13, 2008 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
not read for typos, sorry
May 13, 2008 5:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some quick corrections in a few place. Sorry. Not going to correct everything. SHould have give it a read.
"The issues you present about learning and teaching history, whatever the area--art or music, American or European, by example -- are intertwined."
"Some are hungry and the cracking bones seem mighty barren of meat."
May 13, 2008 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have been reading your thread about music and culture with Hilarym99, and I must say I am getting some good stuff out of it via your dialog.
May 13, 2008 7:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Glad to know that it's not a side show. Chime in anytime.
May 13, 2008 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
it's OK, we know you head thinks faster than your fingers...
May 13, 2008 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
OMG.
Just kidding. You're absolutely right. Curriculum that is subject-specific is failing us.
However, don't despair. We don't have to resign ourselves to the skeleton. Teachers programs now are really pushing towards integrated curriculums, integrated teaching styles. Teaching that brings in all the realms of learning. At this point, the biggest focus is on linking literacy to the other subjects, but it's starting to move towards a teaching method that incorporates all the subjects into one, because they are so intertwined. (I'm in grad school now for teaching - I can't s