Category: African American history
Scandalize my Name…

Scandalize my Name

– from Greg Godels is available at:
http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/

For the owners, publishers, and editors of the The New York Review of Books anti-Communism is still alive. The periodical occupies a unique, indispensable role in fostering and sustaining Cold War myths and legends.

The New York Review of Books has embraced rabid anti-Communism since its opportunistic birth in the midst of a newspaper strike. Founded by a cabal of virulent anti-Communists with identifiable links to the CIA through The Paris Review and the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, NYRB maintains the posture of the popular intellectual journal for academics, high-brow book clubbers, and coffee shop leftists for over half a century. Seldom would an issue go by without an earnest petition signed by intellectual celebrities pointing to human rights concerns in some far-off land that was coincidentally (perhaps?) also in the crosshairs of the US State Department. To be sure, the NYRB would muster a measure of indignation over the most egregious US adventures, particularly when they threatened to blemish the US image as the New Jerusalem.

Even with the Cold War behind us, the NYRB maintains an active stable of virulent anti-Soviet writers, partly to hustle its back list of Cold War classics and obscure dissident scribblers, partly to pre-empt any serious anti-capitalist thought that might emerge shorn of Red-dread.

Paul Robeson on Trial

In a recent essay/book review (The Emperor Robeson, 2-08-18), the NYRB brought its Red-chopping hatchet to the legacy of Paul Robeson in a piece transparently ill-motivated and poisonous.

Paul Robeson was nothing if not an exceptional, courageous political figure who galvanized US racial and political affairs in mid-century. Yet NYRB assigned Simon Callow, a UK theater personality, to the writing task despite the fact that he reveals in an interview cited in Wikipedia that I’m not really an activist, although I am aware that there are some political acts one can do that actually make a difference. And his essay bears out this confession along with his embarrassing ignorance of US history and the dynamics of US politics.

Callow begins his essay seemingly determined to prove his inadequacy to the task: When I was growing up in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, Paul Robeson was much in evidence. His name was haloed with the sort of respect accorded to few performers. He then goes on at some length, heaping praise on Robeson. Then suddenly at some point in the 1960s, he faded from our view.

Whether Callow’s impressions are reflective of the UK experience is irrelevant. Surely, the important truth, the relevant fact, is that in Robeson’s country– the US– he was, throughout that time, a veritable non-person, the victim of a merciless witch hunt. To fail to acknowledge the fact that Robeson and his work were virtually unknown, were erased by the thought police, underscores Callow’s unfitness to discuss Robeson’s career. Indeed, members of the crowd that sought, at that time, to put lipstick on the ugly pig of racism and anti-Communism were soon to found the NYRB.

To say, as Callow does, that before the Cold War Robeson was …lionized on both sides of the Atlantic… is to display an unbelievable ignorance of the racial divide in the US. Robeson’s unequalled command of and success at multiple disciplines failed to spare him the indignities and inequalities that befell all African Americans in that era of US apartheid.

As for the post-World War II Red-scare, Callow simply ignores it as if it never occurred. Never mind the harassment, the surveillance, the denied careers, the confiscated passports, and the HUAC subpoenas that Robeson, like thousands of others, suffered from a hysterical, vicious anti-Communist witch hunt. For Callow, Robeson’s problems spring from a meeting granted by then President Truman in which Robeson had the audacity to make demands on his government. From that moment on Callow tells us, …the government moved to discredit Robeson at every turn.

What a deft, nimble way to skirt the suffocating, life-denying effects of an entire era of unbridled racism and anti-Communism.

And, from Callow’s myopic perspective, Robeson’s campaign for peace and Cold War sanity resulted in …universal approbation turned overnight into nearly universal condemnation. For Callow, standing for peace against the tide of mindless conformity and mass panic is not the mark of courage and integrity, but a tragic career move.

In contrast to Paul Robeson’s life-long defiance of unjust power, Callow attributes a different approach to Robeson’s father, William: But the lesson was clear: the only way out of poverty and humiliation was hard, hard work– working harder than any white man would have to, to achieve a comparable result. One waits futilely to read that this reality is precisely what son, Paul, was trying to correct.

Like so many of today’s belated, measured admirers of Paul Robeson, Callow cannot resist delving into Robeson’s sexual proclivities, an interest which bears relevance that frankly escapes me. Similarly, Callow raises the matter of Robeson’s mental health and his withdrawal from public life.

Rather than considering the toll that decades of selfless struggle and tenacious resistance might have taken on Robeson’s body and mind, as it did countless other victims of the Red Scare, Callow contrives different explanations. Robeson, it is clear, knew that his dream was just that: that the reality was otherwise. But he had to maintain his faith, otherwise what else was there? So, for Callow, Robeson’s bad faith was responsible for mental issues and ill health. It was not a medical condition, the emotional stress of racism, or the repression of his political views that explain his decline. Instead, it was the consequences of bad politics.

Paraphrasing the author of a book on Robeson that Callow favors, he speculates that Robeson’s physical and mental decline may have directly stemmed from the desperate requests from Robeson’s Russian friends to help them get out of the nightmarish world they found themselves in. We are asked to believe that a man who resisted every temptation of success, defied the racial insults of his time, and steadfastly defended his commitment to socialism was brought to his knees by anti-Soviet media rumors? Certainly, there is no evidence for this outlandish claim.

Again, using author Jeff Sparrow (No Way But This: In Search of Paul Robeson) as his mouthpiece, Callow reveals his problem with Robeson: …Robeson’s endorsement of Stalin and Stalin’s successors, his refusal to acknowledge what had been done in Stalin’s name, is the tragedy of his life. In other words, like Budd Schulberg’s fictional snitch in On the Waterfront, if Robeson had only denounced his class, ratted on his friends, and bent to authority, he could have been a contender for the respect of liberals and the blessings of bourgeois success. But since he didn’t, his life was a pitiful spectacle.

Thankfully, there are still many who draw inspiration from the pitiful spectacle of Paul Robeson’s extraordinary life.

One Who Does

As if misunderstanding Robeson were not enough, Callow attacks a prominent scholar who does understand Robeson’s legacy. In contrast with his fawning review of the Sparrow book (as different as chalk and cheese), Callow demeans the contribution of one of the most gifted and thorough chroniclers of the page in history that included the life of Robeson. As a historian, Gerald Horn’s prodigious work stretches across books on such politically engaged Robeson contemporaries as WEB DuBois, Ben Davis, Ferdinand Smith, William Patterson, Shirley Graham DuBois, and John Howard Lawson. His writings explore the blacklist and The Civil Rights Congress, both keys to understanding Robeson and his time. In most cases, they represent the definitive histories of the subject.

But Callow prefers the shallow Sparrow account that substitutes the overused literary devices of in search of../searching for… to mask its limited scholarly ambition.

Callow is baffled by Horne’s Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary. Horne’s insistence that Robeson was a ˜revolutionary makes Callow apoplectic (…page after page). But if Robeson was not an authentic, modern US revolutionary, then who was?

Callow cannot find a “clear picture of Robeson’s personality in the Horne account, a conclusion that probably should not trouble Horne who seems more interested in history rather than psychology.

Callow’s sensibilities are especially offended by Horne’s depiction of the odious Winston Churchill, the man many believe to share responsibility for the WWI blood bath at Gallipoli and the two million deaths in the Bengal famine of 1943. It seems that Horne’s words for the short, chubby, Champagne and Cognac-loving prima donna– ‘pudgy, cigar-chomping, alcohol-guzzling Tory — struck Callow’s ears as vulgar.

But Callow spews his own venomous insults: Horne’s book lacks …articulate analysis, his account is numbing and bewildering in equal measure, like being addressed from a dysfunctional megaphone.

Horne’s concluding endorsement of the relevance of Marx and Engels famous slogan– Workers of the World, Unite! –really brings Callow’s rancor to a boil: I’m sorry to break it to Mr. Horne, but he doesn’t. And it isn’t.

We surely know which side of the barricades Simon Callow has chosen.

The Legacy

The legacy of Paul Robeson has been maintained for the four decades since his death by his comrades and allies of the left, principally the Communist left. Most of those who worked and fought alongside of him have also passed away. Yet a small, but dedicated group of a few academics and more political activists have continued to tell his story and defend his values against a torrent of hostility or a wall of silence. Through the decades, he has been forced out of the mainstream– the history books and popular culture.

Of course, he was not alone in suffering anonymity for his Communist politics. Another giant who was brought down by Cold War Lilliputians, denigrated by hollow mediocrities, was African American Communist, Claudia Jones. Until recently, her powerful thinking on race, women’s rights, and socialism could only be found by those willing to search dusty corners of used book stores.

Perhaps no one promised to live and further Robeson’s legacy than the young writer Lorraine Hansberry, celebrated before her tragic death for her popular play, A Raisin in the Sun. Her work with Robeson and WEB DuBois on the paper, Freedom, brought her politics further in line with theirs: militant anti-racist, anti-imperialist, pro-socialist, Communist.

Forgotten by those who wish to portray her as a mere cultural critic, she famously called out Robert Kennedy’s elitist, patronizing posture in a meeting with Black civil rights leaders as enthusiastically recalled by James Baldwin.

Ignored by those who would like to see her as simply another civil rights reformer, her speech at a Monthly Review fundraiser, shortly before her death, resounds with revolutionary fervor:

If the present Negro revolt is to turn into a revolution, become sophisticated in the most advanced ideas abroad in the world, a leadership which will have had exposure to the great ideas and movements of our time, a Negro leadership which can throw off the blindness of parochialism and bathe the aspirations of the Negro people in the realism of the twentieth century, a leadership which has no illusion about the nature of our oppression and will no longer hesitate to condemn, not only the results of that oppression, but also the true and inescapable cause of it—which of course is the present organization of American society.

Today, there is a renewed interest in Robeson, Claudia Jones, and Lorraine Hansberry. Articles, books, and documentaries are appearing or are in the works. Some are offering new perspectives on the lives of these extraordinary people, exploring aspects of their lives that show that their humanity perhaps reached further than previously thought. Yes, they were Communists, but they were not just Communists. Indeed, they belong to the world.

However, it would be a great tragedy if they were denied their conviction that capitalism– the present organization of American society, in Hansberry’s words– represented the foundation of other oppressions. It would be criminally dishonest if there were no acknowledgement that they were made enemies of the state precisely because they embraced socialism. For an African American, in racist, Cold War mid-century USA, the decision to embrace Communism was not taken lightly or frivolously. Robeson, Jones, and Hansberry knew exactly what that commitment meant to the forces of repression. And they risked it. They should be looked upon as people’s champions for their courage.

New researchers are welcome to explore other dimensions of the lives of these unbending fighters for social justice. But their authentic legacies are needed now more than ever.

Greg Godels
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Irma Thomas – New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 2015
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A 100-year-old US riot only now being talked about
| November 26, 2017 | 6:30 pm | African American Culture, African American history | Comments closed

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42116688

 

A 100-year-old US riot only now being talked about

CourtroomImage copyright Buffalo Soldiers National Museum
Image caption This court martial involved 64 members of the 24th Infantry

It’s almost 100 years since 19 African-American soldiers were executed following a violent mutiny in Texas. Why is the US only now coming to terms with what happened?

For decades, no name appeared above the grave of Corporal Jesse Moore, only the number seven.

The figure corresponded to noose number seven which was used to hang him and another 12 African-American soldiers beside the Salado Creek of San Antonio in December 1917.

The executions followed the rainy August night when more than 100 armed soldiers marched into the city of Houston and during a two-hour riot killed 16 whites, including five policemen.

The resulting court martial staged in three parts was the largest in US military history.

A total of 118 enlisted black soldiers were indicted, with 110 found guilty, 19 hanged and 63 receiving life sentences.

“They were denied due process guaranteed by the Constitution and died horrible deaths,” says Angela Holder, Moore’s great-niece and a history professor at Houston Community College.

“They were represented by one lawyer and didn’t even have a chance to appeal.”

In the spring of 1917, Moore and his unit, the 3rd Battalion of the predominantly black 24th United States Infantry had been dispatched to Houston to guard the construction site of a new camp following the United States declaring war on Germany.

“They sent these soldiers into the most hostile environment imaginable,” says Charles Anderson, a relative of Sergeant William Nesbit, another of the hanged soldiers.

“There was Jim Crow law [which denied black people equal rights], racist cops, racist civilians, laws against them being treated fairly in the streetcars, while the workers building the camp hated [the soldiers’] presence.”

William Nesbit with familyImage copyright Charles Anderson
Image caption William Nesbit as a young boy (standing) with his family

Tensions continued to grow during the troops’ time guarding Camp Logan until the Houston police arrested a black soldier for interfering with the arrest of a black woman.

When one of the battalion’s military police went to inquire about the arrested soldier, an argument ensued, resulting in the military policeman fleeing the police station amid shots, before being arrested too.

Although he was later released, a rumour reached Camp Logan that he had been killed, coupled with talk of a white mob approaching the camp – there was none – resulting in soldiers grabbing rifles and heading into downtown Houston.

“It was dark and there was a big rain storm during the riot,” says Jason Holt, nephew of Private Thomas Hawkins who was hanged. “At the trial not one civilian could identify a soldier firing shots that killed people.”

Seven mutineers agreed to testify against the others in exchange for clemency.

Mr Holt has a 100-year-old letter written by Private Hawkins to his mother the night before his execution, telling her not to be upset about him taking his “seat in heaven”, and of his innocence.


Letter by Private Hawkins, dated 11 December, 1917

Courtesy of Jason Holt

Dear Mother & Father,

When this letter reaches you I will be beyond the veil of sorrow I will be in heaven with the angels. Mother don’t worry over your son because it is heavens gain look not upon my body as one that must fill a watery grave but one that is asleep it in Jesus. [sic]

I fear not death. Did not Jesus ask death ‘Where art thy sting’ Don’t regret my seat in heaven by mourning over me. I now can imagine seeing my dear Grandmother and Grandfather and the dear girl Miss Bessie Henderson that I once love in this world standing at the river of Jordan beckoning to me to come and O! Mother should they be sensitive of my coming don’t you think that they are anxious for tomorrow morning to come when I will come unto them.

I am sentence to be hanged for the trouble that happen in Houston Texas altho I am not guilty of the crime that I am accused of but Mother it is God’s will that I go now and in this way and Mother I am going to look for you and the family if possible I will meet you at the river. Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give the rest, Bless his holy name. This is the happiest day I met with since Jesus spoke peace to my soul in Brookstone church from my promise to God I have strayed away but I am with him now.

Send Mr Harris a copy of this letter. I am your son, TC Hawkins, Fort Sam Houston, Tex

PS. Show this to Reverend Shaw – Reverend Shaw, I am with Jesus and I will look for you in that great morning


“The men did not have a fair trial,” says Sandra Hajtman, a lawyer and great-granddaughter of one of the policemen killed. “I have no doubt about the likelihood the men executed had nothing to do with the deaths.”

Soon after the executions, the US Army changed its uniform code of military justice to prevent executions without a meaningful appeal.

“The soldiers were 100% wrong for rioting, but I don’t blame them,” says Jules James, the great-nephew of Captain Bartlett James, one of the battalion’s white officers who managed to restrain a larger number of soldiers from leaving camp.

“The unit had 60 years of excellent service, was full of experienced veterans but couldn’t endure seven weeks of Houston.”

Some of the men who received life sentencesImage copyright Buffalo Soldiers National Museum
Image caption Some of the men who received life sentences

A majority of the soldiers were raised in the South and familiar with segregation. But as army servicemen they expected fair treatment.

Houston police and public officials, however, viewed the presence of the black soldiers as a threat to racial harmony.

Many Houstonians were concerned that if the black soldiers were shown the same respects as white soldiers, black residents might come to expect similar treatment.

“This was a problem created by community policing in a hostile environment,” says Paul Matthews, founder of Houston’s Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, which examines the role of African-American soldiers during US military history.

“It’s up to people now to decide whether there are lessons relevant to the present.”

In Houston, knowledge about the riot varies – a rapidly growing city, most newcomers know nothing about an event that is rarely discussed.

“The business community, just as in other American cities with a story of racial trouble, preferred that it be forgotten – it’s not the sort of thing that builds tourism, after all,” says Mike Vance with the Heritage Society of Houston.

“But I most strongly disagree with any notion there was a decided attempt to not talk about it or any citywide memory lapse about it.”

Houston’s College Memorial Park CemeteryImage copyright Angela Holder
Image caption Two soldiers killed in the riot received gravestones this year

The city leaders might not trumpet it, but it remains part of the collective memory of the population, Mr Vance explains.

“I think that is true of things as recent as the race riots of the 1960s in places like Detroit and Philadelphia and even the Rodney King riots in LA.”

Despite the tragedy, relatives of the soldiers recall growing up hearing their fates discussed by families, noting there was no shame attached.

“What happened at Camp Logan is a complex narrative to navigate,” says Lila Rakoczy, programme co-ordinator of military sites and oral history programmes at the Texas Historical Commission.

“There was no public acknowledgment of it for a long time, but now there is more willingness to talk about it.”

The centennial of US entry into World War One has probably brought a heightened awareness of such events and emboldened people to address a sensitive subject, Ms Rakoczy notes.

A sign at the site of Camp LoganImage copyright James Jeffrey
Image caption A sign at the site of Camp Logan says the revolt came in response to Jim Crow laws and police harassment

This year Ms Holder helped lobby for gravestones from the Veterans Association for unmarked graves in a Houston cemetery of two soldiers killed during the riot. She says she also wants to obtain posthumous pardons for the hanged soldiers.

“We tried during the Obama presidency and were on the list but missed out,” she says. “Perhaps we can approach a Texas politician or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP] to help.”

Moore and those executed with him only received headstones after authorities became concerned that flood waters from the creek might unearth the bodies. So the executed soldiers were re-interred in San Antonio’s Fort Sam Houston cemetery in 1937, says Ms Holder.

Meanwhile, as the 100th anniversary of the day of execution approaches, other relatives are left wondering what might have been if their relatives had gone to Europe with the other 350,000-plus African-Americans who served in WW1.

“Instead of a noose around my ancestor’s neck they may have been hanging a medal,” Mr Anderson says.

“The military should never have sent a coloured unit to guard that camp.”

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