Pursuing Justice

What a great discussion. 

 

Once again I learned so much today, another new perspective to consider.  I was fascinated by Dan’s adventures in Mississippi, the dog pound, Walmart, and his narrative on Ben Collins, the sheriff of Clarksdale, Mississippi.  I had not given much thought to structure v. agency and how an official like Collins could use (or misuse as the case may be) his authority to make a rural area even more inaccessible.  Collins as well as the economic structure of the town made people so dependent on white employers and difficult for change to take place. 

 

It is important and hopeful to consider that both Eisenhower and Kennedy, despite not wanting to be put in the positions they found themselves in, did understand their duties as Chief Executives to act and support the courts.    There was some misunderstanding when Dan discussed forced compliance.  Of course the people lacking rights want their rights and want those in power to do what needs doing, even if that means utilizing physical force to bring it about.  But change brought by force brings its own unique and continuing challenges that need to be considered and dealt with.  Perhaps this relates only in my own mind, but two summers ago I was having a conversation in Charlottesville with a teacher from Mississippi comparing slavery to the treatment of workers in northern factories.  Though recognizing the problems of northern factory workers, I was having a bit of trouble with his theory that they were the same.  After the gentleman walked away, a very wise professor looked at me and said "you  won."  He was not talking about our little debate, he was talking about the Civil War and he gave me a little history of how Southern scholars had been viewed by Northerners for decades after the war.   

 

The use of tables today, not just the ones on the handouts, but the tactics and issue table illustrating parties within the Movement and the table defining the goals, strategies, and tactics of the three differing justice claims in the James Meredith story certainly add clarity to the events.  I definitely need to employ more charts, tables, graphs, etc within the curriculum. 

 

“Nobody cares what you think. The social science community only cares about what you can demonstrate.”  - Dan Kryder.  Certainly makes the point.  Now the trick is saying this to the students (10^th graders) without them thinking I don’t care about what they think, in general. 

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Cindy Crohan
10th Grade U.S. History
Introduction to Law grades 10-12
Natick High School

Cynthia, I also appreciated Dan's comment you noted in the subject of your post because I've also used that line on students when they're in the research/writing process and we're talking about thesis statements.  It's tough because there's a fine line between validating their work and knocking them down when they're wrong. 

The conversation you had with the teacher from Charlottesville (about northern factory workers not faring much better than southern slaves) reminded me of Fitzhugh's Cannibals All, or Slaves Without Masters, which John Burt referred to at one point.  It's an interesting argument in defense of slavery, and perhaps one that our students haven't considered.  I've used it in the past with higher level 10th graders.  Here's an excert with questions if you're interested: 

Cannibals All excerpt

The idea of using force to compel southerners' adherence to court decisions also struck me, especially since, as you said, the ideals we'd more closely associate with the north "win" this conflict just as the north won the Civil War.  The last lines of Kennedy's televised address following the incident - about "healing the wounds that are within" - reminded me of the closing of Lincoln's Second Inaugural, in which he expresses his hopes that the nation will bind up its wounds and heal.  The similar use of language in those two speeches, both following situations in which landmark decisions about equal rights had to be compelled by force, made me think about how little the attitudes in the old Confederacy had changed in the hundred years in between.  Significant legal progress had been made in that time to expand equal rights, but social progress (if that's the right term to use here) lagged far behind.  

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Kristin Arabasz
Arlington High School
History

I agree with Cynthia and Kristin that the rhetoric employed in Kennedy's and, I would add, Barnett's speeches were redolent with allusions to the Civil War that reflected the strategies of of these two politicians as they attempted to achieve their ends vis-a-vis the Meredith case. Barnett wants to mobilize mass popular resistance to the registration of Meredith.  Thus his speech is full of rhetoric that generates Civil War analogies of Northern aggression against the South.  For instance, he speaks of "agitators ... pouring across our borders."  He also summons up memories of the postal flood of abolitionist literature with "paid propagandists... hammering away at us in the hope that they can can succeed in bringing about division among us."   The main charge he makes echoes the fireeaters' accusation that the consolodated Republican national government was going to violate states rights.  Thus he alludes to the federal government as having "decided to deny us the right of self-determination in the conduct of our soveriegn state."  All of this seems calculated to connect resistance to Meredith's registration to the defense of Southern heritage.  Barnett did indeed stir up the riot he wanted.

Kennedy's speech conversely employs many Lincoln allusions, to my ears. For example, Kennedy's speech seem to be primarily directed at Southern moderates. As Kennedy says, "I would like to take this opportunity to express the thanks of this nation to those Southerners who have contributed to the progress of our democratic development in the entrance of students, regardless of race, to ... the state-supported universities."  To my mind this sounds like Lincoln's 1st Inaugural, when he called upon Southern Unionists to reject the proposals of the secessionists, i.e. "To those who really love the Union may I not speak?"  Another trope or rhetorical allusion Kennedy employs originates in the 2nd Inaugural Address. Kennedy declares that Southern states don't deserve to be charged with sole responsibility for the "accumulated wrongs of the last hundred years of race relations." He goes on to say that "to the extent there has been a failure, the responsibility for that failure must be shared by us all, by every state, by every citizen."  Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural, which perhaps was directed at potentially vindictive Northerners as well as moderate Southerners, likewise spreads out the blame.  He dismissed sole Southern responsibility for the crisis at hand, in Lincoln's case the Civil War with "all dreaded it, all sought to avoid it.... Both parties deprecated war."  So it strikes me that both politicians used historical rhetorical allusions successfully, Barnett in the short run, but perhaps Kennedy, as witnessed in the integration of many Southern public institutions in succeeded years, in the long run.

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Geoff Tegnell
7th Grade Social Studies, Curriculum Coordinator, Adjunct Professor