Teaching history

In September I attended the 2023 conference of ASALH — the Association for the Study of African American Life and history founded by Carter Woodson in 1915. This is an annual gathering of scholars and others devoted to exploring and celebrating the achievements and contributions to our country of African Americans. It was thrilling to be there.

This year’s conference was held in Jacksonville, Florida which caused concern among some who planned to attend. A few scheduled participants determined that recent Florida legislation is so hostile to the teaching of history that they could not in good faith be part of a gathering there.

But the panel I had planned went forward. The conference’s theme was Black Resistance and the topic I chose was “Rosenwald Fellows: Resisting Oppression, Promoting Excellence.” Tyrone McKlinley Freeman, of the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy was the excellent moderator. My Rosenwald Campaign colleague and former director of the National Park Service Robert Stanton spoke eloquently about the thirst for education experienced in communities like the one where he grew up in East Texas and the way individuals whose careers had been encouraged by Rosenwald Fellowships contributed to the legal briefs that resulted in the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. And Samuel Myers, Jr., a professor of economics at the University of Minnesota, gave an animated account of the study of economics — of how unwelcoming it was to African American scholars and how Rosenwald fellowships significantly altered the field by supporting not only his father, Samuel Myers Sr., but several others as they pursued advanced study in Economics at Harvard.

My remarks gave some background on Julius Rosenwald and the creation in 1917 of the Julius Rosenwald Fund “For the Well-Being of Mankind” as the vehicle for distributing some of the tremendous wealth he had earned as president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, the merchandizing powerhouse of the early 20th century. I also talked about how Rosenwald fellowships significantly strengthened the field of history by assisting 23 African Americans to complete advanced study in the field of history, many of whom went on to make significant contributions to the field.

The standout among them was John Hope Franklin who recieved Rosenwald fellowships in 1937 and 1938 which allowed him to complete work for his PhD at Harvard. He went on to a stellar career teaching at Duke and other prestigious universities. Here is the end of my remarks:

“In 1966 Franklin co-authored a textbook for 8th graders called Land of the Free commissioned by the state of California. It included not just a forthright description of slavery but also discussed the decimation of native peoples, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, a critique of McCarthyism and documented the emerging civil rights movement. The book was controversial, denigrated in print as “propaganda and poppycock.” The John Birch Society organized a 100 car caravan from Orange county to Sacramento to protest the book’s adoption in schools despite which it was eventually adopted and was in use there for many years. Franklin later commented that this episode, among others, had suggested to him that “Americans only want to hear ‘happy history.’”

“That anecdote certainly has resonance for us today when we are increasingly facing the reality that not all history IS happy — much of it is just the opposite and if we consider it honestly it MUST make us uncomfortable. That discomfort becomes a catalyst for change. As the Rosenwald Fund understood, it’s imperative to support historians like John Hope Franklin — knowledgeable enough and brave enough to tell the full story.