Once again this morning I am struggling to understand why Barack Obama as a person is so committed to the reprehensible "Race to the Top" in education policy. I get why he might be a personal friend of Arne Duncan, who traveled in his social and political circles in Chicago. And I get why Arne Duncan could be committed to this. I mean Arne Duncan is a product of private schools and Harvard. He has worked all his adult life as a high-up administrator of educational programs, positions that he obtained from the get-go because of family connections. Arne Duncan was a terrible CEO for the Chicago schools, and I believe his policies are in part responsible for the high murder rates among Chicago teens. So Barack chose a guy he knows personally to do this important work and that guy has continued to pursue this atrocious policy of privatization, teacher bashing and over-reliance on high-stakes testing for assessment.
But there has been a growing groundswell of opposition to this dismantling of public education. Kids who used to love school, because it was a place to learn, now hate it, because it has become a place to drill for tests. Career teachers, especially the best ones, with multiple options, are leaving the profession they loved and were called to. Parents are looking up from the grades of their own children and objecting to the transition from teaching to test prep in their children's schools. And principals are speaking up against the attacks on their teachers.
There is a second face to this, and that is the incentive to fraud. I make no defense of people who cheat and lie. But I will remind the reader that a policy that demands certain numerical targets, or else, is a policy that encourages people to find any way to meet those targets. Beverly Hall, the disgraced Atlanta superintendent is probably guilty of creating an environment where cheating became rampant more than she is of orchestrating that cheating. And Michelle Rhee, who escaped Washington without disgrace, is -- without any doubt -- guilty of the identical crimes. As an aside, I had colleagues who were principals in Brooklyn who simply ordered their teachers to maintain a passing rate of 90%… not a target; a mandate. This requires teachers to pass students who have not met their minimum standards and demoralizes those students who have.
Right now, some of the affluent districts in the Lower Hudson Valley, in Westchester and Rockland Counties, are opting out of Race to the Top because of concerns about the security and privacy of student data. That's nice, but it calls my attention to the fact that this is another windfall for private companies. InBloom, which is creating cloud-based data systems for schools nation-wide, is organized as a not-for-profit, with $100 million in startup capital from Bill and Melinda Gates. We have seen too often in the last ten years how massive changes in public policy are instigated by billionaires who demand (and receive!) tax deductions for deforming our democratic process.
Rupert Murdoch is just selling. Joel Klein, our former NYC chancellor, is heading up Murdoch's educational products division. Pearson is just selling. They have made hundreds of millions selling their poorly-written tests, and then more hundreds of millions selling prep materials to scam their own tests!
This is all unspeakable. But it is tied with a campaign of vilification against teachers. Any teacher who speaks up against all this is immediately regarded as a hack who just wants to protect their own mediocre work. Let me be clear: if there are hacks, they are happily accepting the shrink-wrapped test prep materials. It means less work for them. No more late nights preparing lesson plans: just say what's in the script. No more hours grading written work. Just put the bubble sheets in the machine and get the "data" analysis. Real teachers are opposing this scandal because they want to teach, because they know that it is individual and despite the hard work.
And it is tied with a decades-long attack on public education that goes back before the voucher movement of the eighties to the private segregation academies of the seventies. Some "reformers" don't like public schools because they are neo-liberals who oppose any public services, but they are smart enough to take on the schools before they demand the dismantling of public police and fire service. Some "reformers" see a main chance, the opportunity to create for-profit schools. (And while the public is financially supporting charters, to pay themselves surprising salaries while exploiting non-union teachers.) And then there are those who simply don't feel like supporting the education of their neighbors' children: maybe their own children already graduated, maybe their own children go to private school, maybe they don't have children. Or maybe they don't believe poor children should be prepared for anything but busing tables in their country clubs.
So I go back again to my question: Why does Barack Obama support this? We know he wouldn't allow it for his girls. They go to a very well thought-of private school. Why is it okay for our kids? Does he really believe in this stuff? Does he think that he has too many contentious issues already, so he'll just go along with the right wing of the Tea Party on this? Does he not care about education despite his protestations to the contrary?
What I know is that -- for whatever reason -- he has been at the heart of support for the most anti-children and anti-learning policies I have ever seen. It is all very well to sit in New York and blame Bloomberg and Cuomo, who have been ardent and vocal advocates for the war on children. But it is the policy of the Obama Department of Education, too. The New York Times has gleefully announced that Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Carmen Fariña won't be able to stop the steamrolling of our kids, because it is THE LAW. We have to call out the President on this, too.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
Black Seminoles
Another angle for looking at the history of the disfranchisement of Black Indians is through the African Seminoles. Runaway African captives from South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama were already establishing maroon colonies in Spanish Florida in the 18th century and allying with Creek Indians who were moving there, too. Both groups grew in population in the early 19th century as slavery expanded and the US made war on the Upper Creek towns and they became known, together, as Seminoles.
Andrew Jackson began military attacks on the Seminoles of Spanish Florida in 1817, but when Spain ceded Florida to the United States, a few hundred Black Seminoles moved to the Bahamas. Their community remained a major refuge for runaway slaves until the United States built a Coast Guard station on Key Biscayne to stop the escapes.
The remaining Seminoles, both Black and "red" moved to central and south Florida. Their old nemesis, Andrew Jackson became president in 1829. His policy was to demand their removal, along with the Cherokees, Creeks, Chickasaws and Choctaws to an "Indian Territory" west of the Mississippi River. The Seminoles fought removal, especially since the terms included their surrendering all Black members of the tribe into slavery. By 1838, the US Army gave up on this and offered removal for everybody. Many Seminoles accepted this offer rather than continue fighting. Others remained behind, never defeated by the Army, and accounting for the Seminole reservations in Florida today.
When the Black Seminoles arrived in what is now Oklahoma, they discovered that the US government considered them to be part of the Creek tribe. Now, instead of white slaveowners scheming to kidnap them into captivity, there were Creek Indian -- many of them racially white -- slaveholders scheming to do the same thing! By settling on the Deep Fork of the Canadian River, far from the Creek Indian plantations, the Black Seminoles initially found some autonomy. But the cold winters meant real hardship. And their one-time Red Seminole allies were increasingly influenced by Creek slaveholders to assert ownership and enslave them.
In the winter of 1849 a large group of Black Seminoles, along with Native American relatives and some African Creeks, broke out of Indian Territory and headed for Mexico. They found refuge there, and there are still Black Seminole communities in Coahuila. Their agreement with the Mexican government required them to provide military service as scouts against the Comanches and Apaches. By the 1870's, the US government was looking for the same kind of service. Some of the Black Seminole scouts moved with their families to Brackettville, Texas to work with the US Army out of Fort Clark.
The Mexico-Texas families never received recognition as Indians from the US government. The Seminoles of Oklahoma disfranchised their so-called "freedmen" in 2000, just when they received a $56 million payment from the US government for the loss of lands in Florida. The tribal government decided that members were only those who could prove one-eighth "blood quantum" by their descent from people listed on the Dawes "by blood" Rolls of 1906. And, as with the Creeks, any Seminole with any trace of African ancestry in 1906 had been enrolled on the "freedman" list instead.
So the Seminoles, a tribe that was by its very existence a Maroon band of Africans and Native Americans, has disavowed its Black members in the 21st century. Greed? Anti-Black racism? Theories of biological "essentialism"? It is certain that all of these explain the Seminoles denial of their own history.
Andrew Jackson began military attacks on the Seminoles of Spanish Florida in 1817, but when Spain ceded Florida to the United States, a few hundred Black Seminoles moved to the Bahamas. Their community remained a major refuge for runaway slaves until the United States built a Coast Guard station on Key Biscayne to stop the escapes.
The remaining Seminoles, both Black and "red" moved to central and south Florida. Their old nemesis, Andrew Jackson became president in 1829. His policy was to demand their removal, along with the Cherokees, Creeks, Chickasaws and Choctaws to an "Indian Territory" west of the Mississippi River. The Seminoles fought removal, especially since the terms included their surrendering all Black members of the tribe into slavery. By 1838, the US Army gave up on this and offered removal for everybody. Many Seminoles accepted this offer rather than continue fighting. Others remained behind, never defeated by the Army, and accounting for the Seminole reservations in Florida today.
When the Black Seminoles arrived in what is now Oklahoma, they discovered that the US government considered them to be part of the Creek tribe. Now, instead of white slaveowners scheming to kidnap them into captivity, there were Creek Indian -- many of them racially white -- slaveholders scheming to do the same thing! By settling on the Deep Fork of the Canadian River, far from the Creek Indian plantations, the Black Seminoles initially found some autonomy. But the cold winters meant real hardship. And their one-time Red Seminole allies were increasingly influenced by Creek slaveholders to assert ownership and enslave them.
In the winter of 1849 a large group of Black Seminoles, along with Native American relatives and some African Creeks, broke out of Indian Territory and headed for Mexico. They found refuge there, and there are still Black Seminole communities in Coahuila. Their agreement with the Mexican government required them to provide military service as scouts against the Comanches and Apaches. By the 1870's, the US government was looking for the same kind of service. Some of the Black Seminole scouts moved with their families to Brackettville, Texas to work with the US Army out of Fort Clark.
The Mexico-Texas families never received recognition as Indians from the US government. The Seminoles of Oklahoma disfranchised their so-called "freedmen" in 2000, just when they received a $56 million payment from the US government for the loss of lands in Florida. The tribal government decided that members were only those who could prove one-eighth "blood quantum" by their descent from people listed on the Dawes "by blood" Rolls of 1906. And, as with the Creeks, any Seminole with any trace of African ancestry in 1906 had been enrolled on the "freedman" list instead.
So the Seminoles, a tribe that was by its very existence a Maroon band of Africans and Native Americans, has disavowed its Black members in the 21st century. Greed? Anti-Black racism? Theories of biological "essentialism"? It is certain that all of these explain the Seminoles denial of their own history.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Disfranchisement of Black Indians
I have been reluctant to begin discussing the disfranchisement of Black Indians among the Five Tribes. The history is extraordinarily complex and can shift from moment to moment depending on how an informant feels and the audience. I have alluded elsewhere to Claudio Saunt's experience with Creek leader Buddy Cox and an official of the Creek Nation:
During the Civil War, the tribal government, which was dominated by slave-owning Lower Creeks, allied itself with the Confederacy. The traditionals, who tended to be from the Upper Creek towns, including the Black Creeks, were joined by many Black people who were slaves of the Creek leaders. They had to flee the territory to seek the protection of the United States and many, many joined the Union Army: some as Indian troops, some as Black troops. (And there were many racially "Black" Creeks in the Indian Home Guard.)
After the war, the United States government negotiated new treaties with the Five Tribe. These treaties required the emancipation of all slaves and their receiving full citizenship rights in their respective nation. This is the beginning of referring to most (not all) African Creeks as "freedmen," regardless of whether their parents and grandparents had been full members of a Creek town or held as slaves by Creeks. It is a fully racial distinction.
During the late 19th century the political factions in the Creek council tended to be former Confederates versus former Loyalists. The Loyalist faction were mainly traditional in their religious outlook and their economic standing, meaning small-scale farming and herding. They included all the leaders of the three new African Creek towns. The former Confederates were more likely to be Christian and English speaking and they got into cattle ranching and then real estate speculation.
When the federal government forced other tribes into dividing their collectively-owned reservations into privately-owned individual allotments, the Five Tribes were able to resist this at first. When Senator Dawes came to them again a decade later, the Creek factions were united in opposing this. But it soon became apparent that allotment was coming, whether they liked it or not. At this point most Creeks, with some important exceptions, decided to go with the program.
That program, though, included some very important racial distinctions. First, all tribal members who were deemed to have any African "blood" were designated as "freemen." (There were some exceptions to this, apparently for political reasons.) Second, all other Creeks were assigned a "blood quantum," a fraction which purported to indicate how "Indian" they were. Note that the rule for being a "freeman" is the "one-drop" rule, or hypodescent. But a person with three white grandparents is still "Indian," albeit assigned a "quantum" of one fourth. Further, if an "Indian" had one Creek and one Seminole parent, that made them one half Indian, either in the Creek or Seminole enrollment.
The enrollment was concluded in 1906, the same year Oklahoma entered the US as a state. The state of Oklahoma immediately instituted Jim Crow laws and embarked on a campaign of lynching and terror against all racially Black people, including African Creeks. There was a well-publicized lynching in Okemah of a Black mother and son in 1911 by a mob that included Woody Guthrie's father. And there was the firebombing of thirty-five city blocks of Tulsa, the entire neighborhood of Greenwood, which had been -- until then -- considered the Black Wall Street of the United States. An estimated three hundred people were murdered, six thousand were detained by the police, and twelve thousand were left homeless.
Meanwhile, for purposes of Jim Crow, "Indians" -- excluding the so-called "freemen" -- were designated as white. That did not stop land speculators and oil companies from finding a thousand ways to rob them. But it did succeed in consolidating a big wedge driven between Black Indians, including Creeks, and other tribal members.
It was in 1979 that the Creek tribal council moved to disfranchise the Creek "freemen." The move received more support from the "Indian" members because of zero-sum economics: the fewer tribal members around to divide up any available gains, the more there was for each remaining individual. For example, in 1962 the US awarded the Creeks nearly $4 million in damages for lands illegally seized in 1814 in what is now Georgia and Alabama. When the money was distributed a decade later, it came to about $12 per capita.
There are African Creeks who have very little interest in asserting their Indian identity: the Creeks don't want them and they are quite proud to be African American instead. But there are those who have retained language, religion and culture and continue to sue the Creek Nation for restitution of membership. They maintain an interesting website at http://www.thecreekfreedmen.com
This begins to explain one part of this story. I will probably have to return to it. "In the Midst of the Valley," the final chapter of Stones from the Creek, (http://www.amazon.com/Stones-Creek-Rick-Levine/dp/149447641X/) is a different kind of way to explain the personal horror of this history through one fictional family's experience. I think that is all for today.
"Lusti" being a brief way of saying "estelvste" or "Black" in the Mvskoke language. Later on, the three sit together at lunch and the conversation returns to the Estelvste:"As he peered at the blurry figures standing before the building, the officer joined him. "They all look lusti, don't they?" she asked under her breath. "Thank god for Claude slipping that constitution past." Claude Cox, Buddy's uncle, had overseen the passage of a new Creek constitution in 1979, still in effect today, that disenfranchised the descendants of Creek slaves." (Claudio Saunt. Black, White, and Indian: Race and the Unmaking of an American Family (p. 129). Kindle Edition.)
Perhaps it is because this is a private conversation, perhaps because it is indoors, perhaps it is just the feeling of the moment. In any case it is only a few minutes later when her entire family history miraculously changes:We talked about black Creeks, and Cox, who is known around the nation for his independent opinions, warmed to the task at hand. He said in Creek, "I'm estelusti." Cox had broken a taboo, and the officer responded in kind. "My family is part black, too," she said in English. "But I don't show it, do I?" she asked, presenting her profile in both jest and anxiety. (Ibid)
Here is an attempt at some truth. Among the Creeks, there were Black members before 1812 and they were mostly in the Upper Creek towns, known to US history as "Red Sticks," who fought the US Army and were defeated by Andrew Jackson with the aid of the Lower Creek towns. Those Lower Creek towns were more apt to have African slaves, they were more apt to have members who were white married into the town, and those members (and their children) were more apt to be wealthy town leaders and slaveowners. So, already, two decades before the Trail of Tears removals to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma, there were Creek Indians who were racially "red," "white," and "black." (Hence the title of Claudio Saunt's book about the Grayson family.) And there were also Black people held as slaves.After lunch, we stood before the restaurant saying good-bye, and the subject again turned to the estelusti. "A number of Creeks have black blood, not just the Graysons," the officer observed. "Don't we all?" asked Cox. "Not me" were her last words to us before she turned down the street and walked away.
During the Civil War, the tribal government, which was dominated by slave-owning Lower Creeks, allied itself with the Confederacy. The traditionals, who tended to be from the Upper Creek towns, including the Black Creeks, were joined by many Black people who were slaves of the Creek leaders. They had to flee the territory to seek the protection of the United States and many, many joined the Union Army: some as Indian troops, some as Black troops. (And there were many racially "Black" Creeks in the Indian Home Guard.)
After the war, the United States government negotiated new treaties with the Five Tribe. These treaties required the emancipation of all slaves and their receiving full citizenship rights in their respective nation. This is the beginning of referring to most (not all) African Creeks as "freedmen," regardless of whether their parents and grandparents had been full members of a Creek town or held as slaves by Creeks. It is a fully racial distinction.
During the late 19th century the political factions in the Creek council tended to be former Confederates versus former Loyalists. The Loyalist faction were mainly traditional in their religious outlook and their economic standing, meaning small-scale farming and herding. They included all the leaders of the three new African Creek towns. The former Confederates were more likely to be Christian and English speaking and they got into cattle ranching and then real estate speculation.
When the federal government forced other tribes into dividing their collectively-owned reservations into privately-owned individual allotments, the Five Tribes were able to resist this at first. When Senator Dawes came to them again a decade later, the Creek factions were united in opposing this. But it soon became apparent that allotment was coming, whether they liked it or not. At this point most Creeks, with some important exceptions, decided to go with the program.
That program, though, included some very important racial distinctions. First, all tribal members who were deemed to have any African "blood" were designated as "freemen." (There were some exceptions to this, apparently for political reasons.) Second, all other Creeks were assigned a "blood quantum," a fraction which purported to indicate how "Indian" they were. Note that the rule for being a "freeman" is the "one-drop" rule, or hypodescent. But a person with three white grandparents is still "Indian," albeit assigned a "quantum" of one fourth. Further, if an "Indian" had one Creek and one Seminole parent, that made them one half Indian, either in the Creek or Seminole enrollment.
The enrollment was concluded in 1906, the same year Oklahoma entered the US as a state. The state of Oklahoma immediately instituted Jim Crow laws and embarked on a campaign of lynching and terror against all racially Black people, including African Creeks. There was a well-publicized lynching in Okemah of a Black mother and son in 1911 by a mob that included Woody Guthrie's father. And there was the firebombing of thirty-five city blocks of Tulsa, the entire neighborhood of Greenwood, which had been -- until then -- considered the Black Wall Street of the United States. An estimated three hundred people were murdered, six thousand were detained by the police, and twelve thousand were left homeless.
Meanwhile, for purposes of Jim Crow, "Indians" -- excluding the so-called "freemen" -- were designated as white. That did not stop land speculators and oil companies from finding a thousand ways to rob them. But it did succeed in consolidating a big wedge driven between Black Indians, including Creeks, and other tribal members.
It was in 1979 that the Creek tribal council moved to disfranchise the Creek "freemen." The move received more support from the "Indian" members because of zero-sum economics: the fewer tribal members around to divide up any available gains, the more there was for each remaining individual. For example, in 1962 the US awarded the Creeks nearly $4 million in damages for lands illegally seized in 1814 in what is now Georgia and Alabama. When the money was distributed a decade later, it came to about $12 per capita.
There are African Creeks who have very little interest in asserting their Indian identity: the Creeks don't want them and they are quite proud to be African American instead. But there are those who have retained language, religion and culture and continue to sue the Creek Nation for restitution of membership. They maintain an interesting website at http://www.thecreekfreedmen.com
This begins to explain one part of this story. I will probably have to return to it. "In the Midst of the Valley," the final chapter of Stones from the Creek, (http://www.amazon.com/Stones-Creek-Rick-Levine/dp/149447641X/) is a different kind of way to explain the personal horror of this history through one fictional family's experience. I think that is all for today.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Prophet and I got out about 7:30 this morning. It was cold, but it was sunny and the air was still. There were not too many people out yet, so I was comfortable defying the leash law for the first two or three blocks. Then, walking west on 231st Street toward the river, we had to stop frequently: to nurse salty paws and to scrupulously check the guest register. Dog owners know exactly what I am talking about.
The street was very salty (and there is no sidewalk) west of Independence Avenue, so we cut through Seton Park. Once we passed the tennis courts, I took Prophet's leash off again so that he could bound through the drifts and follow somebody's cross-country ski tracks through the brush and saplings down to Palisades Avenue. I was already trudging, but didn't quite realize it because I was going downhill. What goes down must come back up, but I was gleefully oblivious.
When we got into Riverdale Park, the trail was tromped down pretty well from the last 24 hours of foot traffic, but while rough, it wasn't frozen. So I was not moving too fast, but I wasn't really struggling, either. Prophet, on the other hand, was racing up and down at a full gallop and then springing through the drifts. I would say he was having a good time. And no salt!
We got to the turn-off for Prophet's favorite off-trail adventure and followed a much less traveled (by the evidence of foot prints in the snow) trail to the edge of a steep hill at which point all foot prints stopped. We dropped over the edge and I quickly realized that today was not the day for walking upright… or dignity of any sort. In other words, I slid down, sitting on my heels. This amused Prophet some, who was still racing up and down as if a steep, snowy hill were a kind of test track, designed to see just how fast a dog can go. He took time out to pounce on chunks of snow I send down from my sliding.
The little valley below is a setting for teen smoking and drinking in warmer weather. There is even a little hibachi cached behind a tree, with a small bag of match-light charcoal inside. But this season only has trash strewn around to remind you of the festivities. And today the snow covered the trash. Except for the railroad tracks and transformer station yards away one could imagine… Well, truthfully, it's a nice spot next to the icy river. One need not imagine.
Usually we climb right back up an equally steep hill on the other side of the little valley. Today I wasn't feeling it. Prophet started up, but the instant I indicated my desire to take another route, he raced back down and headed for our little game path along the side of the ridge, heading north along the tracks. He kept blocking my path, waiting for me to dislodge chunks of snow that he could chase. It was hard going.
That route takes you to a side trail that leads back up to the main trail a little higher up the ridge. Prophet was not interested. He wanted to bushwhack north through the brush between the tracks and the ridge. We did. I only fell once. I had not yet realized that struggling through drifted snow, downed trees and brush without breakfast wasn't such a great idea. That epiphany came later.
After a few hundred yards the way forward was almost completely obstructed by a tangle of fallen trees and branches. Prophet and I agreed that it was time to return to the trail above. Once again, dignity cast aside, I had to use hands and feet to ascend. Prophet was, well, you already know: four feet, claws, tail for balance. Let's just say the climb presented him with fewer difficulties.
Once we were back on the trail I proceeded with some difficulty. I was becoming aware of my failure to eat before going out and was moving a little slowly. Prophet, meanwhile, walked hopefully to the edge of every precipice and then looked at me imploringly: "Can't we please go down there? Please? PLEASE?"
No, we could not. I was fading and, in any case, those hills have no flat space at the bottom along the fence line to the railroad right of way. We reached a concrete platform, just before the place where the trail runs back out to the street for a few yards, admired the view, and then turned around.
I will not recount the way back. We skipped the adventurous detours. The trail remained difficult for me while Prophet galloped ahead and then came back to check. The streets were still salty, but now crowded with motorists and pedestrians. I had run out of gas.
But did I have fun? Am I lovingly recounting the details?
The street was very salty (and there is no sidewalk) west of Independence Avenue, so we cut through Seton Park. Once we passed the tennis courts, I took Prophet's leash off again so that he could bound through the drifts and follow somebody's cross-country ski tracks through the brush and saplings down to Palisades Avenue. I was already trudging, but didn't quite realize it because I was going downhill. What goes down must come back up, but I was gleefully oblivious.
When we got into Riverdale Park, the trail was tromped down pretty well from the last 24 hours of foot traffic, but while rough, it wasn't frozen. So I was not moving too fast, but I wasn't really struggling, either. Prophet, on the other hand, was racing up and down at a full gallop and then springing through the drifts. I would say he was having a good time. And no salt!
We got to the turn-off for Prophet's favorite off-trail adventure and followed a much less traveled (by the evidence of foot prints in the snow) trail to the edge of a steep hill at which point all foot prints stopped. We dropped over the edge and I quickly realized that today was not the day for walking upright… or dignity of any sort. In other words, I slid down, sitting on my heels. This amused Prophet some, who was still racing up and down as if a steep, snowy hill were a kind of test track, designed to see just how fast a dog can go. He took time out to pounce on chunks of snow I send down from my sliding.
The little valley below is a setting for teen smoking and drinking in warmer weather. There is even a little hibachi cached behind a tree, with a small bag of match-light charcoal inside. But this season only has trash strewn around to remind you of the festivities. And today the snow covered the trash. Except for the railroad tracks and transformer station yards away one could imagine… Well, truthfully, it's a nice spot next to the icy river. One need not imagine.
Usually we climb right back up an equally steep hill on the other side of the little valley. Today I wasn't feeling it. Prophet started up, but the instant I indicated my desire to take another route, he raced back down and headed for our little game path along the side of the ridge, heading north along the tracks. He kept blocking my path, waiting for me to dislodge chunks of snow that he could chase. It was hard going.
That route takes you to a side trail that leads back up to the main trail a little higher up the ridge. Prophet was not interested. He wanted to bushwhack north through the brush between the tracks and the ridge. We did. I only fell once. I had not yet realized that struggling through drifted snow, downed trees and brush without breakfast wasn't such a great idea. That epiphany came later.
After a few hundred yards the way forward was almost completely obstructed by a tangle of fallen trees and branches. Prophet and I agreed that it was time to return to the trail above. Once again, dignity cast aside, I had to use hands and feet to ascend. Prophet was, well, you already know: four feet, claws, tail for balance. Let's just say the climb presented him with fewer difficulties.
Once we were back on the trail I proceeded with some difficulty. I was becoming aware of my failure to eat before going out and was moving a little slowly. Prophet, meanwhile, walked hopefully to the edge of every precipice and then looked at me imploringly: "Can't we please go down there? Please? PLEASE?"
No, we could not. I was fading and, in any case, those hills have no flat space at the bottom along the fence line to the railroad right of way. We reached a concrete platform, just before the place where the trail runs back out to the street for a few yards, admired the view, and then turned around.
I will not recount the way back. We skipped the adventurous detours. The trail remained difficult for me while Prophet galloped ahead and then came back to check. The streets were still salty, but now crowded with motorists and pedestrians. I had run out of gas.
But did I have fun? Am I lovingly recounting the details?
Friday, January 3, 2014
so who was First Sergeant Mingo Sanders?
The fictional character Mingo Sanders appears in two stories in Stones from the Creek: "Wade in the Water" and "Scars." He is mentioned in passing by the protagonists of "The Giant Believed Her" and "One Voice, One Heart." After decades of service in the US Army, he has been dishonorably discharged without trial along with 166 other members of the 25th Infantry because of accusations by the white people of Brownsville, Texas… accusations that they were not allowed to answer and that have since been shown to be baseless. The fictional Sgt. Sanders shares those years of service and that discharge with the historical Mingo Sanders.
But the fictional Sanders then heads back to his boyhood home in South Carolina without a friend, filled with rage and resentment and hurt. He encounters an outdoor revival, is baptized and saved. He is falsely accused of theft, imprisoned, and leased to a phosphate mine as a laborer. The real Mingo Sanders was married. He and his wife Luella went to Washington, DC to address Congressional investigations of the discharge, as well as speaking to mostly African American audiences about the Brownsville affair in other cities. President William Howard Taft overrode the terms of Sanders's discharge to hire him as a confidential messenger at the Washington Navy Yard.
Mary Church Terrell wrote a sketch of his life and character while she agitated against the discharge of the 167 Black soldiers. If you are unfamiliar with that name, Mrs. Terrell was a high school teacher and principal in Washington, DC around the turn of the twentieth century. She was a prominent activist and journalist who was a founding member of the NAACP and of Delta Sigma Theta. When Mrs. Terrell phoned Sgt. Sanders to arrange a meeting, she was afraid she would encounter a bitter and disillusioned man. In fact she imagined him to be much like the character bearing his name in Stones from the Creek!
To her surprise, she found him, in her words, to be "as serene and mild as a May morning, at evident peace with himself and all the world." She goes on to write:
So why did the author of Stones in the Creek write him so differently? Part, I suppose, was the need for a dramatic transformation. But more, to be honest, was probably projection: How would I have felt? As I wrote in another post on this topic: How did I feel?
This may be a good place to discuss a fiction that has arisen out of the dramatic needs of people encountering this story over the entire last 107 years. As in "Wade in the Water," people remember Sgt. Sanders as a member of the Black company that accompanied Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders up San Juan Hill. As in the story, people remember Roosevelt asking Sanders to share his men's rations with the Rough Riders, who had left theirs behind, and Sanders complying. And then people remember Roosevelt unceremoniously discharging Sanders from the army only eight years later, without a trial, which of course is just what he did.
It was the 10th Cavalry that fought alongside the Rough Riders on San Juan Hill. Sanders's 25th Infantry was just yards below, being held in reserve. It was in camp, not on the field of battle, that Roosevelt asked Sgt. Sanders if his men would share their rations. But just as the writer of fiction can mash together some events because it simplifies and dramatizes the real meaning of the story, so does the popular memory. Our goal in writing history should be both truth and fact. Our goal in telling story may be different.
But the fictional Sanders then heads back to his boyhood home in South Carolina without a friend, filled with rage and resentment and hurt. He encounters an outdoor revival, is baptized and saved. He is falsely accused of theft, imprisoned, and leased to a phosphate mine as a laborer. The real Mingo Sanders was married. He and his wife Luella went to Washington, DC to address Congressional investigations of the discharge, as well as speaking to mostly African American audiences about the Brownsville affair in other cities. President William Howard Taft overrode the terms of Sanders's discharge to hire him as a confidential messenger at the Washington Navy Yard.
Mary Church Terrell wrote a sketch of his life and character while she agitated against the discharge of the 167 Black soldiers. If you are unfamiliar with that name, Mrs. Terrell was a high school teacher and principal in Washington, DC around the turn of the twentieth century. She was a prominent activist and journalist who was a founding member of the NAACP and of Delta Sigma Theta. When Mrs. Terrell phoned Sgt. Sanders to arrange a meeting, she was afraid she would encounter a bitter and disillusioned man. In fact she imagined him to be much like the character bearing his name in Stones from the Creek!
To her surprise, she found him, in her words, to be "as serene and mild as a May morning, at evident peace with himself and all the world." She goes on to write:
He feels he has done his very best to discharge all the obligations resting upon a soldier from the day he elicited till he became the victim of circumstances over which he had no control and is manly enough to accept what a cruel fate has sen him without a whine.How much of this is true? How much is Mrs. Terrell writing what she needs to for her audience, who want a dignified "manly" man to lionize? Certainly she is the one who met him and she describes her trepidation and that suggests that she is writing what she saw, not just what she hoped for. Sgt Sanders was described by General AS Burt as the best non-commissioned officer he encountered in forty years of service.
So why did the author of Stones in the Creek write him so differently? Part, I suppose, was the need for a dramatic transformation. But more, to be honest, was probably projection: How would I have felt? As I wrote in another post on this topic: How did I feel?
This may be a good place to discuss a fiction that has arisen out of the dramatic needs of people encountering this story over the entire last 107 years. As in "Wade in the Water," people remember Sgt. Sanders as a member of the Black company that accompanied Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders up San Juan Hill. As in the story, people remember Roosevelt asking Sanders to share his men's rations with the Rough Riders, who had left theirs behind, and Sanders complying. And then people remember Roosevelt unceremoniously discharging Sanders from the army only eight years later, without a trial, which of course is just what he did.
It was the 10th Cavalry that fought alongside the Rough Riders on San Juan Hill. Sanders's 25th Infantry was just yards below, being held in reserve. It was in camp, not on the field of battle, that Roosevelt asked Sgt. Sanders if his men would share their rations. But just as the writer of fiction can mash together some events because it simplifies and dramatizes the real meaning of the story, so does the popular memory. Our goal in writing history should be both truth and fact. Our goal in telling story may be different.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
All-Black Towns of Oklahoma
The turn of the twentieth century saw the terror against African Americans reach a kind of peak. The withdrawal of Federal troops from the former Confederacy may have been finished in 1876, but it did not mean the automatic end of Black suffrage. Rather it was an ongoing race war. In September, 1906, for example, or at the very same time as many of the events in Stones from the Creek, the Atlanta newspapers reported four alleged assaults on white men by African Americans. Thousands of white youths and men attacked the African American community, with the connivance of the police, and thirty to forty Black men were killed. This race riot was triggered by African American insistence on continuing to vote, which can be seen by the immediate disfranchisement laws passed by the new administration of Governor Hoke Smith after he was elected six weeks later.
The same is true of the lynchings elsewhere. They were no ritual humiliations of an already-subjugated group. They were acts of war by the ruling whites against the subordinate and -- in many parts of the South -- majority Blacks. The entire Jim Crow structure had to be created out of thin air. Never forget that if whites truly did not want Blacks around them they would not have asked them to prepare and serve their food, clean their homes or care for their children. Can any more intimate relation be imagined?
So the creation of the all-Black towns, many of them in the Indian and Oklahoma Territories was one form of resistance against the terror. In the all-Black towns there would be no segregation and no disfranchisement. There would be no firebombing of African American businesses. The presence of large numbers of African Creeks and Cherokees in the Indian Territory made this land, which would become Oklahoma, look like a promising place for Black towns. Some of the miccos (chiefs) in the Creek Nation even naturalized African Americans from the States as Creek citizens.
The fate of those towns is a story for a different day. But when the fictional Ezekiel Payne (protagonist of "In the Midst of the Valley") his daughter Nessa and his Daddy moved to Boley, they were part of a historical
Black middle class that was trying to create a safe haven for their children.
The same is true of the lynchings elsewhere. They were no ritual humiliations of an already-subjugated group. They were acts of war by the ruling whites against the subordinate and -- in many parts of the South -- majority Blacks. The entire Jim Crow structure had to be created out of thin air. Never forget that if whites truly did not want Blacks around them they would not have asked them to prepare and serve their food, clean their homes or care for their children. Can any more intimate relation be imagined?
So the creation of the all-Black towns, many of them in the Indian and Oklahoma Territories was one form of resistance against the terror. In the all-Black towns there would be no segregation and no disfranchisement. There would be no firebombing of African American businesses. The presence of large numbers of African Creeks and Cherokees in the Indian Territory made this land, which would become Oklahoma, look like a promising place for Black towns. Some of the miccos (chiefs) in the Creek Nation even naturalized African Americans from the States as Creek citizens.The fate of those towns is a story for a different day. But when the fictional Ezekiel Payne (protagonist of "In the Midst of the Valley") his daughter Nessa and his Daddy moved to Boley, they were part of a historical
Black middle class that was trying to create a safe haven for their children.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
So Many Soldiers
In re-reading my stories published as Stones from the Creek (http://www.amazon.com/Stones-Creek-Rick-Levine/dp/149447641X/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1388592168&sr=1-1)
I realized that there were a surprising number of military characters, especially considering that I have never served in the military. Of historical protagonists there are Henry Ossian Flipper, the first Black graduate of West Point; Mingo Sanders, the hero of the Cuban War who was discharged by Roosevelt after the Brownsville, Texas Affair; Alchesay, the decorated Apache scout who became the leader of the White Mountain Apaches; and Smedley Butler, the Marine major general who became an antiwar activist. Then there is the fictional Ezekiel Payne, a former Black cavalryman who marries a Creek Indian woman.
Why so many military men? I think a large part of the answer rests in the extreme violence of US social relations at the turn of the twentieth century. The country was amassing an overseas empire with so-called "small wars" in China, the Philippines, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Nicaragua, along with the big imperial war in Cuba. Historians like to declare the massacre of unarmed Lakota Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1890 to be the last Indian "battle," but troops continued to be called in to put down Indian resistance throughout this period. In the Creek Nation alone, troops were called up against the followers of Chitto Harjo in 1901 and 1909. And in the history of industrial relations it would be folly to attempt to list here the number of strikes that were countered with federal or state troops during this period.
The personal is important, too. When I realized early on in my writing that I had two soldiers who were unfairly discharged I really had to reflect on why I was identifying so strongly with their stories. It shouldn't have taken me as long to figure this out as it did. As principal of a school with a "B" grade I received, at the end of the academic year, two lengthy critical evaluations from my superintendent. Understand that the position of superintendent had been downgraded to a part-time gig, and that they were forbidden to enter schools on their own initiative. I liked my superintendent and had invited her to come visit earlier that year. She got a stricken look on her face and politely declined. It was only later that I learned of another district superintendent who had been disciplined with a letter to file for visiting a school. So when she did show up, it meant that I was a "person of interest." (The deputy chancellor's phrase!) And then after I had finished running summer school I was politely asked to leave… or else. It would be too much to believe that this experience didn't have anything to do with my choosing to write about H.O. Flipper and Mingo Sanders.
The final reason that I have found for choosing all these military characters was my desire to connect stories of resistance from widely-separated sections of American society. The Apaches' successful attempt to substitute tribal for individual enterprise? African American resilience in the face of the convict lease system? Alchesay and Mingo Sanders served together in the Apache Wars. Mingo Sanders fought side-by-side with Teddy Roosevelt in Cuba so a personal letter from the former to the latter is not unimaginable. There were other ways of linking apparently distant characters, but military service was one good one.
I think these characters stand up as being real. That was always my attempt.
I realized that there were a surprising number of military characters, especially considering that I have never served in the military. Of historical protagonists there are Henry Ossian Flipper, the first Black graduate of West Point; Mingo Sanders, the hero of the Cuban War who was discharged by Roosevelt after the Brownsville, Texas Affair; Alchesay, the decorated Apache scout who became the leader of the White Mountain Apaches; and Smedley Butler, the Marine major general who became an antiwar activist. Then there is the fictional Ezekiel Payne, a former Black cavalryman who marries a Creek Indian woman.
Why so many military men? I think a large part of the answer rests in the extreme violence of US social relations at the turn of the twentieth century. The country was amassing an overseas empire with so-called "small wars" in China, the Philippines, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Nicaragua, along with the big imperial war in Cuba. Historians like to declare the massacre of unarmed Lakota Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1890 to be the last Indian "battle," but troops continued to be called in to put down Indian resistance throughout this period. In the Creek Nation alone, troops were called up against the followers of Chitto Harjo in 1901 and 1909. And in the history of industrial relations it would be folly to attempt to list here the number of strikes that were countered with federal or state troops during this period.
The personal is important, too. When I realized early on in my writing that I had two soldiers who were unfairly discharged I really had to reflect on why I was identifying so strongly with their stories. It shouldn't have taken me as long to figure this out as it did. As principal of a school with a "B" grade I received, at the end of the academic year, two lengthy critical evaluations from my superintendent. Understand that the position of superintendent had been downgraded to a part-time gig, and that they were forbidden to enter schools on their own initiative. I liked my superintendent and had invited her to come visit earlier that year. She got a stricken look on her face and politely declined. It was only later that I learned of another district superintendent who had been disciplined with a letter to file for visiting a school. So when she did show up, it meant that I was a "person of interest." (The deputy chancellor's phrase!) And then after I had finished running summer school I was politely asked to leave… or else. It would be too much to believe that this experience didn't have anything to do with my choosing to write about H.O. Flipper and Mingo Sanders.
The final reason that I have found for choosing all these military characters was my desire to connect stories of resistance from widely-separated sections of American society. The Apaches' successful attempt to substitute tribal for individual enterprise? African American resilience in the face of the convict lease system? Alchesay and Mingo Sanders served together in the Apache Wars. Mingo Sanders fought side-by-side with Teddy Roosevelt in Cuba so a personal letter from the former to the latter is not unimaginable. There were other ways of linking apparently distant characters, but military service was one good one.
I think these characters stand up as being real. That was always my attempt.
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