It is an odd thing that while some truly horrible things are going on in plain sight, though for reasons unknown our media tends to ignore or downplay the worst of them, like the President of the United States contemplating stealing an election by declaring martial law,other things are happening that should give us at least some measure of hope. This being the Christmas season, I shall cast off my usual fairly pessimistic take on things, and accentuate the positive.
One hopeful sign is the fact that we are, to a great extent, confronting our history, and acknowledging the sins of our past.
When I was a kid, I remember wondering why it was that we were naming submarines after Confederate generals, but for the most part, like everyone else, I accepted the normalization of treason committed in order to keep people enslaved. The events of the past few years, despite the efforts of stable geniuses to prevent it, have forced us to rethink who are the heroes and who are the villains.
Even 10 years ago I would never had bet on this happening:
The Commission on Historical Statues in the United States Capitol has recommended that civil rights icon Barbara Rose Johns represent Virginia in the National Statuary Hall Collection, replacing the existing statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.
Gov. Ralph Northam has also announced that his proposed budget includes dearly $500,000 to replace the statue.
“On April 23, 1951, sixteen-year-old Barbara Rose Johns led a student walkout at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, protesting the overcrowded and inferior conditions of the all-Black school compared to those of White students at nearby Farmville High School,” a release said.
Her actions got the support of NAACP lawyers Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill, who took up her case and filed a lawsuit that would later be one fo five cases the United States Supreme Court reviewed in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka when it declared segregation unconstitutional.
I confess, I never heard of Ms. Johns before, which speaks volumes about the way we have perverted our history. She deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Rosa Parks.
Speaking of our historical memory, one other bright spot is the fact that there’s a lot of history being written these days taking another look at the contributions of black people in ending their own enslavement. Other than Frederick Douglass, back in the day you’d never know there were black people in the abolitionist movement.
Speaking of which, this is a good place to plug the upcoming book of a scholar from Princeton who shares my last name, but is a better writer.
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