Tuesday, August 22, 2017

One brave teacher and the historically worthless monuments to Confederate generals

Few teachers ever did as much for their students as Joseph DeLaine and few ever suffered as much for their efforts.

During my 14 years as a classroom teacher, I taught a third quarter research project on the American Civil Rights Movement, with students selecting different aspects of the movement and the events that sparked it, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Freedom Riders, and the murder of Emmett Till.

For these students in classrooms that have long since been integrated, the idea that students once attended schools that were supposedly separate but equal is quite the revelation. Students who walk down the halls each day, side by side, with students of different races and religions cannot imagine a time when African American students could not attend the same schools as white students.

The reason that changed was the U. S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision and one of the people who worked hard ... and suffered much ... to make that happen was Joseph DeLaine.

As I have listened to the arguments over the past few days about the continued existence of Confederate monuments on public land, DeLaine's story came to mind.

DeLaine, a minister, was also a teacher at the St. Paul Rural Primary School in Summerton, South Carolina, fought to give his students some of the same necessities that were automatically provided to the white students.

Since his students often had to walk miles to get to school, he fought to get the school board to buy a bus. The request was rejected. Even though African American students were by far the majority in the Clarendon County school, DeLaine was told that white parents paid more in taxes than the poor black parents and it would be wrong to require white taxpayers to pay for a bus for black students.

The idea of separate but equal was always a fiction. DeLaine knew that well. But he was worried about children getting sick walking to school in bad weather and being too tired to accomplish anything once they arrived.

Parents pooled their money and bought a second-hand bus, but it broke down on a regular basis.

Eventually, DeLaine worked with NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall to put together a lawsuit against the school district, Briggs v. Elliott. The case initially began as an attempt to ensure equal facilities, but evolved into a full-fledged attack against the evils of segregation and became one of the cases included in Brown v. Board of Education.

DeLaine, the teacher who fought so hard for his students, paid dearly for his efforts. Those who preferred to keep things the way they were and keep the students separate, burned DeLaine's house to the ground, vandalized the parsonage, and threatened his life in vicious, unsigned letters.

DeLaine finally moved to New York where he spent the remaining years of his life.

Though the decision to end segregation in American schools was unanimous, the Court did not demand that it happen immediately, only that it be done with "all deliberate speed."

That led to decades of efforts to keep the races apart. It also led a number of southern leaders, fearful of the future as symbolized by Brown v. Board of Education and the civil rights movement, to begin building the mythology of a South where the Civil War was recreated as a battle against an overbearing central government and an effort to end the southern way of life. It was almost as if slavery had not played even a bit role in what was continually referred to as The War Between the States in those states below the Mason-Dixon line.

Demagogues stirred the voters with talk of preserving their "heritage." The media, as it was constituted in the '50s and '60s, became the enemy, spreading that era's version of "fake news," which both then and now can be defined as news that politicians with only a passing connection to the truth do not like.

Southern politicians said the media was stirring up the trouble. There would be no racial foment were it not for the media.

Another protest method devised by these southern leaders was one that had been used around another time of racial unrest in the early 20th Century- they began the process of erecting monuments to Confederate leaders, the people who had fought to preserve that southern heritage, the people who wanted to keep African Americans in their place.

Long forgotten Confederate flags suddenly became a symbol of that same "heritage."

The monuments, for the most part, had nothing whatsoever to do with history. Then, as now, they stood as symbols of a time when the American dream was an impossibility to those who were not born white.

The monuments to such men as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Nathan Bedford Forest should be preserved, but only as artifacts of a time in which their ghosts emerged from the 19th Century to play roles in an attempt to preserve a Jim Crow heritage.

Put them in museums, not in prominent public places where they have the stamp of approval of those who cynically attempt to use what is left of a white supremacist ideology as the foundation for a political movement.

The pieces of sculpture serve as a testimonial to long dead Confederate officers who waged war against their country to preserve an institution that never should have existed.

In 2004, 30 years after his death, Joseph DeLaine was posthumously awarded a Congressional gold medal for his bravery and persistence in his fight for his students.

The greatest monuments to DeLaine's legacy, however, are the classrooms across the United States where black and white children sit side by side, preserving a legacy that has done far more for this nation than any Confederate general on horseback.

27 comments:

Concerned citizen said...

Fine observations except your depiction of statutes erected before 1920s...a self-destructed South had little money to erect such monuments but they did in memory of heroism of a lost cause.To depict the statutes main purpose to be an in your face response to restive black population reeks of revisionism..Erect more statutes for current times...each age has a story (good,bad,ugly). Autre temps,autre moivres...different times different customs..are we afraid of the past,doubt it,but we need vigilance to not repeat the vile hatred of extremism.

Anonymous said...

One man's opinion, Randy.

Harvey Hutchinson said...

Question: Was St. Paul Rural Primary School in Summerton,(Clarendon County) SC a public or Roman Catholic Parochial School?

Thank you in advance for the answer, I remain,

Sincerely & respectfully,
Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text

Anonymous said...

All this fighting over runner up trophies, I don't get it.

Michael Donahue said...

It is a public school.

Anonymous said...

I wonder why NOW the statues need to come down? I guess they weren't "offensive" enough over the past 80 + years?

Anonymous said...

Confederacy statues = LOSER's Trophies!

Anonymous said...

So how many statues do you want to tear down around here Randy?

How about none cause there are none.

Turner is another one of these Social Justice Warriors and an outside agitator just looking to do some anti-white racist action against them White Southrons and to stir things up for no good reason.

Turner is always up to no good. Thank God for CJ Huff & Angie & Tina for finishing off Turner in public edumacation before Turner could molest some monuments!!!

If Bobby Lee must come down CJ Huff must go up.

Anonymous said...

The segregation academy that opened to take all the white students was Clarendon Hall Academy, connected with a local Southern Baptist Church.

As far as Harvey's question, even he should know that most folks in rural south prefer their god bothering to be of only the protestant type thank you!

More info- https://www.thenation.com/article/heat-summerton/

Steve Holmes said...

What hasn't been mentioned is that the Confederate statues are monuments to a NATION THAT LEFT US SO THEY COULD ATTACK US. What in blazes are they doing on public land in this country? A big ole' f*** you to the United States of America, that's what.

Put 'em in museums. They are a part of Southern heritage -- monuments to treason. It's like saying, "We wish the South had won." (I am almost certain I had kinfolk fighting for the South. Not much Yankee blood in me).

God Bless the U.S.A. Not the Confederacy.

Duh Bya Billy Bob Jimmy John Kooter said...

But Steve, this hyars good ole' by god missourah where we kin play our southern roots and feel good 'bout hatin' an persecutin anybody who ain't like us or kinfolk. Some of the best round here kept it all in the fambly if ya know what I mean. Raise the banner fer good ole' racist, bigoted, white supremacists and even throw in a few o' them natsis. They knowed how to clean up.

Anonymous said...

Turner has historically been worthless. No monument for him.

Steve Holmes said...

You got me there, Duh Bya Billy Bob Jimmy John Kooter. By the way, I think we may be cousins. And second cousins.

Harvey Hutchinson said...

Thank you Michael Donahue.

The "Saint" designation was a little confusing to me

Harve Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text

Harvey Hutchinson said...

Anonymous 12:36 AM
The rural South I was raised in was south Louisiana.

I'll let you figure it out from there

Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text

Duh Bya Billy Bob Jimmy John Kooter said...

South Louisiana? Well, by gawd you're one o' them good ole' haters along with the rest of us. Let me aks you sumthin? Do you only have two holes in your hood? Muh wife done screwt up and when she was a makin' my white hoody she had it folded when she cut some eyeball holes. Now I gots 14 holes in my hoody. But she done a good job drawin' that cross on my white gown. Bless her sole.

Harvey Hutchinson said...

No, Duh guy,
My family were major fighters of the KKK!!
Primarily because they wore masks and were anonymous cowards ( BTW Black Lives Matters uses hoods for identity concealment as well)!

You must have missed a lot of the Blog string;

I was being questioned re rural south being very passionate about God( and Jesus Christ)
The South Louisiana reference is that a very large portion of the population is Roman Catholic; hence a major parochial school system. That's way I was not current St Paul Rural Primary was public or parochial

Thank you,
Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text

The troubles began with the War of Northern Agression said...

Lynch mob hangs 4, history book says



PONCHATOULA - On Sept. 21, 1900, four black men were hanged from a small oak tree on Beech Street in Ponchatoula.

Picked at random from 14 suspects rounded up after the theft of $250 from a white couple earlier that day, the four men were apparently lynched to set an example for the city's blacks that crimes against whites would not be tolerated, according to the next day's newspaper reports in the Advocate and the Daily Picayune.


What kind of justice is lynching these men who were "picked at random from 14 suspects rounded up"? Well, down in South Louisiana, they got their trials post mortem. Four posthumous convictions backed up the lynchings.

According to an article from the Sept. 22, 1900, issue of the Advocate, all of the men except Bowman, who had a wife and seven children, were single. According to the same article, city officials declared that the four men had "come to their deaths by the hands of parties unknown." A jury formed after their deaths delivered a guilty verdict and posthumously sentenced them to death by hanging.








Anonymous said...

If you want to understand the power of Confederate statues in the South, read William Faulkner. He understood it and knew it wasn't good for anybody, including white southerners held hostage by the past.

Duh Bya Billy Bob Jimmy John Kooter said...

And me without my boots........Harvey is pilin' it purty deep in hyar.

Harvey Hutchinson said...

It's all absolutely true and accurate Fuh guy!!
Thanks for reading
(Did you noticed they named avHurrucane after me?)

Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text

Harvey

Steve Holmes said...

Congratulations on your hurricane, Harvey. Please go easy on Texas.

Anonymous said...

The Confederacy leave to attack anyone and certainly didn't attack the Union. It was the other way around. That pretty much makes the rest of your opinion based on a fallacy.

Harvey Hutchinson said...

Steve,
So far just s Cat 2; but lots of rain; praying for no fish hook back to my home, family, and proper in Louisiana;

My wife's relatives are in Houston area,

Thanks for noticing.
Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text 24/7

Harvey Hutchinson said...

Faulkner wrote fiction.

One of my very favorites though
( Magnolia, MS is my birthplace)

Harvey Hutchinson 303-522-6622 voice&text 24/7

Anonymous said...

I guess you know "Harvey" means BLOW HARD in Trumpish.

Anonymous said...

Remember Joseph DeLaine!




Today's date is April 9, 2019.

On this date in 1865...Lee surrendered to Grant! The slaveholders rebellion was put down!


"154 yrs ago today, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, sealing the fate of the slaveholders' rebellion. We should get off work tomorrow" https://twitter.com/karpmj/status/851091300678029312

"Lee, that most impenitent traitor, was so beautifully checkmated": it's fun to read black newspapers from April 1865" https://twitter.com/karpmj/status/851182528471937024