Traces the UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Home , Aleksandr Alov, Catherine Merridale, Dominic Lieven, Duke Forest, James Buchanan Duke

traces The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

volume 3 spring 2014 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Published in the United States of America by the UNC-Chapel Hill History Department traces Hamilton Hall, CB #3195 Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3195 (919) 962-2115 [email protected]

All rights reserved. Except in those cases that comply with the fair use guidelines of US copyright law (U.S.C. Title 17), no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the publisher. Design by Brandon Whitesell. Printed in the United States of America by Chamblee Graphics, Raleigh, North Carolina. Traces is produced by undergraduate and graduate students at UNC-Chapel Hill in order to showcase students’ historical research. Traces: The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History is affiliated with the Delta Pi chapter (UNC-Chapel Hill) of Phi Alpha Theta, the National History Honor Society. Unfortunately there is no Past, available for distillation, capture, manipulation, observation and description. There have been, and there are, events in complex and innumerable combinations, and no magic formula “will ever give us masterytraces over them . . . . There are, instead, some rather humdrum operations to be performed. We suspect or surmise that an event, a set of events has taken place: where can we find the traces they must have left behind them? Or we have come across some traces: what are they worth, as traces, and to what events do they point? Later on we shall find out which events we can, from our own knowledge of their traces, safely believe to have taken place. It remains a fact, nevertheless, that the whole historical world uses the word ‘sources,’ and will continue to do so. By refusing to follow its example we shall at any rate draw attention to the fact that history is not a deductive science, but an activity and a craft.” — G.J. Renier, History: Its Purpose and Method staff Mark W. Hornburg Executive & Executive Editor traces Founding Editors Maggie Howell Editor-in-Chief Eric Medlin Director of Finance Dr. Miles Fletcher Chief Faculty Professor, Department of History, UNC-Chapel Hill Advisor Augusta Dell’Omo Senior Editors Peter Vogel Burt Westermeier Joel Hebert Graduate Editors Scott Krause Jeanine Navarrete iv Editorial Board Turner Albernaz tracesEmily Cathey Chiraayu Gosrani Grace Tatter Martha Upton Faculty Advisors Dr. Marcus Bull Dr. Karen Hagemann Dr. Jerma Jackson Dr. Wayne E. Lee Dr. James L. Leloudis Dr. Donald J. Raleigh Dr. Eren Tasar Dr. Zaragosa Vargas Dr. Gerhard Weinberg

v sponsors Delta Pi Chapter (UNC-CH), Phi Alpha Theta, traces National History Honor Society Department of History, UNC-Chapel Hill UNC-Chapel Hill Parents Council UNC-Chapel Hill Student Government

vi donors Each year, this publication is only made possible with the help of private support. Through the generosity of our alumni and friends, undergraduate students have the educational opportunity to write and edit for an award-winning publication. If you’d like to support the History Department through Traces, please consider making a gift at http://giving.unc.edu/gift. Please be sure to search for “Traces Journal” to designate your gift. If you would like to mail your donation, please send all checks made payable to the “Arts and Sciences Foundation” at the address below.

Attention: Ronda J. Manuel Associate Director of Development The Arts and Sciences Foundation traces134 E. Franklin Street Chapel Hill, NC 27514

In addition to the organizations mentioned in the Acknowledgements, the staff would like to thank the following private donors for supporting this volume of Traces:

Dr. Kathleen DuVal and Mr. Martin Smith Dr. Shawna Lemon Dr. Donald Raleigh Mr. Alan Resley Mr. and Mrs. Vann Vogel

vii acknowledgments

The editorial staff is indebted to the students, faculty, staff, and friends who have supported the journal through its third year of publication. We especially traces would like to thank Dr. Miles Fletcher for serving as adviser to the journal for the last three years, Adam Kent for his administrative support, and Brandon Whitesell for his layout and design. Without the UNC-Chapel Hill Parents Council, which has provided grants from the founding of the journal, Traces never would have seen the light of day. We are also grateful to the UNC-CH Student Congress for the funding it has provided for this volume.

viii awards

First Prize in the Gerald D. Nash History Journal Award competition, sponsored by the Phi Alpha Theta National tracesHistory Honor Society, 2013. Gerhard L. Weinberg Prize for Best Article in European History, Philip Schwartz, for “Soviet International Cultural Politics in the Late 1960s and the Struggle for the Release of Andreĭ Rublev,” 2014. William L. Barney Prize for Best Article in Southern History, for “Nothing without a Demand: Black Power and Student Activism on North Carolina College Campuses, 1967-1973,” 2014.

ix table of contents xiv Note from the Editors

xvi Donors

xx Abstracts Roundtable 1 North Carolina Politics Articles ## “Our Problems are Legion.”: The Popular Response to Civil Rights Reform in North Carolina after Brown v.traces Board of Education, 1954-1957 | G. Lawson Kuehnert ## The Struggle for Racial Equality in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. | Grace Tatter ## Nothing Without a Demand: Black Power and Student Activism on North Carolina College Campuses, 1967-1973 | Michael Welker ## Paternalism and the First Red Scare: The Failure of Early Twentieth-Century Southern Unionism | Andrew L. Craig ## Soviet Cultural Politics in the 1960s and the Struggle for the Release of Andreĭ Rublev | Philip Schwartz ## Perceptions of British History and Welsh Identity in the Twelfth Century | Kelsey Blake x ## Kingship in Miniature: Richard I and the Third Crusade | Anderson Phillips Essay ## Postcard from L’viv | Trevor Erlacher Living History ## Mark Kleinschmidt | Mark W. Hornburg ## Rosanell Eaton | Maggie Howell ## Dr. Anne Queen | Xxxxx Xxxxxxxx ## Isabella Cannon | Xxxxx Xxxxxxxx Book Reviews traces ## Conservative Bias: How Jesse Helms Pioneered the Rise of Right-Wing Media and Realigned the Republican Party Reviewed by Jennifer Donnally ## Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe | Reviewed by Brian Drohan ## Klansville, U.S.A.: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan | Reviewed by Evan Faulkenbury ## Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin | Reviewed by Gary Guadagnolo ## Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908-1919 | Reviewed by Stephen Riegg

xi ## We Have the War Upon Us: The Onset of the Civil War, November 1860–April 1861 and And the War Came: The North and the Secession Crisis, 1860-1861 | Reviewed by Robert S. Richard ## Before Porn was Legal: The Erotica Empire of Beate Uhse | Reviewed by Alex Ruble ## Aiding Afghanistan: A History of Soviet Assistance to a Developing Country | Reviewed by Austin Yost Film Reviews ## Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter | Reviewed by Peter Gengler ## Barbara | Reviewed by Christian Petzold ## A Film Unfinished | Reviewed by Mark W. Hornburg Exhibition Reviews traces ## Out of the Shadows: Undocumented and Unafraid (Salir de las Sombras: Sin Papeles y Sin Miedo); Faces of Freedom Summer: The Photographs of Herbert Randall, Levine Museum of the New South, Charlotte, NC. | Reviewed by Sarah McNamara ## Site-mémorial du Camp des Milles / Memorial site of the Camp des Milles, Les Milles, France | Reviewed by Maggie Howell ## The American Way: Die USA in Deutschland, Haus der Geschichte, Bonn, Germany | Reviewed by Scott Krause

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xiii note from the editors

The theme for this volume of Traces, “North Carolina Politics,” takes its cue from recent political developments in the state that have made North Carolina a focus of national media attention, including the historic takeover of the levers of government by the Republican Party and the “Moral Monday” protests that erupted in response. The editors felt that this was the perfect time to explore the historical background to these developments. To this end, in the Roundtable discussion that begins this volume, five historians who have researched the history of North Carolina provide some historical context to the present. In the next section, scholarly articles discuss the history of school desegregation in North Carolina and the failure of unionism in the state. Our new “Living History” section includes oral histories and interviews with North Carolina’s first female mayor, Isabella Cannon, with labor activist Anne Queen, and with voting rights activist Rosanell Eaton. Finally, the review section includes reviews of a new book on the rise of conservative Senator Jesse Helms and of a traces recent exhibition on the civil rights movement in North Carolina. These features cover a wide swath of North Carolina political history, from the role of race, class, and gender to the impact of modern media in shaping the state’s politics. The editors would be remiss if they did not acknowledge the staff and writers who contributed to the previous volume of Traces, which tied for First Prize in the Gerald D. Nash History Journal Award Competition in only its second year of publication, after earning Second Prize the previous year. The award is a testament to the excellent research and writing that UNC-Chapel Hill students produce, with the help of the school’s fine faculty.

Maggie Howell, Editor-in-Chief Mark W. Hornburg, Executive & Founding Editor xiv contributors Julie Ault Julie Ault is a Ph.D. candidate in history at UNC-Chapel Hill. She studies European and environmental history in the post-World War II era.

Kelsey Blake Kelsey Blake graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2012 with a B.A. in Medieval History. She has recently completed a Master’s Degree from the University of Edinburgh’s School of History, Classics, and Archaeology.

Andrew Craig Andrew Craig is a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill who is pursuing joint degrees in historytraces and classics. Jennifer Donnally Jennifer Donnally graduated with her Ph.D. in history from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2013. She studies twentieth-century conservative movements in the United States.

Brian Drohan Brian Drohan is a Ph.D. student in history at UNC-Chapel Hill. He studies global history and military history.

Evan Faulkenbury Evan Faulkenbury is a Ph.D. student in history at UNC-Chapel Hill. He focuses on the civil rights era of the twentieth-century United States.

xv contributors (continued) Peter Gengler Peter Gengler is a Ph.D. student in history at UNC-Chapel Hill. He studies modern Germany and researches postwar memory politics.

Gary Guadagnolo Gary Guadagnolo is a Ph.D. candidate in history at UNC-Chapel Hill studying urban history and nationalism in twentieth-century Russia.

Lorn Hillaker Lorn Hillaker is a Ph.D student in history at UNC-Chapel Hill. He studies modern German history. Mark traces W. Hornburg Mark W. Hornburg is a Ph.D. candidate in history at UNC- Chapel Hill. He studies modern German history.

Maggie Howell Maggie Howell graduated from UNC in 2014 with a BA in Modern European History. She is pursuing her Masters in Information Science with a concentration in Archives & Records Management at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Scott Krause Scott Krause s a Ph.D. candidate at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is writing a dissertation on the history of West Berlin, 1945-1989.

Sarah McNamara Sarah McNamara is a Ph.D. candidate in history at UNC-Chapel Hill. xvi Anderson Phillips Anderson Phillips is a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill with a major in history and a minor in philosophy, politics, and economics.

Stephen Riegg Stephen Riegg is a Ph.D. candidate in history at UNC-Chapel Hill. He researches Russo-Armenian ties in the nineteenth century.

Robert Richard Robert Richard is a Ph.D. student in history at UNC-Chapel Hill. He studies early American politics, economy and society. Alexandria Rubletraces Alexandria Ruble is a Ph.D candidate in history at UNC-Chapel Hill. She studies German, European, and women’s and gender history.

Philip Schwartz Philip Schwartz graduated in 2014 from the University of Tübingen, Germany, with a double major in Rhetoric and Slavic Studies and a minor in History. In fall 2010 and spring 2011 he attended UNC-Chapel Hill as an exchange student when wrote his article for Dr. Donald J. Raleigh’s class on post-1945 Soviet history.

Grace Tatter Grace Tatter is a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Michael Welker Michael Welker graduated in 2014 from UNC-Chapel Hill, where he studied History, Philosophy, and Education. xvii abstracts ## “Our Problems are Legion.”: The Popular Response to Civil Rights Reform in North Carolina after Brown v. Board of Education, 1954-1957 | G. Lawson Kuehnert From a close reading of constituent letters written to North Carolina Senator Sam J. Ervin, this article explores the popular response to federal civil rights reform in North Carolina after the Supreme Court ruled that US schools must be desegregated.

## The Struggle for Racial Equality in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. | Grace Tatter This article examines the failures of desegregation in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School system after the Brown v. Board of Education decision.traces ## Nothing Without a Demand: Black Power and Student Activism on North Carolina College Campuses, 1967-1973 | Michael Welker Exploring a period known as the black campus movement as it affected North Carolina’s universities, this article reveals how student activists sacrificed elements of the Black Power philosophy as campus officials institutionalized proposed student reforms.

## Paternalism and the First Red Scare: The Failure of Early Twentieth-Century Southern Unionism | Andrew L. Craig This article examines the failures of the labor movement in the Southern United States. Looking at the largely unexamined case study of the 1919 Charlotte streetcar strike, it suggests that paternalistic industrialists and postwar Southern social norms prevented union leaders from organizing xviii Southern workers. ## Soviet Cultural Politics in the 1960s and the Struggle for the Release of Andreĭ Rublev | Philip Schwartz This article explores the transition in Soviet cultural politics that accompanied the transition from the Khrushchev to Brezhnev eras, focusing on the role of the Cannes film festival in international politics during the Cold War era.

## Perceptions of British History and Welsh Identity in the Twelfth Century | Kelsey Blake The twelfth-century writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth provided an alternative view of early British history that influenced the way the period was portrayed in the writings of later twelfth-century authors. This resulted in a new wave of literature in which Geoffrey of Monmouth’s early Briton kings and knightstraces were not only portrayed in a more positive manner, but were re- imagined for the courtly romances popular with Anglo-Norman aristocratic audiences.

## Kingship in Miniature: Richard I and the Third Crusade | Anderson Phillips This article compares the various strategies of command employed by Richard I of England both at home and on crusade, examining commonalities between his governance of the Angevin Empire and his leadership of the Third Crusade army.

## Postcard from L’viv | Trevor Erlacher This essay discusses the past year of historic events in Ukraine, including the EuroMaidan Revolution and the unfolding Russo-Ukrainian war, from the author’s perspective as a researcher in L’viv.

xix roundtabletraces Roundtable

North Carolina Politics

The recent historic takeover of the levers of political power in North Carolina by the Republican Party and the backlash this has engendered, evidenced by the “Moral Monday” protests that overran the state’s capital, have occasioned the theme of this volume’s Roundtable discussion. Politically, North Carolina has always been a paradox, boasting a reputation as the most progressive Southern state at the same time that it has been home to the country’s largest arm of the Ku Klux Klan. The editors of Traces asked scholars with expertise in the history of North Carolinatraces politics to reflect on the unique trajectory and paradoxical nature of the state’s political culture and to place the current moment into historical context. Respondents focused on their areas of expertise, from the role of race and economics to the influence of minority political groups such as the Communist Party or the interests of Native Americans. This Roundtable introduces topics that are explored further in articles, reviews, and interviews throughout this special volume. The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

William Chafe

William Chafe is the Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History at Duke University, emeritus. He has authored thirteen books on modern American history, focusing on civil rights, women’s history, and political history. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Duke from 1995-2004, and as president of the Organization of American Historians in 1998-99.

If North Carolina were a human being under examination by a psychiatrist, the diagnosis would be clear: over the last century of history, the Tar Heel state has been schizophrenic. The first part of the schizophrenia began with the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and culminated with the institution of one of the most effective systems of Jim Crow racism seen in the nation. The “best white people” of North Carolina, from Josephus Daniels, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer, to Charles Aycock, prominent politician and future governor, had urged North Carolina white men to rush to the defense of white women in the state lest they be raped by black men. The result was the Wilmington Race Riot, where whites were urged to “fill the Cape Fear River” with black bodies. What followed was the downfall of the bi-racial fusion government that had reigned from 1894-98, and the election of a new “progressive” white elite who instituted the state’s Jim Crow system starting in 1901. That system reached its sophisticated apex when Governor Luther Hodges introduced the Pearsall Plan in the 1950’s providing state tuition assistance to any child unwilling to go to a desegregated school. It was, one Little Rock observer noted, one of the cleverest ways ever discovered to perpetuate segregation. Then came the civil rights movement and Terry Sanford, the other side of the state’s schizophrenia. The Greensboro sit-ins started a revolution in America. The new governor, elected in 1960, sent his daughter to a desegregated school in Raleigh. He created bi-racial Good Neighbor Councils throughout the state, consulted black leaders, befriended Jessie Jackson, and inaugurated the North Carolina Fund, the first experiment in the nation for waging war on poverty. Education became the byword of the Sanford administration. The state’s higher education system rose to become one of the top ten in the country. Although none of Sanford’s successors exhibited quite as much boldness or imagination as he had – except perhaps for Jim Hunt – all carried forward 2 Roundtable the substance of his “progressive” policies, including Republican governors like Jim Holshouser and Jim Martin. Until 2012 when the state reverted once more to the other side of its schizophrenic self. A new Republican governor, led by a “Tea Party”- dominated Republican state legislature decided to throw away the gains of the previous half century. Instead of expanding medical care for the poor, the state refused federally funded Medicaid support for 500,000 North Carolinians (the state would not have paid a cent for the first few years); early childhood education programs were cut; clinics that offered clients abortions were shut down; taxes were cut on millionaires and raised on families earning $30,000 a year; most horrific, voting rights were curtailed with government issued photo Voter ID’s required to cast a ballot – all in the certain knowledge that minorities had far fewer driver’s licenses than whites. It was a counter-revolution, returning to the other side of that schizophrenic history that had brought such shame on the state during the first 60 years of the 20th century.History can occasionally bring moments of pride and triumph for human rights. But it can also produce shame. That is why the Moral Mondays movement came into being.

William A. Link

William A. Link is the Richard J. Milbauer Professor of History at the University of Florida, where he teaches courses on the history of the U.S. South. He has published widely on the history of North Carolina, including North Carolina: Change and Tradition in a Southern State (2009).

North Carolina is a state which exhibits the contradictory nature of the modern American South. The state now advertises itself as a place unlike any other in the South, yet fundamental tensions persist. In essence, two minds govern the Tar Heel political culture. There is, on the one hand, the North Carolina that has become an economic magnet and engine of growth. There is, on the other hand, the North Carolina that is a very Deep South place. Striking contrasts dominate. From the Chapel Hill coffee shops, restaurants, and bars a short twenty minute drive in any direction takes you into a entirely different world—small towns, traditional values and family structure, and evangelical Christianity. In this light, should it surprise us

3 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

that the state could produce as contemporaries Bill Friday and Jesse Helms? The story of North Carolina is a remarkable one. A century ago, the state was among the most backward in country, with a prevalent plantation system, persistent rural poverty, and undereducation and illiteracy. During the twentieth century, much of this changed. North Carolina modernized under the leadership of what political scientist V. O. Key called the “progressive plutocracy,” a leadership class dominated by Piedmont industrialists. Progressive Plutocrats made a bargain with modernity: they constructed a knowledge industry, rooted in a premier public university system, that distinguished North Carolina from the rest of the South and provided an engine for economic development and widespread modernization. To a remarkable degree, the modern University of North Carolina system embodied a bargain struck by the Progressive Plutocrats. The Chapel Hill campus, between the world wars, was transformed from a sleepy southern campus populated by avocational scholars and rich kids into a modern university of national reputation that attracted talent nationwide. During the first half of the twentieth century, UNC extend its reach beyond the confines of Orange County by building a statewide multicampus system and by applying university expertise to the state’s development. The mantra of UNC as a people’s university became part of the culture and ethos of the campus and state. In return, the legislature rewarded public universities with a remarkable degree of tax support. For much of the twentieth century, as a result, the state’s leadership class proved remarkably adaptive to changing circumstances. The most significant challenge that they faced was the civil rights struggle, which challenged at its core the state’s claim to progressive development. North Carolina experienced a widespread and successful freedom movement which encountered a powerful segregationism—as powerful as anywhere in the South. But UNC leaders—such as presidents Frank Porter Graham and Bill Friday—succeeded in weening the Progressive Plutocrats from their addiction to white supremacy. By the late years of the twentieth century, the Progressive Plutocrats passed from the scene. The mind of North Carolina remains divided, perhaps even schizophrenic, as the balance between modernizers and traditionalists has eroded. The loss of that particular balance in the political

4 Roundtable system carries profound implications for the future of North Carolina. A highly partisan legislature regards the university as the enemy; the cultural capital created is being spent. The experiment and partnership that created modern North Carolina appears, at least for the moment, to be moving in a different direction.

Gregory S. Taylor

Gregory S. Taylor is an Associate Professor of History at Chowan University. He studies and teaches modern American history.

Examining North Carolina’s electoral map from the 2012 presidential election is a fascinating endeavor and I would encourage everyone to take a look. An emergent swing state, North Carolina has some deep blue counties and deep red counties mixed throughout. The colors of those counties have changed over time, with the two parties basically swapping their electoral bases between the 1930s and the 1960s, but the political divide in the state is obvious. Part of that divide is racial and part is economic, but part of it is regional, with the coast, the piedmont, and the mountains each having their own unique political perspectives. Whatever the cause, these divides may help explain the outrage many have expressed during the “Moral Monday” protests: the state is politically in play and activists believe they have real power to change policies with which they disagree. I am all in favor of such political expressions – it seems a healthy and requisite part of the democratic process. As a historian, however, I would offer a word of warning. History, although far from perfect as a tool for understanding current or future events, has shown that power brokers in North Carolina (and nationwide) often have been able to take grass roots activism and turn it to their own benefit. One need only think of the Wilmington race riot of 1898, the Pearsall Plan of the 1950s, or the infamous Jesse Helms campaign ads of the 1980s for examples. In each case, efforts by African Americans to achieve a real political presence were successfully reconfigured as threats to the existing (white) status quo and used to bolster the power of the ruling elite. The model, admittedly, is imperfect as the state integrated less painfully than did much of the rest of the South. The point, however, is that the social, political, and economic elite of North Carolina

5 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

often used Civil Rights activism to stir up popular fear, to undermine the activist agenda, to stabilize the status quo, and to ensure their own power. The source of these machinations is not always race. Indeed, frequently the state’s leaders used the alleged threat of radical politics to shore up their power. As a student of radical groups in North Carolina, I have been fortunate enough to examine the Communist Party whose activism covered a wide spectrum (Civil Rights, equitable pay, gender equality, and free speech). Although the state’s Communist contingent never climbed above 500 members, its demands for reform provided the political and economic elite with yet another means of stirring up popular fears and undermining much needed reforms. Simply put, they could label any reform effort a Communist plot. For example, in January 1929 National Textile Workers Union organizer Fred Beal arrived in Charlotte intent on organizing textile workers. His efforts eventually led to the infamous strike of the Loray Mill in Gastonia in April 1929. Although the strikers’ demands were far from revolutionary, and indeed rather modest (better wages and working conditions), mill owners, politicians, and journalists used the fact that the union was Communist- affiliated to ignore the legitimate demands and stir up popular outrage against the strikers. The result was a failed strike and the conviction of seven strikers for their part in the shooting death of Sheriff Orville Aderholt. Worse still was the lingering legacy. In 1934 textile workers throughout the state walked out as a part of the General Textile Strike. Although Communists played no part in organizing the strike, businessmen, politicians, and journalists once again labeled the strikers Communists and succeeded in undermining the campaign. During the same period, with the state running a budget surplus amid the Depression, politicians rejected calls for unemployment aid, housing or rent vouchers, and free lunch programs for school children. In each case the demands were deemed part of a communist plot, and efforts for economic reform failed as the fear of Communism overwhelmed working class economic interests. The forces of conservatism did not simply rely on the red menace to undermine calls for economic reform, they also used it to taint the Civil Rights struggle. In 1950, U.S. Senator and former president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Frank Porter Graham ran for re-election. His Democratic primary opponent, Willis Smith, charged Graham with

6 Roundtable being a Communist for his support of integration. Smith thus combined popular political and racial fears and used both to win the election. In 1963 the state created the Speaker’s Ban, which prohibited Communists from speaking on the campuses of the state’s public universities. Although the law singled out Communists, historians now understand it as being aimed at Civil Rights activists. Indeed, by 1963 the American Communist movement was in tatters, but the perception of the Communist threat remained real and served as a useful pretext to keep off campus those whose views challenged the racial status quo. Even as late as 1979 the link between Civil Rights and Communism served the needs of the powerful. That year the Communist Workers Party held an anti-ku klux klan rally in Greensboro. The klan responded by attacking rally participants. Thanks to the conspicuous absence of police, Klansmen succeeded in murdering five rally-goers. Although the murders were filmed by a local television crew, two criminal trials failed to convict the assailants. The historic link of Communism with Civil Rights seemed to give opponents of racial equality their justification. The powers that be even used the threat of Communism to undermine speech they deemed threatening. The Speaker’s Ban is one obvious example, but so too is a case from 1954. That year scholarly material from and about the Soviet Union was discovered in the UNC library. Worried that the state’s youth were being tainted by exposure to such material, politicians succeeded in getting the university to segregate the documents, put them under lock and key, and limit access only to scholars who had received permission from the administration. In the name of protecting American freedom from the Communist threat, North Carolina’s politicians resorted to censorship. Indeed, the sad irony of all these efforts is that officials claimed to be protecting the state from Communistic threats by terrorizing the masses into accepting the restriction of both liberty and freedom. What makes these cases even sadder and more ironic is that if we peer ever so slightly below the surface, it becomes clear that such claims hide the real agenda: protecting the power of the elite. The plutocrats wanted to stay in control, and they found Communism a useful tool to make that possible. Their efforts, in other words, were successful pre-emptive strikes designed to strengthen their base and to limit the emergence of an oppositional force by ripping asunder any possible interracial or cross-class alliance. Rather than address concerns about wages, working conditions, Civil Rights, or

7 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

constitutional freedoms, politicians and the economic elite simply raised the specter of Communism. They did it successfully for eighty years, and it seems that the tactic continues. Indeed, it is relatively easy to draw a link between the contemporary “Moral Monday” protests and earlier grassroots struggles for Civil Rights, workers’ rights, and free speech. Similarly, the connection between the current campaign against the affordable care act, immigration reform, the rights of the LGBT community, unemployment benefits, and the minimum wage seems reminiscent of previous oppositional campaigns. Even the use of the Communist bogeyman remains the same. North Carolina’s conservative elite thus have continually stymied social, political, and economic reforms by stirring up popular outrage, often with reference to an alleged Communist threat, and have succeeded in strengthening their own power. By framing it as a battle against Communism, however, they have been able to maintain the façade of progressivism. Confronted with such an extended campaign, the duty of the historian should not be to choose sides in the contemporary political struggle (although I have clearly done so), but rather to make evident the historical methods by which the elite have ruled and to allow the people of North Carolina to make their own informed political decisions.

Seth Kotch

Seth Kotch is Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities in the Department of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He works at the intersection of modern American history, digital humanities, and oral history.

North Carolina’s recent rightward political pivot prompted a good deal of head-scratching among the national commentariat. A New York Times editorial titled “The Decline of North Carolina” bemoaned the shift, noting that “North Carolina was once considered a beacon of farsightedness in the South.”1 Oft-cited political scientist V.O. Key may be responsible for solidifying the state’s image in 1949 when he wrote that North Carolina enjoyed a “reputation for progressive outlook and action.” But Key also

1 “The Decline of North Carolina,” New York Times, July 10, 2013, A22. 8 Roundtable famously described North Carolina as a “progressive plutocracy,” a term that itself is paradoxical, and less famously called out the state’s “belligerent inferiority.”2 One would think that a white supremacist coup such as the one that occurred in Wilmington in 1898 would trouble the state’s façade. More recently, why not the five-time reelection of conservative Senator Jesse Helms? But Key’s estimation stuck, not because North Carolina’s plutocrats pursued progressive policies, but because they marketed the state as socially and politically moderate. William H. Chafe described the result of this process as a “progressive mystique,” a deliberately misleading image that insulated North Carolina against criticism even as it resisted school integration and other social changes in the 1960s.3 The death penalty offers a persuasive example of this jarring gap between image and reality and the way in which cultivating an appearance of progressivism, particularly in reference to the looming specter of the Deep South, took precedence over crafting forward-thinking policies. Since the Carolina colony’s first execution in 1726, the majority of those executed by colonial and then state authorities were often but not always poor, uneducated, mentally incapacitated African American men.4 Many well-meaning North Carolinians pitied these people, but many fewer stood up against what is in retrospect a damning exercise of unimpeded institutional racism. The impact did not fall on prisoners alone; their victims were ranked and valued as well. For example, women courageous enough to bring charges of rape into the courtroom had to defend their reputations, and did not always receive the justice they sought.5 This use of the death penalty would appear to damage North Carolina’s progressive reputation, but on the contrary, it played an important role in saving the state from the disrepute of our more southern neighbors. North

2 V.O. Key, Southern Politics in State and Nation (New York: Knopf, 1949), 209-10. 3 William H. Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981). 4 See, broadly, Seth Kotch and Robert P. Mosteller, “The Racial Justice Act and the Long Struggle with Race and the Death Penalty in North Carolina,” North Carolina Law Review, Vol. 88, No. 6 (2010), 2032-2127. For a comprehensive list of recorded, legal executions in North Carolina, see The Espy File: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ executions-us-1608-2002-espy-file. 5 See, for instance, “Cherry Commutes Terms of Four Robeson Rapists, News and Observer of Raleigh, May 1, 1947, 1. 9 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Carolina avoided being perceived as a lynching state in part because the targets of attempted lynchings were sometimes swiftly executed in order to calm angry white communities. In 1925, an African American man who survived a lynching attempt was tried for rape on Wednesday and sentenced to death that Thursday.6 The result was a gross injustice that, paradoxically, preserved North Carolina’s reputation. When the prisoner was eventually freed from after this unjust verdict, the state scored another image coup. Of the state’s forty-three executions since 1976—a number that places North Carolina eighth, in the same neighborhood as Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina—just one prisoner was executed for killing an African American man, despite the fact that black men are the most frequent victims of murder in North Carolina by a wide margin. If you kill a white woman in North Carolina, you are forty times more likely to be executed than if you kill a black man.7 Nationally, the death penalty is faltering under the weight of evidence of racial injustice and the execution of innocents.8 Perhaps the new legislature’s disinterest in maintaining a progressive façade, in evidence in its repeal of the Racial Justice Act, will have the unintended consequence of dragging the death penalty and other justice issues further into the light of public scrutiny. Future scholars may debate the effect of that paradox on the state’s reputation.

Elizabeth Ellis

Elizabeth Ellis is a Ph.D. candidate at UNC-Chapel Hill. She studies American history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and specializes in American Indian history. She is working on a dissertation on the diplomacy of small Indian nations in the eighteenth century Lower Mississippi Valley.

On April 30, 2014, Gregory Richardson settled into his car for a two-and-a half-hour drive west. Mr. Richardson, the current director of the North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs (NCCIA) and a member of the

6 “Preston Neely to Go on Trial Today,” Asheville Citizen, November 6, 1925, 1. 7 Frank R. Baumgartner, “Racial Discrepancies in Homicide Victimization and Executions in North Carolina, 1976-2008,” unpublished memo, March 20, 2010. www. unc.edu/~fbaum/Innocence/NC/Racial-discrepancies-NC-homicides-executions.pdf. Accessed April 21, 2014. 8 Baumgartner, The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 10 Roundtable

Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe, had been called from the Commission’s office in Raleigh to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte on some unfortunate business. That evening, he would be attending a lecture titled “Cultural Misappropriation: Why Shouldn’t I Dress Like an Indian” and would be discussing the problems of “playing Indian” with UNC-Charlotte students. Just three weeks earlier, one of the university’s sororities had performed a “Pocahontas Dance” for Greek Week clad in face paint, feathers, and faux-buckskin mini dresses, an act that upset and frustrated many Native students and led to the organization of this lecture. It may seem surprising that the state-wide Executive Director of Indian Affairs would take the time to travel to and attend this campus discussion on cultural misappropriation. As renowned historian Philip Deloria has argued, non- Natives dressing up as Indians seems to be a time-honored national pastime. At contemporary music festivals, on runways, and in stadiums, non-Indigenous peoples appear in feathered war bonnets and ochre face paint, and each Halloween children and teens parade around in a variety of warrior brave and Indian princess costumes. So why then, when in North Carolina more than 44 percent of Indian children live in poverty, barely 60 percent of American Indian teens graduate high school, and tribal communities battle widespread diabetes and health problems, does this insensitive college dance merit attention? The answer is simple: public and academic perceptions of Indians have long been an integral part of the fight for social and economic justice for the Native peoples of North Carolina. North Carolina has the largest Native American population east of the Mississippi River and the seventh-largest population in the nation. However, state support for and recognition of North Carolina’s eight tribes is a fairly recent phenomenon. Most of these tribes spent the better part of the twentieth century fighting for state recognition and for the political and economic power that comes with this status. At the heart of these struggles for recognition are the issues of identity and external perceptions of Indian communities. To receive North Carolina recognition a tribe must not only demonstrate a history of kinship connections among its members, political cohesion, territorial control, and the survival of Indian culture, but also external recognition of the group as an Indian nation. This means they must be able to demonstrate that other tribes, colonial governments, anthropologists, academics, and non-Indian

11 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

peoples all believe them to be a nation. In other words, access to political power in part rests on the ability of Native peoples to promote visibility and assert their identities as modern Indigenous peoples. Indigenous survival strategies in North Carolina largely included relocation to inaccessible or undesirable locations and adaptation to life within national settler culture, making them less visible to outsiders and less likely to resemble the iconic Indians in contemporary novels and news bulletins about the Indian wars out west. During the nineteenth century, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians escaped removal by consolidating control of tribal land in the rugged mountains at the extreme western edge of the state. Eastern tribes like Lumbees, Coharies, and Waccamaw Siouans adapted to the expanding market economy by sharecropping, contracting out as laborers, or sustaining their families on small farms. These eastern Indian communities established all Indian schools, churches and organizations, yet as the color lines of the Jim Crow South hardened in the twentieth century, many Native peoples found themselves labeled by outsiders as “colored” rather than Indian. This disjunction between expectations of Indian appearance and contemporary identities of North Carolina’s Native groups caused tremendous problems for the state’s tribes. In the 1930s, as the Lumbees petitioned for federal recognition they struggled with the arduous task of proving their identity to outsiders, largely because they did not conform to contemporary stereotypes of indigeneity. To assess their claims, anthropologists and government officials flooded into the tribes’ homelands in Robeson, Hoke, and Scotland counties, employing the racist pseudo- science of anthropomorphy to determine tribal members’ genetic heritage, and judging their economic status and cultural practices to evaluate the amount of Indian blood that each member had. These researchers had concrete ideas about the color and texture of Indian hair, the tint of their skin, the clothes they wore, and the traditions they held. In 1955, after half a century of fighting for acknowledgement, the Lumbees finally convinced the state to recognize them as an Indian tribe and they gained limited recognition from the federal government the following year. Bolstered by this state recognition, in the 1960s Lumbee, Coharie, Haliwa, Waccamaw, and other tribal leaders lobbied the state assembly to create an office that would deal specifically with Indian affairs, and in 1971

12 Roundtable the NCCIA was born. With financial support from the state government, the NCCIA has worked to provide Indian peoples with employment training and placement, affordable housing, healthcare, and educational resources, and has worked on initiatives to promote cultural pride, preserve Indian art forms and traditions, and raise the visibility of Indian peoples in North Carolina. More than forty years after the founding of the NCCIA, Indian people in North Carolina are still fighting for visibility. The Pocahontas dance touched a nerve with Indian students not only because they found the Indian caricatures hurtful, but because it once again ingrained the image of Indians as primitive peoples dancing in face paint. If North Carolina’s next generation goes through high school and college believing that twenty-first- century Indians wear buckskin and “paint with all the colors of the wind,” they may live all their lives in the state and never encounter a “real” Indian. How can the state work to address critical issues of health, education, and economic development within tribal communities if its citizens cannot see these Native peoples at all? What those on the board of the NCCIA and tribal leaders across the state understand is that the issues of community development and preservation and tribal identity are inextricably linked. Executive Director Richardson’s journey out to Charlotte was not simply an effort to fight offensive costuming, but part of a much larger and longer struggle to rehabilitate public perceptions of Indians in North Carolina.

13 articlestraces G. Lawson “Our Problems are Legion”: Kuehnert the Popular Response to Civil Rights Reform in North Carolina after Brown v. Board of Education, 1954-1957 It was February 7, 1964, and the Beatles had arrived. Landing in New York’s Kennedy Airport on their first visit to the United States, the band was greeted at the terminal by 3,000 screaming fans, the latest instance of musical immigration in an era later dubbed the “British Invasion.” Their song “I Want to Hold Your Hand” had just topped the US charts, and on February 9 they would perform in front of over 70 million viewers on the Ed Sullivan Show. Rock-and-roll’s greatest icons were live on American soil, and “Beatlemania” spread like an epidemic.1 tracesBut February 1964 was not just the month of the Beatles. Beyond the giddy celebration of pop music in concert venues and on television shows, the US civil rights struggle thundered. Early 1964 marked the zenith of decades of inflamed rhetoric, political agitation, and racial tension. It had been ten years since the US Supreme Court had ruled segregation in public schools unconstitutional, but the civil rights of black Americans had not yet been secured by federal legislation. The Civil

1 Ian MacDonald, Revolution in the Head: the Beatles’ Records and the Sixties (London: Pimlico, 1998); Barry Miles, The British Invasion: the Music, the Times, the Era (New York: GMC Distribution, 2009). 15 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Phasellus in molestie mi, eu rhoncus diam. In eu odio sed arcu dapibus dictum. Suspendisse mattis eleifend feugiat. Vivamus ultrices mi at felis ultrices tempus. Suspendisse a quam ex. (Photo by Xxxx Xxxx.)1

Rights Act of 1964 was being debated in Congress, but its legislative fate was far from predetermined. Would southern Democrats in the Senate be able to add crippling amendments after another long filibuster? The opposition was virulent. Sam Ervin, a Democratic senator from western North Carolina, promised one of his constituents on February 11 that southern politicians “will do everything within our power to defeat” the bill.2 Although the civil rights decade from 1954-1965 is commonly framed by signposts of federal political action, from Brown v. Board of Education to

2 Letter, Sam Ervin to Mr. R.H. McLain, February 11, 1964, Subseries 1.11.2., Folder 4359, Coll. 03847A, Sam J. Ervin Senate Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (hereafter “Ervin Senate Papers”). 16 G. Lawson Kuehnert the Voting Rights Act, the most important shift in the civil rights landscape during these years was not political. Lyndon Johnson recognized this well in 1964. On the same day that the Beatles arrived in New York, President Johnson penned a short personal letter to Sam McKenzie, a Superior Court Judge of the Atlanta Judicial Circuit, on the topic of civil rights reform in the South. He wrote that the “task of persuading people to change the patterns of a lifetime is difficult, but it must and it will be done.”3 In order for the civil rights movement to succeed, ordinary people in the South had to change their attitudes and behavior. Even Johnson, the man who arguably worked harder than anyone to secure passage of effective civil rights legislation in the Congress, understood that real change could not be legislated. The American public, especially in the South, needed a change of soul. It is therefore the popular response to reform, not the political response, that speaks most powerfully about the processes and patterns of change in the South during the civil rights movement. This article shows ordinary people across North Carolina coming to grips with a changing racial order in the years immediately after the Brown decision in 1954. Based on investigation of hundreds of letters sent to North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin from 1954- 1957, this article traces the attitudes, concerns, and emotional responses that North Carolina residents revealed in writing to their senator.4 The letters are a window into the white opposition ideology and tactics, the support of civil rights legislation by a small but vocal contingency of white liberals and moderates, and the hesitant assertiveness of black Americans. Most importantly, the letters provoke—subtly on the surface, boldly between the lines—a new understanding of how the general public in a southern state came to terms with the civil rights movement. The predilection toward categorizing the popular response to civil rights reform in terms of a simple, binary metric disguises the more fluid processes of individual and community change that occurred. The popular response to reform cannot be measured only by shifts in political affiliation or opinion polls, but must be traced in the murky realm of popular expression. The

3 Letter, Lyndon Baines Johnson to Sam Phillips McKenzie, February 7, 1964, Box 2, Executive Files for Dates 11/22/63-3/25/64, Human Rights (HU 2), White House Correspondence Files (WHCF), The Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, TX. 4 In the years between 1954 and 1963, Ervin received over 1000 personal letters from constituents on the subjects of civil rights and segregation, and from 1964-1965, at the height of the civil rights controversy, Ervin received another 1000-1500 letters. 17 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

people of North Carolina held disparate visions about the future of their state and of race relations. Indeed, the popular response to civil rights reform in North Carolina form a complicated matrix of often conflicting ideas about the future of American society. This research is situated in the growing body of literature about the public response to civil rights in the South. Among popular civil rights studies, discussions of the white opposition have generally focused on the local or regional level and on opposition within the political sphere.5 While at least two state-level studies have been conducted in recent years on the public response to civil rights, most notably Adam Fairclough’s exhaustive work on the civil rights movement in Louisiana, here the historiography is thinner.6 This article aims to fill this historiographical gap, though it also stands on the shoulders of important research about the civil rights movement in North Carolina, complementing local studies by William Chafe and Charles McKinney. It also provides a broader perspective to David Cunningham’s recently published research on the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina.7

5 Important regional-level studies include: George Lewis, Massive Resistance: the White Response to the Civil Rights Movement (London: Oxford UP, 2006); Numan V. Bartley, The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South during the 1950s (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969); Neil R. McMillen, The Citizen’s Council: Organised Resistance to the Second Reconstruction (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971); Elizabeth Jacoway and David R. Colbur, eds., Southern Businessmen and Desegregation (Baton Rouge and London, 1982); David L. Chappell, Inside Agitators: White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement (Baltimore and London, 1994); Keith Finley, Delaying the Dream: Southern Senators and the Fight Against Civil Rights, 1938-1965 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008); and Jason Sokol, There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1975 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006). Notable local studies include: J. Mills Thornton, Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002); David R. Colburn, Racial Change and Community Crisis: St. Augustine, Florida, 1877-1980 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985); John Dittmer, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994); Glenn T. Eskew, But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press: 1997). 6 Adam Fairclough, Race and Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915-1972 (Athens, Ga., and London, 1995); see also Lassiter and Andrew B. Lewis, eds., The Moderates’ Dilemma: Massive Resistance to School Desegregation in Virginia (Charlottesville and London, 1998). 7 Relevant literature includes: William H. Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York and Oxford, 1980); Charles Wesley McKinney, Greater Freedom: the Evolution of the Civil Rights Struggle in Wilson, North Carolina (Maryland: University Press of America, 2010); David Cunningham, Klansville, U.S.A.: the Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-era Ku Klux Klan (New York: Oxford UP, 2013); Anders Walker, The Ghost of Jim Crow: How Southern Moderates Used Brown v. Board of Education to Stall Civil Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 18 G. Lawson Kuehnert

The methodology of this article—employing letters from the North Carolina public to demonstrate the nuances within the opposition to civil rights reform—represents a new approach, though it comes with some limitations.8 The letters are not necessarily representative. Indeed most white North Carolinians did not express their opinions to Senator Ervin in writing. Moreover, many white citizens believed that Ervin already understood their views and was representing them adequately. As Mrs. L.D. Justic of Henderson noted in the postscript of a letter in February 1964, she had asked “two or three women” to sign her letter opposing integration, but they “said Senator Ervin knows how we feel and will vote against” the Civil Rights Act of 1964.9 Beyond this, ascertaining the sentiments of the black public in North Carolina through Ervin’s letters is even more difficult, as so few black citizens wrote to him. Despite their limitations, the letters nevertheless provide insight into the popular response to civil rights in North Carolina. They are candid, and there is little reason to suspect the

8 Note on quotations from letters: all quotations are in their original form, with their original syntax, including grammatical errors and misspellings. 9 Letter, Mrs. L.D. Justice to Sam Ervin, February 1964, Subseries 1.11.2., Folder 4359, Ervin Senate Papers. 19 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

authenticity of the authors’ opinions and emotions. In addition, those who wrote to Ervin often claimed to be representing the views of their wider community.10

North Carolina in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education When the justices of the Supreme Court convened in 1952 to begin hearings on the School Segregation Cases, later known collectively as Brown v. Board of Education, they understood the necessity to carefully negotiate the thin line between law and politics. Their duty was to interpret the Constitution, not make policy. All nine justices agreed that segregation was morally offensive and should be abolished, but at the same time each of them, from Felix Frankfurter to Hugo Black, knew that a long and established body of custom, judicial precedent, and interpretation of Lorem Ipsum yada yada yada. original intent would make a desegregation (Photo courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) ruling difficult to justify. The court’s 1896 ruling in Plessy vs. Ferguson, stipulating that separate schools for black and white Americans were constitutional as long as they were “equal,” had stood unshaken for over five decades, and at least five of the nine justices in 1952 were unsure whether Plessy could be overturned without overstepping the bounds of judicial authority.11 The internal debates were vigorous, and the court did not reach a decision on Brown cases in 1953. Even after a second round of hearings began in December of that year, it would take six months of argumentation

10 For two of hundreds of examples, see Letter, Sylvia Wooten [Goldsboro] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 26, 1964, 1.11.2., Folder 4369, Ervin Senate Papers and Letter, Mr. and Mrs. Max Gardner [Reidsville] to Sam Ervin, February 8, 1964, 1.11.2, Folder 4358, Ervin Senate Papers. 11 Michael J. Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights : the Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (New York: Oxford UP, 2004), 292-298. 20 G. Lawson Kuehnert and deliberation before the final opinion was issued. On May 17, 1954, under the leadership of recently appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren, the die was cast. Segregation in United States public schools was unacceptable and “inherently unequal,” declared a now-unanimous Court.12 Five days earlier and only a couple hundred yards from where the Supreme Court would issue its decision, a deadly stroke ended the life of North Carolina Senator Clyde R. Hoey while he was sitting in his Washington, D.C., Senate office. His abrupt death caused a small uproar in state political circles. North Carolina Governor William B. Umstead hurriedly considered various candidates who might replace Hoey, eventually settling on Sam J. Ervin, Jr., a North Carolina Supreme Court Justice and an old friend of Umstead’s from their undergraduate days at the University of North Carolina. Well-liked across the state, and having remained relatively aloof from state legislature controversies for the previous six years, Ervin was a politically safe choice.13 By the time Senator Ervin was sworn into office on June 11, 1954, the Brown decision had ignited furious debate across the nation. North Carolina was no exception. In small-town restaurants, on street-corners during lunch break, after church on Sundays, around the dinner table, and in countless other venues, North Carolina citizens discussed Brown. One result of these informal conversations was that from 1954-1957 hundreds of North Carolinians picked up pen and paper and mailed letters to their new senator, Sam Ervin. The mail generally came from white citizens. Almost all expressed opposition to the Brown decision. A small contingent in North Carolina hailed the decision as the greatest advance for the cause of civil rights in the twentieth century, but most denounced it as the most outlandish, foolish, and destructive decision the Supreme Court had ever issued. Within the segregationist camp, few resigned themselves to the decision and moderate rhetoric was scarce.14 Behind the seemingly unified white response was a hidden diversity

12 Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 13 See congratulatory letters to Ervin upon his appointment: Subseries 1.1.1., Folder 12, Ervin Senate Papers; Karl E. Campbell, Senator Sam Ervin, Last of the Founding Fathers (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 82-86. 14 William Henry Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 42-43; Charles Wesley McKinney, Greater Freedom: the Evolution of the Civil Rights Struggle in Wilson, North Carolina (Maryland: University Press of America, 2010), 71-77. 21 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

of opinion. White people in North Carolina talked about the prospect of integration in tones that varied in intensity and were sparked by different aspects of reform. The spectrum of written responses toBrown suggests that the popular reaction to the civil rights movement in the mid-1950s was much more diverse than polls and voting records might suggest, even among the majority of whites who opposed integration. Popular opposition to civil rights reform in North Carolina was predicated on disparate rationales and manifested through a variety of established institutional networks. Although the majority of the white public in North Carolina opposed desegregation, and although the state’s political leaders worked assiduously to maintain the appearance of ideological uniformity, there was no consensus position. Various justifications for opposition to civil rights reform were haphazardly shepherded in an attempt to shore up the bulwarks of segregation and the status quo racial order.

The Opening Volleys of Popular Opposition The Brown v. Board of Education decision aroused voices of opposition across North Carolina. However, the relative paucity of constituent letters written to Ervin in the immediate weeks following Brown is evidence that in North Carolina there was no organized strategy for combatting the decision. It would not be until 1955 and 1956 that citizens across the state began to express their dissent. The letters of 1954 and early 1955 capture the early responses of the white public as citizens came to terms with the first aftershocks of what would soon become a cataclysmic tremor in the established system of race relations in North Carolina.15 Reactions exposed a wide spectrum of sentiments, from the deep racism of Ku Klux Klan adherents to the more accommodationist mindset of liberals. In general, fears of desegregation grew out of old, rich soil, and each of Senator Ervin’s constituents expressed his or her opposition in different terms. But although antagonism to Brown was disorganized and somewhat sporadic in expression, it was virulent. The struggle for civil rights in North Carolina was assisted by the fact that popular opposition was rarely unified,

15 Note on in-text citations: when discussing the geographic origin of letters from Ervin’s constituents, it should be assumed that all cities referred to are in North Carolina. For instance, “Hickory” refers to “Hickory, NC.” If a city referenced is outside North Carolina, however, it will be noted in the text: “Jacksonville, Florida” not “Jacksonville.” 22 G. Lawson Kuehnert

but it would still be more than a decade before federal legislation overcame southern intransigence. As Ervin began his interim appointment as senator in early 1954, most North Carolinians commended him for his immediate stand opposing school desegregation. “We are glad that North Carolina is represented in the Senate by a true Southerner,” wrote a couple from Aberdeen.16 Citizens across North Carolina understood that segregation was a crucial component in the maintenance of racial distinctions in North Carolina. “The subject of Segregation is a paramount one at this moment,” Ira Mullis of Raleigh noted ominously in a letter to Ervin on August 25, 1954, “and I wish to keep informed of whatever developments there may be in the way of circumventing a law … which to me is one of the worst things to happen to the South since Reconstruction Days.”17 A general spirit of optimism reigned, and even former North Carolinians who had left the state hailed Ervin’s decision to opposeBrown . A Mrs. L. W.

16 Letter, R.C. and Gwendolyn Zimmerman [Aberdeen, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 21, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers. 17 Letter, Ira B. Mullis [Raleigh, NC] to Sam Ervin, August 24, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 23 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Ball from Washington, D.C., wrote to tell Ervin that she “sincerely” agreed with his views on the Brown decision, a truly “tragical decision.”18 She was not alone. As one North Carolinian living in Florida wrote, “I want you to know that we North Carolinians down here are proud that the South now has a Senator who has the back-bone and guts to truly represent the South.”19 Malcolm Wade of Folkston, Georgia, wrote, “Perhaps through your lips the Southland may again be heard in government and in party too.”20 Some of the state’s residents immediately opposed the Brown decision because of entrenched irrational fears. One such fear was intermarriage between the races. “If a child is forced to attend school or church with negroes from the early age of six or younger,” wrote a constituent from Raleigh, “by the time they are in high school, they will have become so conditioned that they will not be race conscious and thus intermarriage may result.”21 The opposition was also motivated by the prospect of recurrent Northern invasion, a remnant of a Reconstruction-era mentality, mixed with fears of communism. With the antics of Senator McCarthy fresh in their minds, North Carolina citizens in 1954 were quick to blame any major deviance from the status quo on the Red Threat.22 “The South,” wrote J. H. Cunningham of Indian Trail, had become “permeated with Northern ‘do-gooders’” who inadvertently supported the “Kremlin.” Fearing that division over segregation in the US would present opportunities for communist inroads, Cunningham continued: “The communist are not asleep and any thing to divide us would be playing into their hands.”23 The Brown ruling, fumed Wilbur Clark of Fayetteville, was “encouraged by no

18 Letter, L.W. Ball to Sam Ervin, June 14, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 19 Letter, Charles J. Williams to Sam Ervin, June 11, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers. 20 Letter, Mr. J. Malcolm Wade to Sam Ervin, June 15, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers; see also: Letter, William Catlin [FL] to Sam Ervin, August 5, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 21 Letter, Ira B. Mullis [Raleigh, NC] to Sam Ervin, August 24, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 22 For an example of a letter referencing McCarthy and Ervin’s role in the hearings, see: Letter, George F. Crook to Sam Ervin, November 23, 1954, 1.1.1. Folder 15, Ervin Senate Papers. 23 Letter, J. H. Cunningham [Indian Trail, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 19, 1956, 1.3.1., Folder 857, Ervin Senate Papers. 24 G. Lawson Kuehnert less than the Kremlin itself.”24 Many North Carolinians also believed that desegregation would negatively affect education for white children across the state, lowering “school standards,” as one constituent put it.25 A parent from Merry Hill noted that inevitable “disruption” would accompany any attempt to desegregate the public schools, leading to “harmful effects” and “general confusion.” 26 “We believe if the colored children go to school with the white, we will have trouble,” wrote another constituent.27 However, this fear, predicated ostensibly on the welfare of white children, was not usually explained except in the vague terms of “trouble.” Rarely did parents offer concrete reasons for why schools would be worse off with black children attending, leaving unspoken the assumption that there were racial differences in learning abilities. Without desegregation, as many white North Carolinians were quick to point out, the races would “get along just fine.”28 The various fears expressed at the prospect of integration were quickly transformed into what might be called “ideologies of opposition.” These notions represented the ways in which white citizens justified their opinions about segregation and civil rights, and they composed the mental framework that supported the perpetuation of a racial hierarchy. Together this set of ideas was a potent if superficially disorganized force for opposition to civil rights in North Carolina. First, some constituents justified their opposition to civil rights on patriotic grounds. C.M. Cain of Henrietta, after referring to theBrown “edict,” reminded Ervin to “keep the flag flying.”29 For these constituents, there was an austere glory in Ervin’s defense of segregation, reminiscent of better, older days. “Your statement directed toward the Supreme Court for their infamous decree … is in keeping with our distinguished North Carolina

24 Letter, A. Wilbur Clark [Fayetteville, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 16, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers. 25 Letter, Curtis Briggs [Leasburg, NC] to Sam Ervin, Sept. 8, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 26 Letter, Mrs. John Bond [Merry Hill, NC] to Sam Ervin, Jan. 5, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 764, Ervin Senate Papers. 27 Letter, Mr. and Mrs. Brandon Newman [Leasburg, NC] to Sam Ervin, Sept. 15, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 28 Letter, W. E. Covington [Shelby, NC] to Sam Ervin, Aug. 19, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 766, Ervin Senate Papers. 29 Letter, C.M. Cain [Henrietta, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 16, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers. 25 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

and Southern forefathers, of which it appears you are a worthy descendent,” wrote another constituent.30 This patriotic rhetoric could be carried to extremes. In a February 1956 telegram from a man in Bessemer City, Ervin received the following message: “As Patrick Henry once said give me liberty or give me death so I say give us our heritage and culture our forefathers have fought for and segregation or give us death.”31 A close cousin to patriotism as a justification for opposition was the “argument from democracy.” The popular opposition in North Carolina often assumed that they voiced the opinion of the majority, implying a sort of democratic imperative for their position. As Dr. Murphrey from Roanoke Rapids noted, “I believe that a great majority of the people of N.C. agree with you on segregation, and I know I do.”32 The founder of a respected construction company in Greensboro, H. L. Coble, told Ervin that he was “sure” that his opposition to integration would be supported by the “majority of the people.”33 In a display of overheated conviction, one constituent even told Ervin that he was certain “the white race will be one hundred percent behind you on our present school system.”34 As another constituent wrote, “If I am not mistaken the common people don’t want integration.”35 On the local and county level, constituents were even more willing to assume that their views were virtually unanimous. A couple from Leasburg, writing to Ervin in September 1954, presumed to speak for the “people of the Leasburg community” in their antagonism towards “non-segregation.”36 After urging Ervin to continue opposing desegregation, another Leasburg constituent wrote, “We sincerely feel that this is the opinion of our

30 Letter, Mr. D.E. Gwynn [Leaksville, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 16, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 31 Telegram, H. V. Carver [Bessemer City, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 15, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers. 32 Letter, Dr. W.E. Murphrey [Roanoke Rapids, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 18, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers. 33 Letter, H. L. Coble [Greensboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, Nov. 21, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 767, Ervin Senate Papers. 34 Ervin Senate Papers, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Letter, Mr. J. Cline Chandler [Rougemont, NC] to Sam Ervin, Sept. 22, 1954. Underline in original. 35 Letter, W. E. Covington [Shelby, NC] to Sam Ervin, Aug. 19, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 766, Ervin Senate Papers. Underline in original. 36 Letter, Mr. and Mrs. Brandon Newman [Leasburg, NC] to Sam Ervin, Sept. 15, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 26 G. Lawson Kuehnert community as a whole.”37 In June 1955, Mr. H. H. Brown from Hillsborough commended Ervin on his opposition to Brown and claimed to speak for “how Orange Co. feels on this issue.”38 Local white residents even regularly assumed the prerogative of speaking for the black community. “We believe if the colored children got to school with the white, we will have trouble. A lot of the colored people around here feel the same way,” wrote one couple.39 In condescending fashion, Mrs. Bond of Merry Hill argued without any evidence that the Merry Hill Parent-Teacher Association had reason to think “our colored people, those not moved by outside influences, feel the same way” about the Brown decision.40 Whether or not the black community supported integration is largely irrelevant, as it obviously was important for white North Carolinians to believe that a democratic majority of whites and blacks opposed civil rights advances. A third position taken by letter writers was characterized by an appeal to reason. It is true that some North Carolinians favored opposition at all costs: “Do all in your power to retain our form of segregation,” one constituent from Scotland Neck wrote Ervin.41 But many in the state, especially those who had been privileged with opportunities for higher education, preferred their opposition to retain the gloss of enlightenment. Ervin satisfied many of these constituents with his own reasoned defense of segregation in articles and speeches, but some still took it upon themselves to inform Ervin of possible avenues for a legal response to Brown.42 Others supported plans that would on paper comply with Brown but would in reality evade its consequences. Indeed, progressive opposition in the vein of the Pearsall Plan, which devolved decisions to local school

37 Letter, Mrs. Harvey Winstead [Leasburg, NC] to Sam Ervin, Sept. 16, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 38 Letter, Mr. H. H. Brown [Hillsboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 6, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 765, Ervin Senate Papers. 39 Letter, Mr. and Mrs. Brandon Newman [Leasburg, NC] to Sam Ervin, Sept. 15, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 40 Letter, Mrs. John Bond [Merry Hill, NC] to Sam Ervin, Jan. 5, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 764, Ervin Senate Papers; see also Letter, B.M. Cain [Henrietta, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 16, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers. 41 Letter, S.C. Cartwright [Scotland Neck, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 22, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers. 42 For an example, see Letter, J.H. Burke [Taylorsville, NC] to Sam Ervin, August 23, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 27 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

boards, was not confined to high-minded intellectuals in the state capitol. Valentine Painter of Charlotte urged Ervin to consider supporting a plan whereby each county in the state would designate a “mixed” school while ensuring that that school was in a “negro district.” This would create a desegregated school system on paper, but as Painter knew, “no whites” would “dare attend” the mixed school.43 Unlike the state’s progressive politicians, who either disavowed or stifled more racially extreme sentiments, constituents like Painter at the local level had difficulty restraining themselves from derogatory comments even while proposing milder responses to Brown. As Painter complained after describing the plan he supported, it “seems strange for the white race in this country to practically hand over our hard earned country to an inferior race, a race without courage or backbone or they would not have let themselves become slaves or let themselves be whipped into submission.” Painter continued, “The black race contributed nothing toward the upbuilding of this country. I have a violent dislike of mixing the white and black races. I feel that non-segregation will eventually lead to a race war.44 Ervin himself shied away from such rhetoric, and in his response to Painter, he uncharacteristically expressed no support for Painter’s ideas, merely acknowledging that he had read them. In a similar letter, Dr. Murphrey, a dentist from Roanoke Rapids, after commending Ervin for his stand on segregation noted paternalistically that “we have taught the Negro everything he knows, and will continue to teach him, if he will work with us.”45 As these letters show, it was not uncommon for “enlightened” opposition to coalesce with racial prejudice. Ervin often received encouragement in religious terms. We “hope and pray that you will do all you can to save our present school system,” wrote a man from Rougemont in September 1954.46 Many citizens based their opposition to segregation on Biblical arguments. “Our creator intended that the two races should live separate,” wrote an attorney from

43 Letter, Valentine A. Painter [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 18, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers. 44 Letter, Valentine A. Painter [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 18, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers. 45 Letter, Dr. W.E. Murphrey [Roanoke Rapids, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 18, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers. 46 Letter, Mr. J. Cline Chandler [Rougemont, NC] to Sam Ervin, Sept. 22, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 28 G. Lawson Kuehnert

Carrboro.47 “Segregation is the rule of the Bible,” wrote another.48 Many constituents sent Ervin sermons or leaflets expressing religious opinions supporting segregation.49 By justifying their opposition using one-sided interpretations of the Bible’s teachings, many North Carolinians avoided serious engagement with the moral legitimacy of segregation. During the uproar in the aftermath of theBrown decision, many North Carolinians feared that churches also would be forcibly integrated. A number of constituents would discuss educational and religious institutions together when criticizing integration. “I think we should keep our schools and churches segregated,” wrote a Mr. Briggs of Leasburg.50 This confusion fed the fires of religiously motivated opposition. Scapegoats abounded. Many across the state felt that the racial problem was primarily caused by a few loud-mouthed rabble-rousers. As John Hill wrote Ervin in 1954, “In Durham we do not have much trouble with the rank and file of the negro people, but there are a few who are paid salaries by the NAACP to constantly look out for an opportunity to sue somebody, and these are the ones who are going to create trouble.”51 Others pinned the blame for unrest on the “people of the North” collectively, accusing them of “financing” and fomenting “insurrection,” recalling Civil War-era divisions.52 The final important component of early manifestations of opposition was the argument that political, educational, and social institutions were already supporting civil rights. John Hill continued in his letter to note that “we have spent a great deal of money here in Durham to bring the negro schools up to the level of the white schools, and now the average salary of

47 Letter, Attorney E. L. Shelton [Carrboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, Oct. 25, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 767, Ervin Senate Papers; see also Letter, J. H. Wellborn to Sam Ervin, Dec. 6, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 767, Ervin Senate Papers. 48 Letter, John Sprunt Hill to Sam Ervin, June 11, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers; see also Letter, Ira B. Mullis [Raleigh, NC] to Sam Ervin, August 24, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 49 See, for instance, Letter, Mary Jo Bird Callahan to Sam Ervin, July 25, 1956, 1.3.1., Folder 865, Ervin Senate Papers. 50 Letter, Burtis Briggs [Leasburg, NC] to Sam Ervin, Sept. 8, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 51 Letter, John Sprunt Hill [Durham, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 11, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers; see also Letter, Harriet Cromartie [Fayetteville, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 25, 1956, 1.3.1., Folder 855, Ervin Senate Papers. 52 Letter, Attorney J. Bruce Eure [Whiteville, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 19, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 766, Ervin Senate Papers. 29 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

the negro teachers here is $16.00 more than the average salary of the white teachers.”53 Relationships between black and white citizens are “friendly and agreeable,” wrote another constituent in early 1955. “Why disturb these well working arrangements?”54

Popular Opposition Intensifies in North Carolina, 1955-1957 By 1955, the white public in North Carolina was beginning to realize that the movement for civil rights reform was gathering steam across the nation. While the effects of Brown in the South had been mitigated in the short run by legal gerrymandering, concerned white citizens in North Carolina realized that they needed to “band together” and stand “shoulder to shoulder” in opposition to segregation lest the court’s decision have its desired effect.55 This type of military diction became increasingly common in constituent letters of 1955: in the space of one short letter to Ervin in late Lorem Ipsum yada yada yada. 1955, “fight,” “struggle,” and “menace” (Photo courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) were all employed in discussing integration.56 But what few realized at the time was that despite the organizational defects of the opposition, it was sufficient to hinder and even reverse at times the movement for racial equality. And while popular opposition in 1955-1957 did not become much more organized, it intensified, as evidenced by the increasing number of letters Ervin received from constituents. From around

53 Letter, John Sprunt Hill [Durham, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 11, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers. 54 Letter, Mrs. John Bond [Merry Hill, NC] to Sam Ervin, Jan. 5, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 764, Ervin Senate Papers. 55 Mr. C. C. McKinnon [Mt. Gilead, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 11, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 766, Letter, Ervin Senate Papers. 56 Letter, Octavious Lovin [Rockingham, NC] to Sam Ervin, Dec. 21, 1955, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers. 30 G. Lawson Kuehnert the state, deep fears emerged in the letters to Ervin from all strata of society. “Full scale integration would ruin the South,” wrote James Wood, president of a large peanut manufacturing firm in Edenton.57 The issue of segregation is “uppermost in my mind,” wrote a Mrs. Johnston of Littleton.58 This increase in the strength of opposition broadens the picture of the anti-civil rights movement at the popular level. New ideologies of opposition emerged, and previous ones were given fuller expression. During this period drastic responses to the presumed threat of civil rights advances became more prevalent, often predicated on a fiery regionalism. Any questioning of the southern institution of segregation was immediately transposed into an attack on the South as a whole. The threat of integration is a “very grave situation” for the entire “South,” wrote one attorney.59 H. B. Bradshaw argued in March 1956 that “we have gotten along fine with our negroes in this section and we can continue to do so if outsiders will keep out.”60 The claims of the “true southerners” were manifold.61 Younger southerners were especially energetic. Breck Pegram, a teenager from Lenoir, noted in a letter to Ervin that he had always taken up the southern cause when it was under attack. “When I see nine men and a bunch of Communists (NAACP) running down the South … it burns me up,” he wrote.62 “I am so impressed with the heroic struggle that you are making in behalf of me [and] all other Southerners,” wrote William Oden, Jr., a rising senior at Duke University in 1957. Oden argued that the civil rights bill Eisenhower proposed in 1957 was only supported by “wild-eyed, self- appointed crusaders from the North, who invaded the Southland, swords

57 Letter, James Wood [Edenton, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 15, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers; for a similar letter, see Letter, Attorney Robert P. Bender [Pollocksville, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 20, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers. 58 Letter, Mrs. William W. Johnston [Littleton, NC] to Sam Ervin, February 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers. 59 Letter, Attorney E. L. Shelton [Carrboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, Oct. 25, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 767, Ervin Senate Papers. 60 Letter, H.B. Bradshaw [Fremont, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 1, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers. 61 Letter, Martha Boyce [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 8, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers. 62 Letter, Breck Pegram [Lenoir, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb 20, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers. 31 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

in hand.”63 This angry tone was not uncommon to the letters, which often hinted at violence. “I am bitterly opposed to integration,” wrote a farmer from Cleveland, noting that he employed “colored” people on his farm but soon hoped to get “white help.”64 Integration, said Robert Vick of Sanford, will never work “peacefully,” and could well lead to “bloodshed.”65 Hinting at extra-legal resistance, a man from Charlotte told Ervin that he hoped that segregation would be preserved by “legal means if possible, by any means if necessary.”66 Other North Carolinians more calmly pressured Ervin to support legal measures in response to Brown, including the “doctrine of interposition,” which would have the state claim immunity from the Court’s decision on the basis of state’s rights.67 These outdated doctrines were also supported on the basis of preserving the “good of our Southland.”68 On one level these stances among white citizens were a manifestation of opposition to a web of ideas, people, and institutions that many in the state saw as interconnected and jointly threatening to their way of life. Lelia Johnson of Rich Square wrote to Ervin to thank him for opposing civil rights and “trying to save the South from being held down under the North, Old Brownell, Earl Warren, Nixon, Eisenhower, etc.”69 Francis Hinson expressed his appreciation for Ervin’s “efforts to protect us and the other good citizens of the United States from a positive dictatorship.”70 The first signs of local organization against desegregation occurred

63 Letter, William Oden Jr. [Durham, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 1, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1360, Ervin Senate Papers. 64 Letter, John A. Myers [Cleveland, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 13, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers. 65 Letter, Robert W. Vick [Sanford, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 20, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers. 66 Letter, O. M. Banfield [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 25, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1122, Ervin Senate Papers. 67 Letter, Paul D. Hastings [Reidsville, NC] to Sam Ervin, Dec. 30, 1955, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers; see also Letter, W. L. Totten, Sr. [Durham, NC], March 28, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1124, Ervin Senate Papers. 68 Letter, Mrs. William W. Johnston [Littleton, NC] to Sam Ervin, February 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers. 69 Letter, Lelia Johnson [Rich Square, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 29, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1356, Ervin Senate Papers. 70 Letter, Francis Hinson [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 17, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1361, Ervin Senate Papers. 32 G. Lawson Kuehnert behind the scenes in the North Carolina education system. One of the first instances of this was in Merry Hill, in January 1955. Mrs. John Bond, the president of the Merry Hill Parent-Teacher Association, wrote Ervin in January to inform him that the association had voted to “put itself on record as unalterably” in support of the “continuation of segregation.” Underneath the courteous tenor of her letter, Mrs. Bond indicated that the white opposition in North Carolina was not ready to step aside even if the federal government mandated desegregation. “Whatever happens,” Mrs. Bond wrote, “we will not send our children to mixed schools.”71 This sentiment was shared by numerous white mothers who wrote to Ervin, often showing deep concern for the effects of desegregation on their children’s education. “As a white mother,” wrote Annella Jeffreys of Burlington in 1956, “I don’t think my children are any better, (or worse) than any others, but I do want them to play, learn, live, associate and mingle with other white children.”72 Not only mothers evidenced alarm in this fashion. W. B. Clark, an elderly man from Raleigh, wrote Ervin in March 1957, “While I do not have any children of my own of school age, I do have grandchildren; and I take a very dim view as to what the future might hold for our white children just in case integration is finally forced upon us.”73 Once again, however, there was no communication within this facet of the opposition, even among institutions with preexisting organizational ties like Parent-Teacher Associations. A Raleigh constituent wrote Ervin two months after Mrs. Bond’s letter, complaining that the “PTA in North Carolina has taken no stand at all for segregation.”74 Indeed, although many parents and teachers such as Mrs. Bond supported segregation, at the state level the Parent-Teacher Association decided to remain silent. Behind much of the white opposition to school integration was the belief in white racial superiority. Dr. W.C. George, a prominent segregationist and Chair of the Anatomy Department at UNC-Chapel Hill, drafted a monograph in 1955 titled “Race, Heredity, and Civilization,” which

71 Letter, Mrs. John Bond [Merry Hill, NC] to Sam Ervin, Jan. 5, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 764, Ervin Senate Papers. 72 Letter, Annella Jeffreys [Burlington, NC] to Sam Ervin, April 10, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1125, Ervin Senate Papers. Underline in original. 73 Letter, W.B. Clark [Raleigh, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 1, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1353, Ervin Senate Papers. 74 Letter, Mrs. Walker Worth [Raleigh, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 16, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 764, Ervin Senate Papers. 33 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

laid out a supposedly scientific basis for the superiority of the white race. This paper was later revised and published widely in 1961.75 The arguments of intellectuals like George supplied a veneer of respectability to insulting and derogatory presumptions. These arguments were picked up, watered down, and recycled by local desegregation opponents. The races that have “succumed to negro intergration have ceased to be self-sufficient, aggressive and productive of intellectuality, or advancement in any field of human endeavor,” wrote Lucius Wilkes of Charlotte.76 For Mrs. Bond, not only was the racial superiority of white people an accepted truth, it was such an obvious reality that “argument should be unnecessary.” The survival of the “White race” is “necessary for world leadership, and even for the Negro,” she wrote.77 With this perspective, any reform was acceptable but integration. “Let them have everything we have—even more—but please let us be separate,” wrote a desperate constituent from Winston-Salem. “Why should we be forced to mix.”78 Even when white North Carolinians had the opportunity to make educational improvements with increased federal allotments offered through H.R. 7535, known as the Kelly Bill of 1956, they preferred to lose the funds rather than integrate. White citizens across the state urged Ervin to vote for the bill, which would improve education by providing funding for school construction and expansion, provided that the bill did not enforce or stipulate integration.79 The need was clear. As Carl Galloway, the principal of Snow Hill Schools in Snow Hill, said in a letter to Ervin regarding federal school aid in February, 1956, “We sure need this help down here.” But Galloway was quick to note that if an anti-segregation amendment were attached to the

75 Letter, Mr. H. H. Brown [Hillsboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 6, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 765, Ervin Senate Papers (copy of the Monograph Draft is enclosed in Mr. Brown’s letter); W. C. George wrote more than once to Ervin to personally commend his fight against civil rights. See, for instance: Letter, W.C. George to Sam Ervin, May 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1358, Ervin Senate Papers. 76 Letter, Mr. Lucius Wilkes [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 6, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 765, Ervin Senate Papers. 77 Letter, Mrs. John Bond [Merry Hill, NC] to Sam Ervin, Jan. 5, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 764, Ervin Senate Papers. 78 Letter, Mrs. Carl Harris [Winston-Salem, NC] to Sam Ervin, April 5, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1357, Ervin Senate Papers. 79 Letter, Rozella McLeod [Carthage, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 1, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1116, Ervin Senate Papers; see also: Telegram, Classroom Teachers Association to Sam Ervin, Feb 8, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1116, Ervin Senate Papers. 34 G. Lawson Kuehnert bill he would “not be in favor” of the federal funds assistance, regardless of the need.80 Similarly, school superintendents in Yanceyville and North Wilkesboro noted their support of the Kelly Bill, along with various school boards and parent-teacher associations across the state, always with the caveat that the federal government should have no control over the education funds.81 Constituents were willing to sacrifice the quality of education in North Carolina for all to preserve segregation. Whatever happens, “’We’ the people of North Carolina do not want integration,” wrote Tim Myatt of Snow Hill, discussing the Kelly bill.82 Even white students in North Carolina had become accustomed to fighting for segregation at all costs. In late February 1956, twelve students in a civics class at Snow Hill High School wrote Ervin urging his support of the Kelly bill. Without fail, each of the letters included the caveat that the bill should be passed “as long as segregation is omitted.”83 But the attempt by Ervin to remove the anti-segregation provision in the bill had failed by late March. “In my judgment,” Ervin responded dejectedly to a Lumberton resident, “the segregation question has virtually destroyed all prospect of obtaining Federal aid to education at this session of Congress.”84 Ironically, the strength of the opposition was showcased through the gutting of a bill that would have improved the education of white children. One fear that was perhaps even more deep-seated than concerns about the impact of desegregation on education was that of racial “amalgamation.” Although this concern was certainly not ubiquitous, a surprisingly large number of constituents argued that North Carolina would become a “mongrel area” unable to progress socially and economically if schools were

80 Letter, Carl Galloway [Snow Hill, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 15, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1116, Ervin Senate Papers; see also Letter, Ricky Mooring [Snow Hill, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 29, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1117, Ervin Senate Papers. 81 Letter, Thomas Whitley [Yanceyville, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 17, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1116, Ervin Senate Papers; Letter, J. Floyd Woodward [North Wilkesboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 20, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1116, Ervin Senate Papers. 82 Letter, Rozella McLeod [Carthage, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 1, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1117, Ervin Senate Papers. 83 Letter, Leslie Jayner [Snow Hill, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 29, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1117, Ervin Senate Papers. 84 Letter, Sam Ervin to Attorney Henry McKinnon, March 23, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1117, Ervin Senate Papers. 35 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

integrated.85 The “aftermath” of integration and the creation of a “mongrel race” was feared and expected.86 An attorney from Pittsboro told Ervin that voluntary segregation would undoubtedly lead to mixing of the races. This man, like others in the state, believed that there was a wide-ranging conspiracy, “one of the most nefarious schemes” of “modern history,” headed by Black agitators to eradicate the White race. The intention was the “liquidation of the Caucasian races.”87 Desegregation was the “most serious problem” that the United States had ever faced, for it constituted a “struggle for racial survival.”88 Since desegregation is “inevitable,” wrote Charlotte native Lucius Wilkes in June 1955, the “preservation of the purity of the white race” is even more important than the “preservation of the world from Communism.” As a man from Salisbury put it bluntly, “It’s a case of Life and Death, almost.”89 Opponents at the local level believed that their very identity as members of a racial community would be undermined by the mandate to desegregate. At the farthest extremes, some reached deep into the old bag of racial stereotypes to find justification for their opposition. As J. S. Liles, a “land merchant” from Wadesboro wrote, “We are in for much trouble here if [blacks] are to ride in same buses with white children and go to same schools.” He explained, in as derogatory terms as imaginable, “so many Negroes are lousy, have seven year itch and stink that we will never get along in same buses and schoold, and aside from these three objections many of them are troubled with venereal diseases. Some of them start families of their own by the time they are 13 to 15 years of age.”90 This kind of aversion to integration mixed with health-related fears was not uncommon. After maintaining that there was a prevalence of illegitimate, out-of-wedlock

85 Letter, Attorney J. L. Hamme [Gastonia, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 20, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 766, Ervin Senate Papers; see also Letter, W.E. Griffith to Sam Ervin, July 25, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 766, Ervin Senate Papers. 86 Letter, Attorney E. L. Shelton [Carrboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, Oct. 25, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 767, Ervin Senate Papers. 87 Letter, John Hester [Pittsboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 22, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1124, Ervin Senate Papers. 88 Letter, Mrs. John Bond [Merry Hill, NC] to Sam Ervin, Jan. 5, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 764, Ervin Senate Papers. 89 Letter, E. Rogers [Salisbury, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1363, Ervin Senate Papers. 90 Letter, J. S. Liles [Wadesboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 28, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1125, Ervin Senate Papers. 36 G. Lawson Kuehnert births among “colored men and women” in his area, and more incidences of syphilis, Ernest Bunn of Tarboro concluded, “We just do not want to mix with their filth, bad manners and bad morals.”91 At stake for white men and women in North Carolina was not just the fact that white children might have to sit in closer proximity to black children throughout a school day, but that the arguments that sustained a discourse about white racial superiority would be relegated to obscurity if the civil rights reforms gained institutional acceptance. In a sense, Bond was right. The ideological “survival” of the white race as it envisioned its future, the “life and progress of the South,” as Clara Scarborough of Greensboro put it, was in the balance.92 White opposition could not always be attributed to obviously racist attitudes, however. Many white North Carolinians, even those who advocated states rights, were confident that their opinions on the integration question were without racial bias. As an attorney from Carrboro wrote Ervin: “I have always been a friend to the colored man. The greatest scientist the South ever produced was a negro, at least he was among the great. So I am free from any prejudice.” He concluded, “At any rate I have not been able to conceive just how by mingling and associating the different races in the same school can contribute to their equal rights.”93 This claim that views on segregation could be separated from racial prejudice was repeatedly mentioned in letters Ervin received. Seventy- seven year old J. P. Ashley wrote from Black Mountain that he had “worked with the ‘Negro’ and I want them to have every advantage that can be given them.” Still, Ashley noted that the Brown ruling had gone too far. It has “taken from the white child his rights” and “he is forced by law to go to school or college with the Negro.”94 After urging continued segregation, J. H. Cunningham of Indian Trail said that he believed that the “south is the

91 Letter, Ernest Bunn [Tarboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 7, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1360, Ervin Senate Papers; for similar viewpoints, see Letter, Frank Armfield [Concord, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 12, 1957, p. 3, 1.4.2., Folder 1362, Ervin Senate Papers. 92 Letter, Clara R. Scarborough [Greensboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 21, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 766, Ervin Senate Papers. 93 Letter, Attorney E. L. Shelton [Carrboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, Oct. 25, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 767, Ervin Senate Papers. 94 Letter, Mr. J.P. Ashley [Black Mountain., NC] to Sam Ervin, Nov. 2, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 767, Ervin Senate Papers. 37 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Negroes best friend.”95 Many pointed to various evidences of social and economic advancement in the black community in an attempt to demonstrate that change was just not necessary. Dameron Williams of Gastonia wrote Ervin in 1956, noting that his city had just completed a “modern high school” for blacks “at a cost of some $765,000.” “I doubt if the Negroes contributed, through taxes, over 3% to 4% of this,” Williams continued. For Williams, this was evidence that white southerners were doing more than enough to rectify injustice in the region. “The construction of schools, hospitals, churches, other buildings and facilities for Negroes, mainly by white Southernern’s money, is to me a gesture without parallel in mankind’s history,” he concluded.96 James Cook of Winston-Salem agreed. “The Negro race from every standpoint, political, social, and economic, today enjoys a status and achievement beyond that of any minority group in almost any other country, with some exceptions,” he wrote.97 If local white communities were doing everything they could to ensure racial equality, as they often believed was the case, why was unrest raising its head? Many white citizens believed that the bills were calculated political maneuvers and not real vehicles for justice and equality. This view was expressed by Mr. H. H. Brown of Hillsboro in a letter of June 4, 1957. “I wish all the people in this county could get it into their heads that all these fights for civil rights and against segregation are to get the vote of the negro and not the great movement for humanity and Christianity as they have made many people believe,” he wrote, concluding, “I see no Christianity in anything that stirs up strife and hatred.98 On another front, many constituents continued to conflate civil rights and communism, seeing integration as a threat perhaps even more insidious than that posed externally by the Soviet Union. “I am not worrying about

95 Letter, J. H. Cunningham [Indian Trail, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 19, 1956, 1.3.1., Folder 857, Ervin Senate Papers. 96 Letter, Dameron Williams [Gastonia, NC] to Sam Ervin, April 8, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1125, Ervin Senate Papers; for similar arguments, see Letter, Robert Seaborn [Raleigh, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 18, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1362, Ervin Senate Papers and Letter, Bryce Holt [Greensboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 18, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1369, Ervin Senate Papers. 97 Letter, James B. Cook [Winston-Salem, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 17, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1351, Ervin Senate Papers. 98 Letter, H. H. Brown [Hillsboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 4, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1360, Ervin Senate Papers. 38 G. Lawson Kuehnert what is going on in Russia; Khrushchev does not bother me or any of us people here in the South,” wrote Clarence Stone on July 12, 1957. “Our danger is from within.”99 One citizen simply referred to Brown as the “infamous, Communistic decision.”100 A Mr. McIntosh of Chapel Hill told Ervin that the Supreme Court’s “edict” was the “kind of thing” to be “expected from the Kremlin” and not from the republic of the United States.101 With a bit of dark humor, a constituent from Leaksville noted that he had earlier sent Ervin a letter to his address at “Moscow D.C.”102 The fear of communism correlated with the popular skepticism of agitators and rabble-rousers, the “radicals” who were destroying the South.103 Many constituents viewed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as suspect.104 Some called it the “fomenter of evil.”105 An office equipment supply executive from High Point requested that Ervin “investigate the N A of C P” to determine whether or not they were funded by the “Federal Treasury” or “Moscow.”106 White North Carolinians uncovered seemingly nefarious ties in a variety of non-Protestant religious groups as well. Parks Yandle of Charlotte was terrified of communist and Jewish influence. “Every Communist Front Organization and Jewish influence in all every nation and America is behind this movement to forec intregation on this nation … this same croud is behind

99 Letter, Clarence Stone [Stoneville, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 12, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1367, Ervin Senate Papers. 100 Letter, Mr. C. C. McKinnon [Mt. Gilead, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 11, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 766, Ervin Senate Papers. 101 Letter, Mr. C. E. McIntosh [Chapel Hill, NC] to Sam Ervin, Nov. 15, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 767, Ervin Senate Papers; for similar sentiments, see Letter, John Hester [Pittsboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 18, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1355, Ervin Senate Papers. 102 Letter, H. R. Lindsey [Leaksville, NC] to Sam Ervin, April 6, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1357, Ervin Senate Papers. 103 Letter, Pearl F. McCollum [Greensboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 21, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 766, Ervin Senate Papers. 104 Letter, W. E. Covington [Shelby, NC] to Sam Ervin, Aug. 19, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 766, Ervin Senate Papers. 105 Letter, Pauline Odum [Woodland, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb., 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1352, Ervin Senate Papers. 106 Letter, W. E. Griffith [High Point, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 25, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 766, Ervin Senate Papers; see also: Letter, W. B. West [Lake Waccamaw, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 11, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1367, Ervin Senate Papers. 39 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

the supreme court,” he wrote.107 Three days earlier, Peter Jones of Wake Forest wrote to Ervin blaming “Catholics” for “bringing on” the civil rights problems.108 In the end, it didn’t matter whether it was the Catholics, Jews, Communists, or the NAACP. Whoever it was, they were outside agitators who could not be up to any good. This blame-finding allowed opposition at the local level to flank the claims of civil rights activists, shifting attention to various straw-men. Indeed, many white North Carolinians found ways to use the momentum of the civil rights movement against itself. Constituents regularly turned the rhetoric of “rights” on its head, arguing that white people, in fact, were the ones being divested of their freedoms. This rhetorical strategy provided local segregationists with an offensive weapon, however weak, in a battle that they fought usually on the defensive. “The negro has the advantage,” J. P. Ashley of Black Mountain wrote Ervin, and “we have no more rights.”109 Others argued that white southerners were actually the ones who were being discriminated against, that they were the “persecuted minority.”110 An insurance agent from Davidson expounded on this in a letter to Ervin in March 1956, saying that the South itself as a “minority” had “suffered many indignities.”111 An attorney from Whiteville complained that “no consideration is given to the descrimination being practiced against the Southern whites.”112 Two attorneys in Marion wrote a joint letter arguing that it was becoming apparent that the present legislation was an attempt to “make the whites of the South an underprivileged class, and deprive them

107 Letter, Parks A. Yandle [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 20, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1350, Ervin Senate Papers; for similar views on the Communist and Jewish threat, see: Letter, E. C. Hart [Oxford, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb 17, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1351, Ervin Senate Papers; Letter, Zalph Rochelle [Durham, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 17, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1351, Ervin Senate Papers; and Letter, Kohler Greenfield [Kernersville, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 7, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1360, Ervin Senate Papers. 108 Letter, Peter Jones [Wake Forest, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 17, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1350, Ervin Senate Papers. 109 Letter, Mr. J.P. Ashley [Black Mountain, NC] to Sam Ervin, Nov. 2, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 767, Ervin Senate Papers. 110 Letter, D. M. Howell [Hamlet, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 19, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1362, Ervin Senate Papers. 111 Letter, Claude Forbis [Davidson, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 29, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1125, Ervin Senate Papers. 112 Letter, Bruce Eure [Whiteville, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb 20, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1354, Ervin Senate Papers. 40 G. Lawson Kuehnert of their fundamental rights.”113 As an extension of this argument, some letter writers expressed the fear that Eisenhower’s 1957 civil rights bill would restrict the right to jury trials, a point that Senator Ervin propounded vigorously in the Senate. “It is inconceivable,” telegrammed a befuddled constituent from Greensboro in March 1957, “that a civil rights bill would deny the bill of rights to have jury trials.”114 In a bitter irony, many local whites actually believed they were fighting to defend real civil rights. “Truth and right are on our side,” Dallas Gwynn of Leaksville wrote.115 While opponents tended to invoke “liberty” and “freedom,” and civil rights proponents focused on the advance of “justice,” their claims had equal emotional power. Civil rights in North Carolina was opposed by a group of people who felt they had just as much at stake ideologically as those who pushed for reform. Wrapped up in the fear of outside groups and institutions was a growing dislike for the Supreme Court from 1955-1957. Despite most North Carolinians’ avowed respect for law and order, their antagonism toward the Supreme Court seemed to have no end following Brown. Courts are “sacred institutions,” wrote Gilbert Peel, but those who decided Brown are nothing but “sanctimonious politicians.”116 Arguing that the court was legislating from the bench, dozens of constituents wrote to Ervin complaining about what they saw as an arbitrary usurpation of power to “decree” desegregation.117 Others presented Ervin with legal arguments explaining why the Court’s ruling was in error. The legal minutiae of the court’s decision could be debated endlessly, and some enjoyed the mental

113 Letter, Robert Proctor and E. P. Dameron [Marion, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 22, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1356, Ervin Senate Papers. 114 Letter, P. O. Stribling [Greensboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 20, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1355, Ervin Senate Papers; for some of the many Letters on this subject, see: Letter, A. C. Stephenson [Red Springs, NC] to Sam Ervin, April 11, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1357, Ervin Senate Papers; Letter, C. O. Eidson [Salisbury, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1360, Ervin Senate Papers; Letter, H. M. Yount [Newton, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 13, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1361, Ervin Senate Papers; and Letter, Mrs. F. E. Mashburn [Franklin, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 11, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1367, Ervin Senate Papers. 115 Letter, Dallas Gwynn [Leaksville, NC] to Sam Ervin, May 22, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1358, Ervin Senate Papers. 116 Letter, Gilbert Peel [Greenville, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 19, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1124, Ervin Senate Papers. 117 Telegram, George Ransom [Gastonia, NC] to Sam Ervin, April 19, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 764, Ervin Senate Papers. 41 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

exercise.118 There were even some North Carolinians who had such a low opinion of the Court that they recommended that Ervin advocate for the retiring of the “present Court” in favor of segregationist justices.119 As late as 1956, some constituents still believed that the Brown decision was rigged and that the unanimous decision had, in fact, been closely contested.120 A former North Carolinian residing in Virginia hinted at conspiracy in the Court, arguing that if it “follows its predicted course,” it will unwittingly accomplish the “aims of the Communist Party.”121 Other locals were less extreme in their rhetoric, simply stating that the Court’s “reasoning” was “extremely dangerous to the country at large.”122 Behind the disgust for the Supreme Court was often raw racism. “I had not realized until now,” wrote E.W. Cummings, a salesman from Winston- Salem, in January 1956, “how few requirements one must pass to become a judge on that court. Why doesn’t Congress set standards?” But although his letter was superficially about the incompetence of the Supreme Court, the final lines disclosed his underlying concern. “History shows that no nation has ever survided a Negro problem,” wrote Cummings in apocalyptic mode, suggesting that North Carolina must not “refuse to face” such a dire struggle.123 This transition from a lengthy discussion of the incompetence of the Supreme Court to an abrupt concluding thought about the “survival” of a nation in the face of a “Negro problem” hints at the racial fears that often lurked behind constituents’ arguments. From 1955-1957, religious rhetoric intensified the language of protest.

118 On legal minutiae, see: Letter, Attorney Edwin Hartshorn to Sam Ervin, Jan. 12, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers and Letter, Attorney Edmund Price [Kinston, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 14, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers. 119 Letter, Attorney J. L. Hamme [Gastonia, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 20, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 766, Ervin Senate Papers; Ervin received several letters in early 1956 from people outside the state (Georgia, California, etc) complaining about the court and asking Ervin if there were some way to reform the methods of court appointment. See: 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers. 120 Letter, W. L. Totten, Sr. [Durham, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 28, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1124, Ervin Senate Papers. 121 Letter, J. Weaver Barrett [VA] to Sam Ervin, Jan. 10, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers. The fear of Communist influence was widespread, and occurs often in letters from this period. For another example, see: Letter, W. Crensy Overcash, Jr. [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, Jan. 20, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers. 122 Letter, James Cook, Jr. [Wake Forest, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 10, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers. 123 Letter, E.W. Cummings [Winston Salem, NC] to Sam Ervin, Jan. 1, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers; see also: Letter, Rev. N. N. Perkins [Burlington, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 9, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1117, Ervin Senate Papers. 42 G. Lawson Kuehnert

Often, local ministers were the ones who wrote to Ervin on this matter. “Segregation is taught throughout the Bible,” wrote the Reverend N. N. Perkins of Burlington in 1956.124 But the teachings of Christianity were used on both sides of the argument. In a rare exchange between Senator Ervin and a constituent who opposed segregation, H. Larry Ingle of Wake Forest, religion came to forefront. “Segregation is oppossed to the teachings of Christ,” wrote Ingle, chastising Ervin, “and it is your duty to uphold the Faith that you profess.” Arguing implicitly that Christianity was in favor of “equal rights” for all men, Ingle noted that he was “shocked” that Ervin would oppose a court decision favoring integration.125 A week later, Ervin replied. “The Constitution,” the senator bristled, should be interpreted according to constitutional law and “not according to anyone’s religious opinions.” Ervin argued that according to the arguments of law professor Thomas M. Cooley, “written constitutions are framed to put the fundamentals of government beyond the control of the varying moods of public opinion.” Moreover, continued Ervin, “I have never read a single syllable in the Bible which indicates that Christianity favors the involuntary comingling of diverse races.”126 Ingle replied on February 22, and Ervin ended the correspondence with a curt letter noting that their disagreement was “complete and irreconcilable.”127 A similar exchange took place between Ervin and a minister from Lincolnton a few weeks later.128 The white minister pressured Ervin on matters of justice and equal rights, reaching exasperation at one point: “What kind of superior beings do we think that we are.” Ervin once again bypassed questions of justice and equality by arguing that he based his opposition on “Constitutional law” and not the religion.129

124 Letter, Rev. N. N. Perkins [Burlington, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 6, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers. 125 Letter, H. Larry Ingle [Wake Forest, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 13, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers; other ministers across NC supported segregation as well. See, for instance: Letter, Rev. James Dees [Statesville, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 16, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers. 126 Letter, Sam Ervin to H. Larry Ingle, Feb. 20, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers. 127 Letter, Sam Ervin to H. Larry Ingle, Feb. 24, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers. 128 Letter, Minister Lewis Everline [Lincolnton, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 12, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers. 129 Letter, Sam Ervin to Lewis Everline, March 15, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers. 43 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

It was not just local white males who fought against civil rights in North Carolina. White women supported and opposed integration in similar ratios to men.130 “I assure you that you have 100% support from all the Democratic women of McDowell County,” wrote Margaret Poteat of Marion in July 1957.131 Mrs. J. P. Thornton, the “Presedent of Gethsemane Church Club,” begged Ervin to continue standing up for the “white race” and noted that “25 or 30 mothers” in her club felt the same as she did.132 Women wielded enormous cultural power, especially in local institutions like churches and schools, and their opposition to desegregation was crucial to the preservation of the established white hierarchies. Finally, another group of more moderate North Carolina constituents continued to defend seemingly enlightened modes of opposition through legal argumentation and superficially progressive legislation. These white opponents in North Carolina usually found Senator Ervin’s intellectual and legal defense of segregation encouraging, as they opposed segregation but did not have intellectual arguments to lean upon in defending an institution whose preservation was often morally and rationally difficult to justify. They rejoiced in the fact that Senator Ervin could promote resistance without employing “abusive and inflammatory words.”133 Speaking of an article in U.S. News and World Report in which Ervin laid out his rationale, Dr. Wiley B. Sanders, a UNC-Chapel Hill professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, wrote that he was “greatly encouraged over the strong legal position held by opponents of integration.”134 Other moderate North Carolinians were still dedicated to finding progressive ways to obey the Supreme Court order to desegregate while maintaining de facto separation of the races.135 One constituent noted that North Carolina needed to begin considering ways to slowly integrate, or at

130 For one early example of opposition in the Brown era, see: Letter, Ira B. Mullis [Raleigh, NC] to Sam Ervin, August 24, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 131 Letter, Margaret Poteat [Marion, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 11, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1368, Ervin Senate Papers. 132 Letter, Mrs. J. P. Thornton [Greensboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 23, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1372, Ervin Senate Papers. 133 Letter, G. L. Robinson [Kinston, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 29, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1125, Ervin Senate Papers. 134 Letter, Dr. Wiley B. Sanders [Chapel Hill, NC] to Sam Ervin, Nov. 16, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 767, Ervin Senate Papers. 135 Letter, Jack Hausmann [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 11, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 765, Ervin Senate Papers. 44 G. Lawson Kuehnert least make attempts at integration, lest the state “antagonize the Negroes” so much that they become the tools of “extremists among them.”136 “I believe the southern people have the common sense and Christian spirit to work this thing out in a gradual way if given a chance,” wrote Reverend Don Coffey in 1956. But Coffey noted that if political leaders in North Carolina like Ervin took a hard line stance on the Brown decision, then local people would “follow their lead” and the situation would go from bad to ugly.137 Ervin himself expressed privately his hope that “moderates” and not extremists would work out what he called the “South’s racial problem.”138 The desire to “solve” the racial problem while preserving white power was so strong in some areas that white constituents advocated unconventional legislation. Some constituents were embarrassed by the civil rights controversy and hoped for a quick, “amiable solution.”139 Nine residents of Hobgood urged Ervin to support S. 276, a Senate bill legislating provisions for the emigration of black Americans to Liberia. This bill “would seem to ease the tension” caused by the Brown decision, the Hobgood citizens argued. Ervin did not support the bill, but it was not the last time he would receive letters advocating similar propositions. In March 1956 Ervin received an anonymous letter from a “friend in Arizona” urging support for measures to “scatter the Negroes to other states” in order to improve their economic opportunities. 140 Moderates in North Carolina opposed integration but disagreed with extremists on both sides. “Good relationships between the races in the South are rapidly deteriorating,” wrote attorney Fred Helms from Charlotte in March 1956. “Even in areas where there has been no violence,” wrote Helms, “there is an atmosphere of assumption among the leaders of both races that we are now antagonists where there was formerly an atmosphere of friendliness.” The radicals in the NAACP and the KKK, continued

136 Letter, Rev. Don Coffey [Stanfield, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 25, 1956, 1.3.1, Folder 858, Ervin Senate Papers. 137 Letter, Rev. Don Coffey [Stanfield, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 25, 1956, 1.3.1, Folder 858, Ervin Senate Papers. 138 Letter, Sam Ervin to Don Coffey, Feb. 29, 1956, 1.3.1, Folder 858, Ervin Senate Papers. 139 Letter, C. W. Houston [Morganton, NC] to Sam Ervin, Sept. 18, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1126, Ervin Senate Papers. 140 Letter, Anonymous to Sam Ervin, March, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers. 45 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Helms, are responsible.141 The principles of civility and paternalism were being shattered, and moderates, needing someone to blame, pointed at the “extremists.” Attempting to find some third way that could allow for painless change, moderates failed to realize, as did many civil rights advocates, that halfhearted progressivism was arguably a more resilient form of conservatism than outright resistance.

Institutional Opposition Among White North Carolinians, 1955-1957 Ervin’s signing of the infamous “Southern Manifesto” in March 1956 prompted an almost immediate stream of congratulatory letters from his supporters in North Carolina.142 The tone bordered on flippancy. “Best wishes from the thousands of your fans,” wrote Bob White of Winston- Salem.143 “More power to you, Bub!” wrote J. Paul Stevenson from Hickory.144 Continuing to find security in democratic rhetoric, dozens wrote of seemingly unanimous support for segregation and civil rights opposition. “90% of the people around this section” Lorem Ipsum yada yada yada. support segregation, wrote J. W. Gentry (Photo courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) of King.145 The people of North Carolina, claimed Kenly resident E. G. Godwin, are opposed to integration “now and

141 Letter, Fred Helms [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 22, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1124, Ervin Senate Papers. 142 For these congr?atulatory letters, see: 1.3.2., Folders 1120-1121, Ervin Senate Papers. 143 Letter, Bob White [Winston Salem, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 15, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers. 144 Letter, J. Paul Stevenson [Hickory, NC] to Sam Ervin, April 13, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1125, Ervin Senate Papers. 145 Letter, J. W. Gentry [King, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 13, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers. 46 G. Lawson Kuehnert forever.”146 “A great majority of our people in this state intend to maintain segregation,” wrote a Greensboro attorney.147 “Where there is one against you there are dozens for you,” Lora Lamonds encouraged from Biscoe.148 These grandiose claims were sometimes backed by the author’s own anecdotal “polling.” “I have talked to hundreds of people,” wrote an automobile salesman from Concord, “and they all agree that they will not tolerate integration in the schools or elsewhere.”149 Henry Koonts, a realtor from High Point, assured Ervin that “lots of your friends who approve of your position who have not bothered to write you.”150 Many in the state even continued to convince themselves that a “majority” of black Americans was in favor of segregation.151 Such support was not voiced only by native southerners. In July 1957, Daniel Griffin of Charlotte sent Ervin a letter signed by himself and fourteen other people in his neighborhood voicing their opposition to the civil rights bill, though Griffin noted that “hundreds could have been obtained if I had more time.” Griffin also argued that these signatures represented the attitude of “middle-class” Charlotte, in a neighborhood “where about half the residents are not Southerners.”152 But how was the antagonism toward civil rights reform translated into active resistance? On the one hand, in contrast to the public activism of the civil rights movement proponents, most opponents were content to express their opposition in words rather than deeds as long as integration did not become a real threat. This seeming indifference was feared by more active

146 Letter, E. G. Godwin [Kenly, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 15, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers; for a similar expression, see: Letter, Attorney Allen Harrell [Wilson, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers. 147 Letter, Attorney J. J. Shields [Greensboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 19, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers. 148 Letter, Lora Lamonds [Biscoe, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 26, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1123, Ervin Senate Papers. 149 Letter, W. W. Eubanks [Concord, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 16, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers. 150 Letter, Henry Koonts [High Point, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 15, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1367, Ervin Senate Papers. 151 Letter, James Austin [Elon College, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 27, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1123, Ervin Senate Papers. 152 Letter, Daniel Griffin [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 8, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1365, Ervin Senate Papers; Ervin received dozens of letters from people in northern states supporting segregation and his fight against integration. For one of the many examples, see: Letter, William Hargis [Oregon] to Sam Ervin, March 21, 1956, 1.3.2., Folders 1121-1122, Ervin Senate Papers. 47 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

resistors. “What troubles me about this entire situation is that apparently the rank and file of our White people seem to be apathetic to the dangers posed by this Bill,” John Kerr, Jr., a state representative from Warrenton, wrote of the Eisenhower civil rights legislation. “The average man does not want to think about segregation and civil rights,” he concluded.153 Others disagreed. As H. B. Bradshaw of Fremont noted in March 1956, if integration were actually attempted on the local level, “the white people will stand together to fight this thing.”154 Indeed, there was a sizable element of Ervin’s constituency that was not interested in waiting around for integration to reach their doorstep. A self-proclaimed “almost violent segregationist,” attorney J. L. Hamme of Gastonia noted, “we are all wrong in talking.” Instead, argued Hamme, a “sharp offensive” was the best way to win the struggle.155 “Intelligent opposition is what’s called for,” wrote Martin Allen of Charlotte.156 In hopes of organizing opposition before the storm came, these writers wanted to do whatever they could in their communities to ensure the preservation of segregation. Sara Tiencken, one of five constituents from Wilmington who sent a series letters supporting Ervin’s stand on segregation, wrote that she was “heartily” in favor of “massive resistance to desegregation.”157 Although most local opponents were not entirely sure what their role was in the fight, they were ready to help. “If there is some effective way by which a private citizen can aid in the present crisis,” George Whitson, Jr., a former Commander in the U.S. Navy, wrote from Asheville in 1957, “I shall be glad to do my part.”158 We know that “individuals must do their part,” wrote a Mrs. Yates of Asheboro in February 1956, and she implored Ervin to tell her the “most effective way that small groups” in North Carolina

153 Letter, John Kerr Jr. [Warrenton, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 19, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1370, Ervin Senate Papers. 154 Letter, H.B. Bradshaw [Fremont, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers. 155 Letter, J. L. Hamme [Gastonia, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers. 156 Letter, Martin Allen [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 11, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1367, Ervin Senate Papers. 157 Letter, Sara Tiencken [Wilmington, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 2, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers. 158 Letter, George Whitson, Jr. [Asheville, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 10, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1367, Ervin Senate Papers. 48 G. Lawson Kuehnert could support segregation.159 A man from Charlotte wrote fervently: “I feel so deeply about this question I want to do something (and something must be done) to keep the races segregated.… I will help to fight this to the last ditch.”160 While at first blush it might seem that North Carolina opponents did not protest and organize against civil rights to the same degree as civil rights proponents, a closer examination of the evidence suggests otherwise. Local whites throughout the state had simply grown accustomed to voicing their disagreement through established institutional means. Unlike civil rights advocates in the South, many of whom had the burden of creating new channels of protest outside mainstream political parties, the popular opposition in North Carolina was usually voiced through existing means. Although violent physical protest in the form of lynchings, beatings, and bombings occured throughout the South, in North Carolina local protest was more often expressed through hidden channels that never made the headlines. Letter-writing and political support were two avenues through which local whites expressed their opposition to civil rights in North Carolina. Constituents understood that one important contribution they could make to the resistance movement was to support the positions of men like Ervin who had vowed to preserve segregation in the political sphere. “I am hoping … you will do all you possibly can to keep our dear N.C. segregated,” wrote a Mr. Clontz Sr. of Rutherfordton.161 Beyond this, constituents also worked to preserve the political power of those who they believed represented their opinions on segregation. One Raleigh constituent reassured Ervin that he would be doing all he could in upcoming elections to ensure the senator’s reelection. “I hope you and your campaign staff will contact me,” he wrote.162 Along with written encouragement and campaign contributions, popular white opposition in North Carolina was expressed through existing local white institutions. In March 1956, attorney Angus McKellar of Jackson

159 Letter, Sue Tucker Yates [Asheboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb 16, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers. 160 Letter, Valentine A. Painter [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 18, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers. 161 Letter, Mr. J. K. Clontz, Sr. [Rutherfordton, NC] to Sam Ervin, April 4, 1955, 1.2.1., Folder 327, Ervin Senate Papers. 162 Letter, Charles Holloman [Raleigh, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 17, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers. 49 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

wrote Ervin and two other representatives to notify them that the local post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) had unanimously adopted a resolution approving the Southern Manifesto.163 Similarly, in April 1956 the American Legion Post No. 186 in Conway wrote Ervin to tell him of their adoption of a resolution commending the Manifesto. In February 1957, Margaret Des Pland, the secretary of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) chapter in Southern Pines, notified Ervin that the chapter “went on record” to commend his stand against civil rights legislation.164 Other DAR chapters around the state followed suit.165 Even more frightening was the entrenched opposition embodied in the institutions of police power, local government, education, and media in the South. Jesse Hinson, the sheriff of Wayne County in eastern North Carolina, wrote Ervin a handwritten letter in early 1957 expressing firmly his opposition to civil rights. “It is good to know we (NC) are represented by a MAN. May God bless you through your efforts to keep us white as long as possible,” he wrote. “Time may come when we grow into this mess called integration. But as long as we have men like you and a few others I do not fear. We will never go without a fight.”166 Other city and state government officials also weighed in.167 Even the highest ranking government officials sent Ervin private letters of support. Luther Hodges, then governor of North Carolina, wrote Ervin a private

163 Letter, Angus McKellar [Jackson, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 29, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1125, Ervin Senate Papers. 164 Letter, Russell Johnson, Jr. [Conway, NC] to Sam Ervin, April 18, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1126, Ervin Senate Papers; Letter, Margaret S. Des Pland [Southern Pines, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 14, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1349, Ervin Senate Papers. 165 The Marion, NC, chapter of the DAR also sent Ervin a Letter signed by 22 ladies supporting his “valiant defense.” See Letter, Mrs. C. W. McMurray [Marion, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 7, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1353, Ervin Senate Papers; see also the Sanford, NC, DAR Chapter: Letter, Mrs. Ralph B Jordan [Sanford, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 20, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1353, Ervin Senate Papers. 166 Letter, Jesse Hinson [Goldsboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 21, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1353, Ervin Senate Papers. Underlining in the original. 167 Letter, Mrs. Loy Triplett, Mrs. Mary D. Cole, and Miss Kathleen Cook [County Office, Lenoir, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 18, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1349, Ervin Senate Papers; Letter, George Colclough [Burlington Chamber of Commerce, Burlington, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 18, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1349, Ervin Senate Papers; Letter, Bill Crowell [Director of the Public Relations Office, Dept. of Motor Vehicles, Raleigh, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 22, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1353, Ervin Senate Papers; Letter, C. D. Baucom [Superintendent, Weights and Measures Division, NC Dept. of Agriculture, Raleigh, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 13, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1355, Ervin Senate Papers. 50 G. Lawson Kuehnert letter in July 1957 expressing his encouragement.168 Thomas J. Pearsall, the chairman of the North Carolina Advisory Committee on Education and namesake of the Pearsall Plan, a progressive form of state resistance to integration, wrote Ervin privately in March 1957 commending him on his work to oppose the 1957 Civil Rights Act.169 Even on the local level, education officials encouraged Ervin’s resistance. “Our folks are behind you 100%. If we can help in any way please let us know,” wrote K. A. MacDonald, Superintendent of the Hoke County Board of Education.170 Ervin received similar letters from the school superintendents of Durham, Bertie, Vance, Washington, Alexander, Carteret, and Craven counties in July 1957.171 Local media in various parts of the state was also discreetly supportive of segregation, as letters from editors at the Greensboro Daily News and the Henderson Daily Dispatch demonstrated.172 It may seem odd that the popular opposition in North Carolina was not manifested through groups primarily interested in preserving segregation. But unlike civil rights activists, who had to rapidly develop the infrastructure of a movement from whole cloth, including organizations like SNCC, CORE, and SDS, the work of preserving segregation in North Carolina was embodied in networks across the state where racial separation was an a priori vested interest. And while there were a couple instances of preexisting white networks expressing support for civil rights, such as the Asheville and Buncombe County Citizens’ Organization did in a resolution

168 Letter, Luther Hodges [Raleigh, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 9, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1365, Ervin Senate Papers. 169 Letter, Thomas Pearsall [Raleigh, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 26, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1356, Ervin Senate Papers; see also: Letter, George R. Uzzell [Vice-Chairman of the North Carolina General Assembly Committee on Higher Education] to Sam Ervin, July 12, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1367, Ervin Senate Papers. 170 Letter, K. A. MacDonald [Raeford, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 12, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1367, Ervin Senate Papers; for a similar letter, see: Letter, The Rutherford County Superintendent of Public Instruction [J. J. Tarlton] to Sam Ervin, July 17, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1368, Ervin Senate Papers. 171 1.4.2., Folder 1372, Ervin Senate Papers. 172 Letter, William Snider [Assoc. Editor, Greensboro Daily News, Greensboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 17, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1370, Ervin Senate Papers; Letter, Henry Dennis [President and Editor, Henderson Daily Dispatch, Henderson, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 27, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1372, Ervin Senate Papers. 51 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

they sent Ervin in February 1957, these were the exception and not the rule.173 In the middle-class professions, there was behind-the-scenes pressure to fall in line with institutional proclivities toward opposing civil rights reform. Attorney John Wilkinson from Washington sent Ervin a copy of a letter he wrote to another attorney named Welch Jordan in Greensboro. Apparently Jordan had advocated “surrender” on the integration question, and Wilkinson was livid. “From a lawyer of your undoubted brilliance,” Wilkinson seethed, “I had expected no such sloppy reasoning.” Wilkinson went on in a three-page typed letter to explain to Jordan that according to Abraham Lincoln’s opposition to the Dred Scott decision in the 1800s there were no grounds for the Supreme Court to determine “political rules of action” on the question of integration.174 The economic power of North Carolina businesses also was leveraged against civil rights reform. While a few business owners in the state expressed support for civil rights, most opposed it vehemently.175 After attending a meeting of Charlotte businessmen in which the civil rights bill came up for discussion, A. T. Swisher wrote Ervin, “I have never heard as much concern expressed over the possibility of the passage of any Federal Legislation in some time as the concern expressed over this bill.”176 Even owners in smaller locales, such as Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Barnhill, proprietors of the J.S. Barnhill Furniture Store in Windsor, were frightened by the potential economic consequences of integration.177 Some thought that if a civil rights bill were passed it would “pave the way” for a fair employment law that would be “ruinous to southern industry.”178 This is not to say that all business owners resisted reform on the basis

173 Letter, Ruben J. Dailey, President, Asheville and Buncombe County Citizens’ Organization [Asheville, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 23, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1354, Ervin Senate Papers. 174 Letter, Attorney John A. Wilkinson [Washington, NC] to Attorney Welch Jordan [Greensboro, NC], Oct. 29, 1955, 1.2.2., Folder 767, Ervin Senate Papers. 175 For an example of business support of the civil rights bill, see: Letter, Wardell Bynum [President, Leafhouse Tobacco Workers, Rocky Mount, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 12, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1367, Ervin Senate Papers. 176 Letter, A. T. Swisher [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 21, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1351, Ervin Senate Papers. 177 Letter, J.S. Barnhill [Windsor, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 6, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1353, Ervin Senate Papers; see also: Letter, H. M. Stroup [owner of Stroup Hobby Shop in Spruce Pine, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 5, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1353, Ervin Senate Papers. 178 Letter, E. W. Weant [Vice President, Blue Bell, Inc., Greensboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, April 26, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1358, Ervin Senate Papers. 52 G. Lawson Kuehnert of merely economic concerns. George Wallace, owner of Wallace Fisheries Company in Morehead City, expressed disdain for civil rights not because integration would hurt him economically, but because he feared the increase of “strong, centralized, bureaucratic, and … dictatorial central government.”179 Concern that the civil rights bills would lead to a bloated federal government precipitated much of the local opposition, and many were alarmed at the “multitudinous rules and regulations” that such bills would require.180

Supporters of Civil Rights in North Carolina Weigh In, 1954-1957 Despite letter writers’ claims that “100%” of whites in North Carolina opposed civil rights reforms, the white response to Brown and integration was not quite as clear cut as many North Carolinians wished to believe. As early as 1954, a small but determined contingent of North Carolina residents was expressing disgust with Ervin’s opposition to Brown. Mary Lacey from Greensboro wrote Ervin in June of that year expressing her views. “It would seem impossible that a man of your intelligence, experience, and responsibility could fail to go along with the justice, decency, and, more succinctly, democracy promoted by this long overdue decision,” she wrote. “As a citizen of North Carolina I plead with you to support the great number of courageous people in this state who believe that the time is ‘now’ to make democracy real.”181 Ervin often engaged in dialogue with the constituents who opposed him, and responded to Lacey’s letter with a three-page reply expressing his views on the Constitution, arguing that the Brown decision is “one of many decisions” in which the “powers of the state” had been eviscerated by the Supreme Court. He closed by saying, “I know that you are absolutely honest in your views on this matter, and I hope that you may be able to indulge a similar assumption as to me.”182

179 Letter, George Wallace [Morehead City, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 11, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1367, Ervin Senate Papers. 180 Letter, Joseph Thebault [Raleigh, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 20, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1353, Ervin Senate Papers. 181 Letter, Mary Frances Lacey [Greensboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 11, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers. 182 Letter, Sam Ervin to Mary Frances Lacey on June 15, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 278, Ervin Senate Papers. 53 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

After Ervin’s decision to sign the Southern Manifesto, not every letter was congratulatory. As J. Welch Harriss, the President of a Hosiery Mill in High Point explained, “I am sure the segregationists have put pressure on you and I wrote you to let you know that all your constituents do not feel that way, that at least some of us in North Carolina agree with the majority in Congress and the majority of the people of the United States of America.”183 More liberal constituents in Chapel Hill and Durham also expressed dissatisfaction with Ervin’s stand.184 Dr. T. Franklin Williams of Chapel Hill and his wife, Catharine Williams, wrote Ervin on March 15, 1956, noting that they were “severely disappointed” in Ervin’s decision to sign the Manifesto, a document endorsing what they understood to be a “resistive, inflammatory stand” on the issues of segregation.185 Students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University expressed their dismay at the Manifesto, and a professor of economics at Duke noted his “deep concern” and “disapproval.”186 It is notable that Ervin responded to the few letters that disagreed with his stances in early 1956 using a stock form reply.187 He reduced many of these letters to the supposedly implicit question of whether “religion” should interpret the Constitution or “the principles of Constitutional law,” despite the fact that the letters he was responding to often disagreed with him not

183 Letter, J. Welch Harriss [High Point, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 13, 1956, 1.3.2, Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers. 184 As an important caveat, it should be noted that many constituents from Durham and Chapel Hill did not support civil rights reform. For one of many letters evidencing this, see: Letter, W. L. Totten, Sr. [Durham, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 17, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1126, Ervin Senate Papers. 185 Letter, Dr. and Mrs. Franklin Williams [Chapel Hill, NC], March 15, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers. 186 Letter, Eugene Spake [Chapel Hill, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 16, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1123, Ervin Senate Papers; Letter, Walter Benjamin [Durham, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 26, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1124, Ervin Senate Papers; Letter, Professor Edward C. Simmons [Durham, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 12, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1123, Ervin Senate Papers; for similar viewpoints, see: Letter, Professor Creighton Lacy [Duke Univ., Durham, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 26, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1123, Ervin Senate Papers and Letters, Dr. H. Shelton Smith [Duke University, Durham, NC) to Sam Ervin and Sam Ervin to Dr. H. Shelton Smith, March 30-April 11, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1125, Ervin Senate Papers. 187 This is not the case across the board, however. See, for instance, Ervin’s dialogue with Ada M. Fields [Guilford College, NC] in 1.3.2., Folder 1123, Ervin Senate Papers. 54 G. Lawson Kuehnert on religious grounds but on political, moral, or economic grounds.188 This tendency in 1956 smoothed over the underlying tension, for “religion” and “Constitutional law” hid underlying differences in beliefs. Other constituents in this period pressed Ervin on the segregation question, and he sometimes recoiled into silence. “You have been quoted as wanting to give the south a chance to work out its own race relations,” wrote Lloyd Tyler of Raleigh, but “nowhere have I seen any statement by you that you were interested in doing anything but maintain the status quo.” Tyler concluded his letter by asking Ervin what he saw as the “future ideal race relations, particularly as they differ from what we have today.” In a curt reply, Ervin ignored the question completely, which was extremely rare for a man who meticulously read and responded to every letter he received.189 Tyler was not the only constituent who received such a response.190 Religious rhetoric was not entirely one-sided either. General Hugh B. Hester, an Army Brigadier General from Hester who had graduated with Ervin from UNC-Chapel Hill, wrote Ervin a six-page letter in June 1954 expressing his unease because of North Carolina Governor Bill Umstead’s position. “[Umstead’s] attitude about the Segregation Decision is harmful in the extreme and reflects only discredit on the State, the nation, and Christianity,” began Hester. “How he can pose as either a Christian or civilized person is beyond my comprehension. God does not recognize segregation and for man to do so merely destroys his relationship with God.”191 Similarly, a Presbyterian pastor from Stanfield wrote Ervin in February 1956 and explained that the two congregations he served had been “discussing the matter of segregation.” In one of the congregations, the reverend noted, the members held a vote as to whether they would allow a black person to enter the congregation “if he was a sincere Christian.” The

188 For an example of this form letter, see: Letter, Sam Ervin to Rev. Robin Scroggs [Ohio], March 16, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers; for letters of opposition on this point, see: Letter, J. Welch Harriss [High Point, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 13, 1956, 1.3.2, Folder 1120, Ervin Senate Papers and Letter, Joseph Lichty [Greensboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 18, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers. 189 Letter exchange between Lloyd P. Tyler [Raleigh, NC] and Sam Ervin, March 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers. 190 See letter exchange between Edwin Hoffman [Black Mountain., NC] and Sam Ervin, March 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers; and letter exchange between Dr. Louis Round Wilson [Chapel Hill, NC] and Sam Ervin, March 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers. 191 Letter, General Hugh B. Hester [Hester, NC] to Sam Ervin, June 11, 1954, 1.1.2., Folder 279, Ervin Senate Papers. 55 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

vote was “almost unanimous” in favor of admission.192 When the Eisenhower civil rights bill reached the Senate in 1957, some North Carolinians hoped to ensure that Ervin received a balanced reaction from his constituency. “I should like to remind you that there is a sizable element in our State’s population who approves” of the civil rights bill, noted Belton Joyner, a twenty-one year old “southerner” from Siler City.193 Susan Gowers of Durham even accused Ervin of misrepresenting his constituents. “I believe you have mistaken the intent and feeling of thinking people of this state on matters that concern the Negro,” she wrote in 1957.194 Even among North Carolinians who generally supported segregation, some decided to set aside personal convictions to respect the rule of law. Dorothy Avery of Southern Pines wrote of her profound “disappointment” that Ervin would support a “plan to flout the edicts” of the Supreme Court. She noted that even though she “heartily” believed in segregation, she felt that once the decision was made it should be respected.195 A constituent from Winston-Salem, Lewis Kanoy, describing himself as a “white” man with “two children in school,” told Ervin that he was encouraging disrespect for the law by signing the Manifesto.196 In the exchange of letters that followed, Kanoy chided Ervin: let us have “no abridgement of Human rights in the name of States rights,” he wrote. Others were incensed by incidents of resistance elsewhere, and begged Ervin not to encourage such a course of action. Earl Howell of Carrboro lashed out in February1956 at the “outburst of barbarism” against Autherine Lucy, the first black student to attend the University of Alabama. Howell argued that respect for the “supreme law of our land” should override any racial preferences. It is a “stringent insult to me personally,” wrote Howell,

192 Letter, Rev. Don Coffey [Stanfield, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 25, 1956, 1.3.1, Folder 858, Ervin Senate Papers. 193 Letter, Belton Joyner [Siler City, NC] to Sam Ervin, July 13, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1368, Ervin Senate Papers. 194 Letter, Susan Gowers [Durham, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 20, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1354, Ervin Senate Papers; see also: Letter, Edward Flaccus [Durham, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb 14, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1348, Ervin Senate Papers. 195 Letter, Dorothy H. Avery [Southern Pines, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 17, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1123, Ervin Senate Papers. 196 Letter, Lewis Kanoy [Winston-Salem, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 15, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1124, Ervin Senate Papers. 56 G. Lawson Kuehnert that this “deplorable incident” should occur on United States soil.197 In an interesting nuance to the white response to civil rights legislation, some constituents in North Carolina were torn between their desire to see integration occur and the prospect of federal government intervention. Winston Broadfoot of Wilmington wrote Ervin that he was “positively interested in civil rights” but that he also had a “strong doubt that the coercive power of the government should be brought to bear to secure such rights.”198 Broadfoot exemplifies the conflicting ideologies of those North Carolinians who supported equality for black Americans but whose political beliefs about the separation of powers kept them from supporting federal intervention. The white response to the early civil rights movement in 1950s North Carolina cannot be generalized as mere opposition. While a relatively small percentage of white citizens in the state supported integration, this cadre was vocal and invested in civil rights reform. These citizens eventually played a crucial role as the vanguard of a later move toward moderation in the white public response.

Conclusion

“Can it be that we never learn from history? Fifty to a hundred years from now, our descendents will look back upon many of the pronouncements by the Citizen’s Councils, Patriot Groups, etc., and wonder how supposedly educated people could be so blind.”199

Walter Benjamin to Sam Ervin, March 26, 1956

“Our Problems are Legion,” Fred Helms of Charlotte wrote in March 1956, “and our solutions thus far are few.”200 From 1954 to 1957 the popular

197 Letter, Earl G. Howell [Hillsboro, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 9, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1119, Ervin Senate Papers. 198 Letter, Winston Broadfoot [Wilmington, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 20, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1352, Ervin Senate Papers. 199 Letter, Walter W. Benjamin [Durham, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 26, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1124, Ervin Senate Papers. 200 Letter, Fred Helms [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 22, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1124, Ervin Senate Papers. 57 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

opposition movement in North Carolina had waxed and waned, growing in intensity but still lacking coherent direction. But the period also prepared white North Carolinians for the larger struggles ahead. By the time Eisenhower had proposed a civil rights program in 1956, constituents were calling it an “outrage.”201 As the papers across North Carolina heated up with controversy over the proposed 1957 civil rights bill, constituents encouraged Ervin to represent their interest in segregation. “Fight on,” wrote a Dr. Williams of Monroe.202 Thank you for “carrying on our fight for the South,” wrote Hermon Harrell of Rocky Mount, “we are all depending on you.”203 Even those outside the state joined the chorus. “You are fighting a good battle for your people,” wrote Margarat Sullinger of Memphis, TN.204 Despite some letters of support for civil rights legislation, Ervin knew from the dozens of letters he received monthly that he had a mandate from his constituency to oppose civil rights as stringently as possible. Dr. E. R. Tyler, a skin doctor from Durham, said that he could “assure” Ervin that his “constituency here in North Carolina” was backing him “100 per cent.”205 “The people back home are squarely behind you,” wrote Annie Joslin of Raleigh. L. W. Bishop, a Charlotte banker, wrote, “The least I can say is that your good people back here are back of you 100%.”206 Although the civil rights legislation would be passed in September 1957, the work of Ervin and other southern politicians ensured that it would do very little damage to the racial establishment in the South. Few saw this as problematic. After all, North Carolina did not need Eisenhower’s legislation, wrote James Malone of Louisburg, for “relations between the

201 Letter, W. L. Totten, Sr. [Durham, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 28, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1124, Ervin Senate Papers. 202 Letter, Dr. Williams [Monroe, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 18, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1349, Ervin Senate Papers. 203 Letter, Hermon Harrell [Rocky Mount, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 18, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1349, Ervin Senate Papers. Underline in the original. 204 Letter, Margaret Sullinger [Memphis, TN] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 18, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1349, Ervin Senate Papers. 205 Letter, E. R. Tyler [Durham, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 18, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1349, Ervin Senate Papers. 206 Letter, Annie Joslin [Raleigh, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 17, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1349, Ervin Senate Papers; Letter, L.W. Bishop [Charlotte, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 18, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1350, Ervin Senate Papers; similar sentiments were expressed in dozens of letters from constituents in early 1957. 58 G. Lawson Kuehnert two races in Franklin County for many years has been friendly.”207 Pauline Odum of Woodland, sticking to general platitudes, said earnestly, “In all my life I never heard of a child of any race or color being denied the chance of an education.”208 Illustrating the blind paternalism of the era, H. L. Rudolph of Asheville sent this explanation of his opposition: “Although I have lived amicably with Negroes all my life and have one doing my laundry at the present time, I cannot agree with the direction of the policy of the N.A.A.C.P. and its allies in recent years.”209 The popular response in North Carolina to civil rights was never uniform. There was incredible diversity even among those who are categorized in hindsight as racists. Some were considered liberal Democrats, often well- educated and interested in a more moderate, progressive response to the integration “threat,” and others were uneducated citizens who could barely express their opposition on paper. “We the people of Guildford county dont want no segregation in the school of north carolina,” scribbled one man in 1956.210 But while the expressions of opposition ranged along a broad spectrum, all opponents agreed that civil rights advances on any scale were an unacceptable threat to the status quo. As local whites gradually encountered the turbulent era of civil rights legislative reform in the late 1950s, this understood commonality united white North Carolinians of all classes in a firm posture of resistance. Like an army with no general, the popular opposition across the state discovered various means of resistance, throwing up breastworks here and there in an attempt to stymie the advance of racial equality. Still, in the distance, and growing louder by the minute, the advancing drums of civil rights reform were beating steadily.

207 Letter, James Malone [Louisburg, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb. 26, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1350, Ervin Senate Papers. 208 Letter, Pauline Odum [Woodland, NC] to Sam Ervin, Feb., 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1352, Ervin Senate Papers. 209 Letter, H. L. Rudolph [Asheville, NC] to Sam Ervin, May 21, 1957, 1.4.2., Folder 1358, Ervin Senate Papers. 210 Letter, Walter Cox [Guilford College, NC] to Sam Ervin, March 13, 1956, 1.3.2., Folder 1121, Ervin Senate Papers. 59 Grace Tatter The Struggle for Racial Equality in the South: A Case Study of the Desegregation of Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools

I started elementary school in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1997. Two years before, the local school system scrapped a rigorous desegregation pupil assignment plan that a former school board implemented under federal pressure in 1971, when the Supreme Court ruled in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education that federal judges could order the use of busing to achieve racially balanced schools. My schooling therefore bore few visible signs of the struggle for racially mixed schools during the desegregation era. In fact, I attended largely segregated schools, and although the curriculum included unitstraces about the civil rights movement, I do not remember anyone discussing school desegregation. Nor do I recall discussing racial inequality in schooling. However, as I was graduating, the national news media began grappling with the “achievement gap” between white and black students on standardized tests, which were used increasingly following passage in 2000 of the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal school accountability legislation. In 2004, the courts reconsidered the legality of affirmative action in university admissions. By confirming its necessity, they signaled that primary and secondary schools were still 60 Grace Tatter

unequally preparing students for college and careers. At the same time, the wave of civil rights movement scholarship and media coverage of the topic that began in the 1990s was cresting. From 1987 to 1990, millions of Americans tuned in to the PBS documentary series Eyes on the Prize, about civil rights activism. In 2000, schoolchildren watched Remember the Titans, a film about a newly biracial high school football team in Alexandria, Virginia. Later, book clubs across the country discussed the bestselling 2009 novel The Help, about black domestic workers in the twilight of Jim Crow. Other books and films have continued to make the civil rights movement an object of discussion. And yet, the connection between today’s failing schools and the

61 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

incompleteness of the civil rights movement is rarely drawn. By ignoring the continuity between events from the 1950s and 1960s to today, an opportunity is lost for understanding and addressing the challenges of our time. In the essay “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past,” Jacquelyn Dowd Hall argues that “the dominant narrative of the civil rights movement—distilled from history and memory, twisted by ideology and political contestation, and embedded in heritage tours, museums, public rituals, textbooks, and various artifacts of mass culture—distorts and suppresses as much as it reveals.”1 This article responds to Hall’s critique by exploring a repressed topic, revisiting the promise of Brown v. Board of Education, which declared segregated schools to be “inherently unequal,” and its limited fulfillment in the Chapel Hill- Carrboro city school system. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro city school system makes a good case study for several reasons. First, the story of this school system illuminates broader national themes, while revealing the intricacies of human interactions at the local level. As William Henry Chafe writes, it is important to examine “the story of social change from the point of view of people in local communities, where the struggle for civil rights [is] a continuing reality, year in and year out.”2 Secondly, Chapel Hill provides a particularly good vantage point for examining race in schooling. Because of its progressive image, the town highlights the extensive reach of institutionalized racism in all communities and underscores the persistence of inequality in our “post-racial” society. For decades educators had assumed that the Brown decision meant that they should help black students identify with white students, writes F. Michael Higginbotham in Ghosts of Jim Crow. “The Court held the view that the harm from segregation could be undone by simply providing blacks with an opportunity to associate with ‘the right’ whites, regardless of the prejudices those whites exhibited against blacks,” he writes.3 Chapel Hill’s experience illustrates the failure of the Court’s logic: merely placing people in the same school building does not translate to equal schooling for all. Finally, though desegregation in Chapel Hill in the 1950’s-1960’s was far

1 Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past,” Journal of American History 91, no. 4 (2005): 1233. 2 William H. Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black Struggle for Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 3. 3 F. Michael Higginbotham, Ghosts of Jim Crow: Ending Racism in Post-Racial America (New York: New York University Press, 2013), 28. 62 Grace Tatter from an uncontentious process, in later decades the school system became more innovative than most at combatting racism in its schools, offering valuable instruction for other communities on what policies work.

Resistance to Desegregation Persists Of all the days in 1969 to stage a protest, black students at the new Chapel Hill High School chose the day that the state accreditation committee was evaluating the school—much to the amusement of Sam Holton, a school board member at the time. Accounts of the protest vary, but it is certain that it began over the school’s failure to appoint black junior marshals and ended with one hundred black students self-barricaded in the lobby, as teachers and white students stayed behind locked classroom doors for safety.4 Through bouts of wheezing laughter, Holton recalled in a 2001 interview how committee members from Charlotte and Wilmington turned up their noses at the disruption in Chapel Hill, declaring that such a scene would never happen in their schools. Years later, both of these communities would face much more drama over school desegregation than Chapel Hill ever did.5 In Chapel Hill, North Carolina’s self-styled liberal oasis, full desegregation predated the federal mandates of the 1970s, a project of collaboration between the white and black communities. Holton recalls tension and disagreement, especially over the dismantling of the black schools, Northside Elementary and Lincoln High, but also triumph, and even comedy. He acknowledged that school desegregation in Chapel Hill was not always a smooth process, but in his view it was one with a happy ending. Fran Jackson graduated from Chapel High School a year before the 1969 protest. She and many others refer to it as a riot. In a 2001 interview in which she discusses desegregation in Chapel Hill, there’s no laugher in her voice, only frustration. As a child, she was one of the first black students at Chapel Hill’s Phillips Middle School. Her parents paid for a taxi to take her and her sisters to school each day, since there was no transportation from Northside,

4 John Michael McElreath, “The Cost of Opportunity: School Desegregation and Changing Race Relations in the Triangle Since World War II” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2001), 480. 5 Jenny Lynn Matthews, interview by Samuel Holton, Southern Oral History Program, March 28, 2011. 63 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

the black neighborhood of Chapel Hill.6 Jackson was bright. She would go on to become a college professor, focusing on diversity in education, but she hated school, and so did her sisters. One sister, Charlene, now a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, did not even bother to attend high school graduation.7 Fran vowed never to attend a white institution again. She graduated from North Carolina Agriculture and Technical University and teaches at North Carolina Central University, both historically black institutions. Chapel Hill was considered a paragon of progressivism in the South, and in many ways it offered ideal conditions for integration: the white community was overwhelmingly educated and liberal, and the school system was so small that busing was relatively painless. At the same time, the black community was small enough that white parents were not threatened by introduction of black students into white schools. And yet, the period between Brown v. Board of Education and the 1970s laid the groundwork for new forms of institutionalized racism. In high school history books, school desegregation is presented as the triumphant ending of the struggle for civil rights. In reality, it just made barriers to civil rights for racial minorities more difficult to identify. The story of desegregation in Chapel Hill is far less contentious and violent than the stories of many other communities in North Carolina and the South, and yet school desegregation is the root of the persistent racial issues in Chapel Hill-Carrboro city schools. During the desegregation era, many black parents realized that, due to the entrenched white power underlying American institutions, their children could receive a better education only if they went to school with white students. But truly integrated schools were impossible because of the disconnect between the expectations of black parents and what the terms of inclusion for their children turned out to be. For white residents, Chapel Hill in the late 1950s seemed idyllic. The town had 12,573 residents, most of whom were white university students with youthful vigor and money to spend on the town’s main thoroughfare, Franklin Street. Of the small permanent population, 1,290 were black and

6 Christa Broadnax, interview by Frank Jackson, Southern Oral History Project, March 23, 2001. 7 Charlene Regeser, interview by Susan Upton, Southern Oral History Collection, Feb. 23, 2001. 64 Grace Tatter

2,300 were white.8 Terry Sanford, who served as governor of North Carolina from 1961 to 1965, called it “the most progressive community” in the most progressive Southern state.9 In the early 1950s, Chapel Hill had upheld its commitment to “separate but equal” facilities by spending more than $200,000 on a new black high school. Blacks also were permitted to use the university’s facilities, including libraries, and tennis and basketball courts.10 But despite its surface niceties, Chapel Hill was “just like anywhere else in Dixie,” wrote Robert Seymour, a white Southern Baptist minister who arrived in the town in 1959. Although blacks made up more than 35 percent of the permanent population, there was not a single black “manager, official,” or “proprietor” in the Chapel Hill area, and only 44 of 1,721 “professional, technical, and kindred workers” were black. Black families typically earned less than half of what white families did, and their neighborhoods lacked paved roads and running water.11 The black high school might have been new,

8 John Kenyon Chapman, “Second Generation: Black Youth and the Origins of the Civil Rights Movement in Chapel Hill, N.C., 1937-1963 (Ph.D. doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1995), 3. 9 Ibid., 16. 10 McElreath, The Cost of Opportunity, 212 11 Chapman, Second Generation, 5. 65 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

but it was so inadequate, Seymour wrote, “Graduates legitimately could be denied admittance to the university because they were not qualified.” Eighty percent of black adults lacked high school diplomas, and many of them were on the payroll of the all-white university.12 “I actually think Chapel Hill … was just a farm system for the university, for the janitors,” recalled John Mason, an black man who grew up in Northside. “We didn’t have any factories. We didn’t have any tobacco fields or farms or any things like that,” he said. “I remember just about the biggest thing you could be was just like a head janitor at one of these dorms.”13 Howard Lee, a black graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill’s social work program Lorem Ipsum yada yada yada. and the eventual mayor of the town, (Photo courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) recalled trying to buy a house in Colony Woods, a white neighborhood, in the mid-1960s. Other than Jewish realtor Mel Rashkis, no one would show him and his wife houses. It was six months before they were able to purchase a home.14 Regardless of the town’s self-proclaimed progressive ideals, racism was unapologetically evident. Still, many black residents thought conditions in Chapel Hill were relatively favorable.15 Rebecca Clark, a black community leader and activist who grew up in Chapel Hill in the 1930s and was a young mother in the 1950s, recalled that she was “taught to be courteous and kind and get along.” She continued, “And that was part of Chapel Hill, when it was the Southern part of Heaven. There was no fighting and fussing and being ugly to black folks in

12 Alex Pointsett, “The Mayor Who Kept His Promises,” Ebony, XXIX (Nov. 1973), 94. 13 John Mason, interview by Kate Goldstein, Southern Oral History Collection, April 30, 2001. 14 Howard Lee, interview by Grace Tatter, March 19, 2013. 15 Chapman, Second Generation. 66 Grace Tatter this neighborhood.”16 There were no other black families in Stanley Vickers’s Carrboro neighborhood when he grew up there in the 1950s and 1960s. But although working-class Carrboro was considered more conservative than Chapel Hill, Vickers never sensed any tension during his childhood in the 1950s and ’60s. “Nobody seemed very stressed by us in our neighborhood,” he said.17 As long as you didn’t try to make trouble, said John Davis, who graduated from the black high school in 1958, “you’d never know if you were white or black.”18 Lincoln High School, the only black high school in the southern part of Orange County, North Carolina, was a point of pride in Chapel Hill, boasting the best high school marching band and football team in the state.19 Davis remembers that even white families came to Lion Club’s Park in Carrboro to watch the Lincoln team play on Friday nights, because they “had the best games to watch.”20 The school not only formed a large part of the identity of its students and alumni, but also the African American community as a whole. “At the time Lincoln was … kind of like a Mecca,” recalled Stanley Vickers, who attended the school for sixth grade. “Everything that I could aspire to at that point in my little world was there.”21 The school was also the core of the civil rights movement in Chapel Hill. Pat Cusick, a white UNC-Chapel Hill student profiled in The Free Men, John Ehle’s narrative of the civil rights movement in Chapel Hill, , recalled that the school was basically the “core of the movement.”22 Black students also were proud of Northside, their elementary school. Teachers and students were close and extracurricular activities abounded. School was not a chore, but a pleasure. Vickers fondly remembered how his teachers made him feel special, like he could do anything.23 Fran Jackson recalled how much she enjoyed participating in theater at Northside, and

16 Bob Gilgor, interview by Rebecca Clark, Southern Oral History Collection, June 21, 2000. 17 Stanley Vickers, interview by Grace Tatter, May 16, 2013. 18 John Davis, interview by Elizabeth Hamilton, Southern Oral History Collection, March 7, 2001. 19 Lee, interview, 2013. 20 Davis, interview, 2001. 21 Bob Gilgor, interview by Stanley Vickers, Southern Oral History Collection, Nov. 20, 2000. 22 Chapman, Second Generation, 19. 23 Vickers, interview, May 16, 2013. 67 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

John Davis said he never would have considered transferring to the white school, even given the opportunity. “I loved my school,” he said. But the fact that Chapel Hill area blacks valued their community institutions did not change the fact that local schools were unequal. Latent conservatism was a characteristic of the state as a whole. After the Brown decision was handed down in 1954, Governor Luther Hodges announced that North Carolina would reluctantly obey the federal order to desegregate schools. The state’s reluctance was manifested in a feeble freedom-of-choice plan codified in the Pupil Assignment Act, which allowed black and white families to choose between white and black schools.24 On it surface, the Pupil Assignment Act complied with Brown, but in fact it was infused with a “subtle and insidious racism.”25 Disguised as an effort at progressivism, the plan moved control of schools from the state to the local level, so that the state could not be sued for circumventing Brown. The law detailed several factors that were not explicitly about race—residence, previous schools attended, and “local conditions”—that boards could use to assign students to schools. “There were enough reasons for school assignment that were not explicitly racial to guarantee that no black would ever go to an integrated school,” according to historian William Chafe.26 Chapel Hill was the only locality in the state to vote against the Pearsall Plan, a 1956 North Carolina policy that made desegregation even more difficult to achieve.27 In January 1955, less than a year after Brown, members of the biracial Chapel Hill Ministerial Association, led by Charlie Jones, the minister of the Presbyterian Church on Franklin Street, created a pro-desegregation group called The Interracial Fellowship for the Schools.28 The group established an interracial vacation bible school that summer so that black and white students would feel comfortable attending school together.29 Chapel Hill appeared ready—even eager—to desegregate. And yet, meaningful desegregation would not occur for another decade, and when it did, it would be remembered as a painful experience for the black

24 Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights, 51 25 Ibid., 54 26 Ibid. 27 McElreath, The Cost of Opportunity. 28 Ibid., 161. 29 Ibid., 162. 68 Grace Tatter students forced to be pioneers. The community would fall back on many of the tactics of the Pupil Assignment Act, pretending to move beyond race in order to hold on to the racial status quo.

The Painful Transition to Desegregated Schools In 1956, white civic leaders Guy Phillips, J.S. Cole, and black Reverend John Manley met with the newly merged Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Board of Education and suggested forming a local advisory committee on desegregation.30 The committee was meant to be as inclusive as possible. Phillips, Cole, and Manley suggested that it be composed of about thirty people of both races. In April of 1957, the Citizens School Council’s Committee on Integration met for the first time. Their first act was a call for the Board of Education to more clearly articulate their plan for desegregation. The committee demanded that the Board begin to formulate practical plans for desegregation rather than continue to focus their energies on “evasive tactics.”31 However, the committee was not immediately effective. That summer, two families applied to be transferred to white schools, and both were denied. No black families applied for transfer in 1958, despite a biracial grassroots group called the Fellowship for School Integration’s active recruitment of candidates to apply to white schools.32 Daniel Pollitt, a UNC-Chapel Hill law professor and civil rights activist, recalled that the dean of the law school, Henry Brandis, ran for the school board to ensure that the imperfect Pupil Assignment Act would be applied as fairly as possible. But according to Pollitt, Brandis was unable to ensure fair practices. Pollitt, who helped solicit black clients to bring suits against school boards for perpetuating segregation and was the first non-minister leader of the Fellowship for School Integration, called the board’s rationale for denying black students’ transfers to white schools “irrational.” “We had siblings, black siblings, applied to transfer from Northside to the primary school,” he said. “And one of them was denied because he was doing so well at the black school, it would be a shame to move him out. The other one was denied because he wasn’t doing so well at the black school, and obviously

30 Ibid., 251. 31 Ibid., 164. 32 Ibid., 250. 69 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

couldn’t make it in the white school.”33 Though the community appeared to accept the idea of racial desegregation in schools, they were quick to find flimsy excuses for failing to actually implement it. Lattice Vickers, the mother of three school-aged black children, was particularly skeptical of the mechanics of progress in Chapel Hill and unimpressed with the slow-moving, talk-heavy committees devoted to desegregation. She exemplifies the role that black parents played in pushing white “progressives” to action. Vickers had originally been unable to complete high school because she had to support her family after her father died. She married Lee Vickers, who worked at the Sigma Nu fraternity house while she worked as a domestic in the homes of doctors.34According to their daughter, Gloria Vickers Warren, this frequent contact with university students and faculty made the Vickers even more committed to education. Lattice Vickers returned to high school in 1948 and graduated from Lincoln in 1952, while pregnant with her third child. 35 Because of her lifelong commitment to education, Vickers was especially excited when the Brown decision was handed down. She devoured an eight- part series in the Durham Morning Herald about desegregation and closely followed desegregation efforts in neighboring cities, hoping that victories in Greensboro and Winston-Salem would push Chapel Hill-Carrboro to provide better resources to black students.36 As an active member of the Parent-Teachers Association at Northside Elementary, Lattice was all too aware of the school board’s indifference to black students. Vickers soon became convinced that the only way to end their neglect was for black students to attend the white schools that the government focused resources on. In order for these students to be granted access to the resource-laden schools, their parents would have to ramp up their demands. Encouraged by newspaper accounts of black students enrolling in white schools with legal help from the NAACP, Vickers petitioned the board for her son Stanley, a kindergartener at a private school, to be allowed to enroll in Carrboro Elementary. When their petition was rejected, Vickers sought court action.

33 Daniel Pollitt, interview by David Potorti, Southern Oral History Collection, Feb. 22, 2001. 34 Gloria Vickers Warren, Vickers vs. the Chapel Hill School Board, 1954-1961 (Morgan State University, 1994), 11. 35 Ibid., 37. 36 Ibid., 23. 70 Grace Tatter

By 1959, the Vickers family was “sufficiently familiar with the psyche of Southern whites to be wary of their good intentions.”37 No longer would the family merely wait for change to occur. The first black students to be approved for transfer to white Chapel Hill schools were three rising first graders, in May 1960.38 All the other applicants, nine junior high students in total, were denied. Five appealed, and were denied again, with only Rev. Manley, the sole black board member, supporting their transfer. The three first graders entered Estes Hills with little notice, according to The Chapel Hill Weekly. “In sharp contrast to some other towns in the state where integration began in recent years, the three Negro pupils entered Estes Hills school without incident and hardly noticed,” the paper reported.39 As promising a beginning to desegregation as the peaceful fall of 1960 might have seemed, the Chapel Hill school board still referred to one of two planned elementary schools as “the new Negro elementary school,” despite opposition from board member Manley, the Fellowship for School Integration, the local Quaker meeting, and other civic organizations.40 Not until three pro-desegregation candidates were elected to the school board in spring of 1961 were the plans for segregated schools scrapped. At the same time, the board decided that all three elementary schools in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system would welcome black first graders in the fall. In August of 1961, the courts ruled that Stanley Vickers, Lattice’s son, be assigned to the white Chapel Hill Junior High School. Thus, a small number of black students entered other grades as well, bringing the total number enrolled in formerly white schools to forty. For the next few years, all transfer applications were accepted. By the fall of 1963, about fifteen percent of the community’s 1,180 black students attended formerly white schools.41 The demographic change of the schools was only part of a freedom of choice plan, which allowed the continuation of all-black, poorly funded schools. In fact, under the plan, blacks still faced substantial barriers to enrolling in white schools. For one, the school

37 Ibid., 39. 38 McElreath, The Cost of Opportunity, 259. 39 Ibid., 263. 40 Ibid., 265. 41 Ibid., 269. 71 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

system was not required by the Pupil Assignment Act of 1955 to provide transportation from Northside. Fran Jackson recalled how each day the taxi her parents paid for emptied the girls out into an unwelcoming environment. “It was really culture shock,” said Jackson, who was a student at newly opened Phillips Middle School. “I knew that white people existed, but I had never had much contact with whites. And it was the first time that I really, really understood what racism was about.”42 Despite barriers of cost and discomfort, Chapel Hill still saw a higher proportion of its black students transferring to white schools than other communities throughout the South.43 Students who chose to attend the newly accessible white schools were met with little open hostility. Stanley Vickers recalled being frightened to start at Chapel Hill Junior High School because of footage he had seen of the Little Rock Five. But his first day was unremarkable. “I remember standing on the street looking up the steps and then just kind of walking in,” he said. “Nothing brave, no drum roll or anything like that. Just, ‘This is where I’m going to school, so here we go.’”44

42 Jackson, interview, 2001. 43 McElreath, The Cost of Opportunity, 270. 44 Vickers, interview, 2013. 72 Grace Tatter

Once at their new, previously all-white schools, black students were made painfully aware of the socioeconomic divide between the black and white communities, and that legally mandated inclusion did not necessarily translate into social inclusion. “In my community, we were considered reasonably as middle class as anybody,” Jackson said. “And I guess it is all relative, because we had two parents . . . and they provided for us reasonably well. But going to the white school we realized, that, ‘Gee,’ their parents were generally . . . from more affluent backgrounds.”45 Both Jackson and her younger sister Charlene recalled that while there was no outward hostility toward them, no one reached out, either. Charlene, who went to Estes Hills Elementary, said she felt “lonesome, alienated, and isolated.” “I’m not sure if they weren’t friendly because of the racial politics or if they just weren’t friendly because they just hadn’t been used to going to school with black kids,” Regester said.46 Vickers recalled that when he walked into the cafeteria, the tenor in the room would change. He preferred to sneak away to eat lunch with his dad, whose fraternity house was across the fence from the school. Other days he would eat at a wall behind the school “just to get away.” Although no one ever physically harmed him, he was often pointed at or called “boy” or “nigger.” “Somebody was always in my face,” he said. Eventually a girl who had just moved to town and was also avoiding the cafeteria began to talk to him “at arms length” while eating outside. Vickers began to study with classmates outside of class, joined the junior varsity football team, and went to school sock hops and dances. But even his recollections of social events were tinged with loneliness. “It was easy because the lights were low and you would kind of be around the edges,” he explained, “and people know you are there, but they don’t see you, so maybe you are not really there.”47 Black students could rarely find solace, even from teachers. “Sometimes I even got the impression they didn’t want me there,” Vickers remembered. Fran Jackson said the transition was made especially hard because all of the teachers were white. “For the most part I felt that the white teachers were rather insensitive. . . . They simply ignored and did very little to cultivate any

45 Jackson, interview, 2001. 46 Regester, interview, 2001. 47 Vickers, interview, 2000. Vickers maintained an active social life with friends he had left behind at Lincoln, and attends the Lincoln High School reunions to this day, in addition to Chapel Hill High School reunions. 73 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

type of relationship with us.” Not all of the black student pioneers had such negative experiences. Joanne McClelland transferred from Northside to Glenwood Elementary. The only other black student in her class was Noel Lee, whose father, Howard, would soon be elected mayor. McClelland remembered being proud to be one of the first black students to transfer, even though it was frightening. She credited her teachers at Northside for preparing her for academic rigor. “I guess a part of me really did not want to stay at the all-black elementary school and I knew that I had to prove that I could do the work, so it was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be,” she recalled. But although McClelland said her elementary school years were happy, she attributed that happiness to the foundation laid at Northside. “There, the teachers helped build your self-esteem, and they made me feel like there was nothing you couldn’t do.”48 Although white interviewees do not recall the arrival of black students being much of an issue, their recollections show that even efforts at kindness were racially charged. Robert Humphreys was in junior high school when black students started to trickle in. At the beginning, he said, there were not enough such students to form distinct social groups. “They were just buddies of ours,” he said. The new students were singled out because of their race, but it was all in good fun, Humphreys said. He recalled jokes directed at one particularly outgoing black student, Clayton Weaver. Although the jokes were racially charged, and, by today’s standards, cringe-worthy, Humphreys said they were funny at the time. “He used to call us ‘honky’ and ‘cracker,’ and we’d call him ‘spear chucker’—you know, just in fun. . . . Much the same way that someone might call me ‘fatty’ or you know, any little pet name like that,” he said. When not the butt of jokes, black students were a point of pride to white students. Humphreys said Eugene Hines, one of the first black students on the football team, was a rallying point for the other boys. None of their rivals had an black player. “When you’re down there on the line, facing that guy, and you’re . . . inches away from his face, and he looks across at you and he says, ‘We’re going to get your nigger,’ well, that just fired our team up,”

48 McClelland, interview, March 12, 2001. 74 Grace Tatter

Humphreys said. “‘Cause he wasn’t our nigger. He was Eugene Hines.”49 Humphreys’s comments demonstrate how the beginning of desegregation was often positive for the white community, as it was an affirmation of their “progressive values.”

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro School System Leads the Way In 1964, the US Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, forcing North Carolina to adjust its previously evasive approach to school desegregation. The Act allowed the Health, Education, and Welfare Department (HEW) to pursue class action lawsuits against intransigent school systems and to withhold funds from school systems that continued to exclude students on the basis of race.50 The legislation recognized that for the past decade, the burden of desegregation had been on black parents, their lawyers, and the federal courts, and sought to redistribute some of Lorem Ipsum yada yada yada. the burden to local school districts.51 In late (Photo courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) 1964 and early 1965, HEW began to regulate school desegregation more rigorously and required school systems to pledge that they were complying with the Civil Rights Act, or else lose funding.52 Most districts in North Carolina scrambled to change their methods of assignment accordingly, adopting plans like the freedom of choice plan that did not explicitly forbid students entrance to white schools based on race, but made the perpetuation of segregation possible. In 1966, HEW took the position that the limited effects

49 Matisha Wiggins, interview by Robert Humphreys, Southern Oral History Collection, March 7, 2001. 50 Charles Clotfelter, After Brown: The Rise and Retreat of School Desegregation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004). 51 McElreath, The Cost of Opportunity, 332. 52 Ibid., 338. 75 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

of such plans were unsatisfactory. North Carolina State Superintendent Charles Carroll retorted that the state was “positively, eternally, and irrevocably committed to freedom of choice.” Chapel Hill, however, was not. Chapel Hill-Carrboro was the only district in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Triangle to claim that it had already begun to desegregate in earnest and therefore did not require federal intervention. In 1962, administrators began making student assignments based on geography rather than race. The following year, all students were permitted to transfer to the school of their choice, meaning that black students still zoned to Northside or Lincoln because of their residence could choose to attend a previously white school. Of course, it worked the other way as well, though “no more than a handful” of white students ever attended the community’s black schools. In 1965, HEW approved the Chapel Hill-Carrboro student assignment plan as sufficient to ensure racially desegregated schools.53 In keeping with their commitment to HEW, the board built a new high school off of Airport Road that was intended to be a fresh start for white and black students, to open in 1966. However, some black families were reluctant to leave Lincoln behind, and agreed to do so only after encouragement by a campaign of white liberals and black civic leaders, who emphasized the importance of both communities inaugurating the new building together.54 In 1966 the new high school opened, meaning that all students between the grades of 10 and 12 attended a desegregated school. The board combined Lincoln Junior-Senior High School’s junior high population with the predominately white junior high schools, and all of the town’s sixth graders, regardless of race, attended Lincoln. The change dismantled Lincoln, but resulted in more than seventy percent of the district’s black students attending predominately white schools. In 1967, Chapel Hill-Carrboro was declared to be one of the first districts in the South to eliminate dual school systems.55 The first struggle was won: Chapel Hill had desegregated its schools. But desegregation is not integration, which would be the final hurdle for the Chapel Hill community. While desegregation was the legal remedy for segregation, integration would be much harder to achieve.

53 Ibid., 332. 54 Ibid., 444. 55 Ibid., 338 76 Grace Tatter

The first two years of full-scale desegregation passed without any notable incident. Howard Lee was elected mayor of Chapel Hill, the first black mayor of a majority-white town in the South, signifying a commitment to racial progressivism in the wider community. But those who were students at the time do not recall their experience as especially epochal, or the status quo being radically altered. Although the high school had opened in the spirit of inclusion, it retained the white school’s colors, team mascot, and head coaches, leaving black students and staff members feeling like outsiders. Students also saw white privilege perpetuated in the classroom. “My parents were not professors so I always felt, well I couldn’t go to Europe in the summer to study, so I always felt I was behind, and as I told many people, playing catch up and trying to keep up,” Charlene Regester recalled. Every day after leaving Phillips Middle School she would ride the bus downtown so she could study at the public library and be tutored by UNC-Chapel Hill students. She said she had the impression that white students received that support at home. Regester’s sister Fran also remembers feeling behind “because there were a lot of little cultural nuances that I just wasn’t very familiar with. And I guess you could call them rules of the game that just weren’t made explicit to me.” A white student, Lucy Lewis, recalled that class, in some ways more than race, set the black students apart from the children of professors. She said she did not remember any wealthy black students, just a handful from middle-income families. Lewis said she also could not recall any black or poor white students who were in her advanced classes, and she did not remember the schools trying to address a difference in resources. Unless black or poor white students were particularly proactive, like Regester, they were on their own.56 One program intended to correct that imbalance was Upward Bound, a federally funded residential summer program at the university that provided at-risk students with the resources to prepare them for college. The program initially recruited eighty black students and twenty white students from five nearby school systems, including Chapel Hill-Carrboro. When the white students’ parents realized the demographics, they all backed out. However, David Kiel, who worked first as a resident advisor for the program in 1968,

56 Lili Lai, interview by Lucy Lewis, Southern Oral History Collection, February 19, 2001. 77 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

and later as a guidance counselor, thought the homogeneity was ultimately an asset, allowing coordinators to tailor discussions and needs to black students and their unique struggles during desegregation. “I think they had a little of the feeling of being back in an all-black environment, a respite from the more charged desegregated situation,” he said.57 This is reflected in the poetry of Upward Bound students, published in a booklet in 1970. Theresa Alston, who had just graduated from Orange High School, rhapsodized, “What is Upward Bound? … /To me it is survival from/a cruel racist society … Upward Bound is me as I really am. /Black and Proud to/be a part of the group, /Of talented students with a future.”58 A common theme in the poetry was how liberating it was to be back in an environment of high expectations. The few black students able to attend Upward Bound almost always went to college, showing that the program offered keys to equality that the schools did not, like recognition of different circumstances and expectations. Another point of contention in the school system was the rehiring of black teachers. When the schools consolidated, fewer teachers were needed, and many teachers lost their jobs. But the Board of Education strove to maintain a black teaching force. School board member Mary Scroggs said the district tried hard to recruit these teachers but “they couldn’t pass the NTE (National Teaching Exam),” making it impossible to hire them according to state regulations.59 The board tried not to fire black teachers, Scroggs said. “If you had a teacher that was not performing, you hoped to goodness he was white, because there weren’t any racial overtones.”60 The lack of black teachers was important to black students entering new schools. Students like Jackson felt that white teachers did little to reach out to them. Black students and their parents bristled at the fact that most of the teachers and administrators who followed them to desegregated schools were largely demoted. For example, the principal of Lincoln became assistant principal of Chapel Hill High School, and the head football coach of Lincoln’s championship-winning team became assistant to the coach of old Chapel Hill’s weak team. If the opening of a new high school signified that black

57 David Kiel, interview by Grace Tatter, May 23, 2013. 58 Judith Soucek and Minor McCoy, If in the beginning and I had ??? (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina YMCA-YWCA Press, 1970). 59 McElreath, The Cost of Opportunity, 465. 60 Ibid., 467. 78 Grace Tatter students would be included fully in the school community, actual classroom practices did not.

Students Protest the Continued Prevalence of Racism On May 19, 1969, approximately 100 black students “barricaded” themselves in the lobby of the new Chapel Hill High School, which was finishing its second year. The impetus for this act was the junior marshal elections the Friday before. Every year, the senior class elected juniors to serve as ushers for their graduation exercises. This time five white and two black students were elected. Although the racial breakdown of marshals approximated that of the student body, some black students demanded equality in representation, rather than proportionality. Their minority Lorem Ipsum yada yada yada. status, they said, meant that they would (Photo courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) always be outnumbered in the consideration for some benefits. Principal May Marshbanks and Superintendent Wilmer Cody met with the students in the lobby for about an hour and reached a compromise: runners-up in Friday’s election would also be marshals, meaning that there would be six black students and five white students representing the junior class.61 As the day wore on, white students organized to discuss their displeasure with the compromise, which they thought undermined the democratic process, and asked the chair of the school board if they could speak at the regular school board meeting taking place that night. The school board ultimately decided to table the marshals altogether, raising the ire of both black and white parents and students. The following day, hundreds of black students marched to the Roberson Community Center

61 Ibid., 481. 79 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

to hear black activists and community leaders speak.62 The demonstration caused unrest in the white community. Jim Shumaker, the editor of the Chapel Hill Weekly, wrote, “Such demonstrations have no place in our public schools and they ought not to be tolerated for an instant. If protestors have to be jailed to halt them, then they ought to be jailed.” Hundreds of white parents signed a petition asking the board to uphold the results of the original election and stating that school grounds were an inappropriate place for social confrontation.63 But for many, the protests illuminated the continued prevalence of racism and the unraveling of the myth that Chapel Hill had successfully tackled desegregation. “No one had ever thought that that level of anger was seething underneath about what had happened to the school system,” said Howard Lee, who had just been elected mayor.64 Steve Scroggs, who was a senior at the high school and son of school board member Mary Scroggs, said that even many white students had been unaware that their school was at a boiling point. “Oh, we talked a good story,” she said. “We put ourselves above [racism], but we didn’t know any better.... I think we could have avoided what happened in ‘69. But we danced around it, and we danced around it as kids.65 Not everyone recalled being blindsided like Scroggs and Lee. “I was very concerned about what I saw as racism among white teachers and white administrators and white students,” Lucy Lewis said. “But I think I didn’t have a very deep understanding what was creating so much anger, and how white students were in a very privileged position, and that we were not—I was certainly not—very thoughtful in terms of trying to think about how things could be done differently.” That awareness cannot entirely be attributed to hindsight. At a hearing a few days after the school board eliminated junior marshals, student body President Don Fuller implied that students had been aware of unrest and it was the adults who were blind. “Why were the parents and School Board oblivious to so much tension?” Fuller asked. Tension between black students and administrators continued the

62 Ibid., 483. 63 Ibid., 484. 64 Lee, interview, 2013. 65 Elizabeth Hamilton, interview by Steve Scroggs, Southern Oral History Collection, April 9, 2001. 80 Grace Tatter following year, even as the administrators and school board scrambled to address grievances submitted by a black student committee. At Phillips, sit-ins and walkouts followed a dispute over the diversity of the cheerleading squad, and the school added two black cheerleaders to the squad to address protesting students’ concerns.66 Later in the school year, the Phillips Black Student Association Grievance Committee released a statement: What we feel essentially is that 99 percent of the teaching staff and administration housed at Phillips has benefited very little, if at all, from the Federally supported programs aimed at heightening the tolerance level of whites blacks, blacks for poor blacks, etc. Finally, we must speak specifically against the white teacher who is prejudiced. . . . The white teacher who feels no compassion, makes no honest overtures to black students, no attempt to understand how the past is still very real and meaningful for us and most importantly that we, not you, must be free to work through this past.67 Teachers responded to the statement by citing overcrowding and increased workloads—not ill intentions—as the reason for any neglect. The problems at Phillips, they said, were structural.68 But some teachers also felt the increased discipline problems at Phillips arose not only from overcrowding, but also from parental neglect and a reluctance to punish black students, out of a fear of being branded racist.69 Kathy Cheek, who was a white student at Phillips, did not recall the sit-ins or the activism, but she remembered perceiving black students as especially violent, a stereotype that continues to plague black students today. Cheek said she was afraid to go to the restroom “because the black girls would be waiting for you in the bathrooms and they would rip your post earrings out of your ears and that kind of stuff,” she said.70 Her memory of race at Phillips sounds similar to the sentiments expressed in a letter to the editor of the Chapel Hill Weekly, in which black students come across as violent and irrational. A parent wrote, “At the danger of being called racist myself, I feel that the problem at Phillips and Culbreth is largely racial. Black students seem to have so thoroughly confused their feelings about what is just that

66 McElreath, The Cost of Opportunity, 486. 67 Ibid., 488. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid., 487. 70 Susan Upton, interview by Kathy Cheek, Southern Oral History Collection, March 27,2001. 81 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

they view any attempt to order them as a racist measure.” She continued by belittling administrators for being intimidated by these students’ “potential for disruption and violence.”71 Such negative stereotypes made it unlikely that black students would be able to thrive in their new school environments. Black students sensed the racist attitudes of their classmates and many of their teachers, and noticed how this limited their access to extracurricular activities and rigorous classroom experiences. “You were constantly on the offensive,” Charlene Regester said. “Having to fight for this, having to fight for that.” McClelland, who had thrived at Glenwood Elementary School and was at the forefront of black student activism at Phillips, described a tight-knit black student community. “Even though we had an assistant principal who was African American, and we had a Dean of Students who was African American, we still felt the need to really stick together, and not just talk about what we didn’t like, but to make a difference and make it change,” she said. She cited the sit-ins over the cheerleaders as an example of that activist spirit. According to McClelland, the students had approached the administration about the lack of black cheerleaders before, to no avail, so they decided to protest more overtly. “We got together and said, ‘Hey, let’s just have a sit-in,’” she recalled. “Because I think we tried to talk to the administration, and they didn’t really want to hear it, and so we basically said . . . we’ve got to do something drastic.” McClelland remembered sitting in the hallways for three or four days rather than going to class. “It worked,” she said. However, McClelland’s brand of protest did not impress assistant principal R.D. Smith, a prominent black educator whom she refers to as an “Uncle Tom.” “You need to just sometimes overlook certain things,” Smith told McClelland. “And I’m like, ‘No, I can’t do that.’ I was not cooperative at all when it came to being passive about what I saw. It was just downright racism. And I think . . . he was from the ‘old school,’” she said.72 Sensing that the passivity of the adults in the black community was failing to ignite positive change, students began to take matters into their own hands. The students recognized that the only way conditions were going to improve was if the school system was engaged in a constant conversation about race. After a group of about two hundred black students congregated in the lobby in order to arrange a meeting with Principal

71 McElreath, The Cost of Opportunity, 487. 72 McClelland, interview, 2001. 82 Grace Tatter

Marshbanks, she agreed to meet with a handful to discuss their demands and instructed the remaining students to return to class. On their way back to class, about fifteen of those students punched out ceiling tiles, overturned desks and chairs, and broke windows, ultimately causing $1,500 in damage and injuring a teacher and a student. Following that incident, most black students did not return to the high school for more than a week. Still, they saw results. The administration and school board tried to address some of their demands, like the establishment of a grievance committee promised after the May disturbance. But administrators protested that they were powerless to fulfill demands like separate homerooms, due to the fact that they would violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964.73 The disruption did nothing to improve black students’ reputations in the white community, but it started a necessary conversation that might have yielded results with more adult support. Even though students’ demands were addressed, they rarely felt the shift toward acceptance that they craved. “If the encouragement is not there and if the attitudes of teachers perhaps cannot be altered, then it’s really hard to . . . make these things effective even after you push to have them implemented or instituted,” Regester said.74 Overall, the reactions of the students showed that they understood better than the adults that schools must be more accommodating of their needs in order for them to succeed. Because of the protests, the mascot of Chapel Hill High School was eventually changed to a tiger, the former mascot of Lincoln High School. Desegregation without Integration? One wedge separating the experiences of black and white students was their fundamentally different expectations of what desegregation would mean. The black community expected schools to be a source of community and belonging. When this did not materialize, their disappointment colored their attitudes toward desegregation. The destruction of Lincoln High School’s legacy represents the larger insensitivities of the white community at the time. Jackson, who never attended Lincoln, speaks of its dismantling with vitriol, comparing it to the slave trade. “The purpose was to erase people’s connections to Africa,” she said. “They mixed the slaves up from different groups so that they couldn’t communicate with one another.

73 McElreath, The Cost of Opportunity, 489. 74 Regester, interview, 2001. 83 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Now it didn’t happen like that, but the fact is that when you merge these two schools and all of the symbols from one school were just completely taken away, and everybody was reduced to a subservient position.”75 Anger over the loss of school mascots and colors was probably as much about the schools’ failure to support black students in a way that allowed them to prosper as much as their wealthier, white peers. For the most part, black students were relegated to lower level classes with weaker teachers. The status quo changed in only the most superficial ways. Black students were expected to adjust to the white model, and although programs that acknowledged and celebrated their racial minority status, like Upward Bound, were often successful, the overwhelming practice was that students’ “blackness” should be submerged while they were at school. Civil rights attorney Derrick Bell said desegregation only occurred when it was in the interest of white elites, and that the remedies for segregation never sought to undermine those interests, which would play out during most future discussions of racial equality in the Chapel Hill- Carrboro city schools. For whites in Chapel Hill, desegregation afforded yet another opportunity to trumpet their liberal bona fides. For blacks it was a far more mixed bag, where unprecedented academic opportunities came with an inhospitable and degrading environment that often offered neither integration nor empowerment. When students demanded an increase in the number of Lincoln High School trophies displayed in the high school, administrators were unable to comply. In the shuffle of desegregation, someone had accidently thrown them away. While the story of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools system in the desegregation era illustrates the seeming intractability of racism and white privilege, Chapel Hill has improved since the end of the classic civil rights era. During the 1990s and the first decade of the new century, visionary educators in the school system realized that admitting blacks to white schools had never been enough and they strove to create “a shared community of mutual respect, common goals, and joint ownership of education within

75 Jackson, interview, 2001. 84 Grace Tatter a multiracial student body.”76 On August 26, 2013, Northside Elementary opened its doors to a new generation of Chapel Hill students. The three- story building is state-of-the art, with rooftop gardens and interactive white boards. It hardly resembles the old black school that once sat at its site, yet the legacy of the old school is promoted throughout the new building, in every classroom.77 A mural illustrating the history of black education in Chapel Hill adorns the lobby. The school incorporates community history into the curriculum of all grade levels, while students are taken on walking tours of the neighborhood to learn about the local struggle for civil rights. Although many white Chapel Hill parents fought to keep their children from being redistricted to the school, it quickly developed a reputation for academic excellence and is one of the most racially diverse schools in the district.78 When the old Northside School was unceremoniously closed in the 1960s, it stood as a symbol of cultural insensitivity and institutionalized racism. The new school is both a monument to the struggles of the town’s black community, and a symbol of hope. The community is still working to test the terms of inclusion in its schools. In recent years, community organizers highlighted the fact that more than sixty percent of students suspended from local schools were black, though they make up only 11 percent of the student body. The district is taking note of the injustice. In February 2013, a grassroots organization called Chapel Hill-Carrboro Citizens Advocating for Racial Equity and the Chapel Hill Town Council’s Justice in Action Committee held a panel about the topic at the Carrboro Town Hall. Panelists included local attorneys, law professors, teachers, students, and school officials.79 Nearly every seat was filled. The willingness of school officials and the community to engage the mistreatment of black students signified a deeper understanding of what integrated schools should look like. Students are more visibly empowered by the district’s commitment to racial equality than ever before. In the late 1960s, student protests at Chapel

76 Martha Minow, In Brown’s Wake: Legacies of America’s Educational Landmark (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 6. The observations on the 1990s and early 2000s are drawn from the author’s undergraduate honors thesis, “The Struggle for Racial Equality in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools,” University of North Carolina Department of History, 2014. 77 Alexander, “Northside School Builds on History,” 1A. 78 Graig Meyer, interview by Grace Tatter, NC, January 7, 2014. 79 Tatter, “School discipline shows racial inequality.” 85 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Hill High School helped ignite conversations that led to steps toward true integration, like the changing of the high school mascot. In the latest iteration of student activism, students are working with administrators. In 2013, the office of student equity and volunteer services, led by Graig Meyer, launched Student 6, a group of 20 minority high school students who develop and lead workshops for teachers about how to be sensitive to the needs of their minority students. Teresa Bunner, an academic support specialist for the Blue Ribbon Mentor-Advocate program, said it has been one of the most productive initiatives that the district has undertaken. “We’ve done equity work for years but this is more tangible,” Bunner said. “This, for teachers, feels more doable and tangible. They’ve said it’s something they can take back to their classrooms.”80 However, despite markers of progress, many remain dissatisfied with the circumstances of black students in Chapel Hill. Although some, like the NAACP and Student 6, choose to address their grievances about racial equality by working with school system officials, Howard Lee, the former mayor of Chapel Hill and head of the State Board of Education in the 1990s, spearheaded a movement for a charter school for black youth on the premise that Chapel Hill-Carrboro city schools were ill-equipped to serve the needs of black students. Superintendent Tom Forcella and the local NAACP both opposed the school, claiming it would re-segregate the school system. “We do not have high numbers of African American students and if many of those would leave to go to another school, I think that would have a detrimental impact on our school district,” Forcella told The Chapel Hill News.81 However, Lee thinks the emphasis on racial diversity might be misplaced. “I was really disappointed in the response of the NAACP, which I thought was more interested in desegregation than it is in education, and that to me is the fallacy that has driven us to where we are,” he said in a 2013 oral history. “There’s no question that people need to understand each other, and the only way you understand each other is to have contact. But I think diversity that overshadows preparation and education has very little long-term value,” he said. “I often say, ‘Don’t diversify me, just educate me,

80 Jamica Ashley, “Student 6 battles the achievement gap in CHCCS, Durham Morning Herald, November 17, 2013. 81 Ferral, Katelyn Ferral, “Charter hopeful focuses on gap—Name honors former mayor, The Chapel Hill News, December 11, 2011, sec. A. 86 Grace Tatter and I’ll decide how much diversity I want.”82 The charter school received approval from the North Carolina State Board of Education. However, the for-profit organization that was to run the school backed out in the spring of 2013, and the school lost its charter. Organizers are now applying for a new charter and searching for a location in Durham.83 Although Lee’s school will not open in Chapel Hill, his concerns about the district’s ability to supply equitable conditions shows how potent racial tensions surrounding schools remain. The charter school also shows how the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools system is somewhat anomalous in the current education reform movement, which focuses little on integration. Yet the way the district has incorporated the school system’s history into current policy can offer guidance to school systems nationwide. Minority students are making up a growing proportion of the national student population, but their presence is shrinking at many universities.84 Because of educational disparities, the chasm between the social mobility of whites and blacks continues to grow, especially in the South.85 From Brown in the 1950s to decisions about affirmative action today, schools are where the implications of racism are most contested. Study of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system, which has grappled so thoroughly with the issue, provides some historical guidance.

82 Lee, interview, March 19, 2013. 83 T. Hui and Keung, Sarah Barr Keung,“New charter schools have work to do before opening, schools must find buildings, hire teachers, raise funds,” The News & Observer, January 13, 2014, 1B. 84 Tanzina Vega, “Colorblind Notion Aside, Colleges Grapple With Racial Tension,” The New York Times, February 25, 2014. 85 Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Patrick Kline, Emmanuel Saez, and Nicholas Turner, “Equality of Opportunity,” http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org. 87 Michael Welker Nothing Without A Demand: Black Power And Student Activism On North Carolina College Campuses, 1967-1973

For seven remarkable months in 1968 and 1969, black students in North Carolina wielded power unlike anything they possessed before or since. Across the state, they took over buildings, led strikes, made demands, and left officials fearful of violence. It was a highly tense and uncertain time. The same events that would see students teargassed and beaten by police would create a new academic discipline and, briefly, a new university. The same events that would raise minimum wages for cafeteria workers would lead to the death of an innocent student. Despite constant tension, students, administrators, andtraces citizens began to recognize new purposes for higher education. These new purposes emerged from an unusual confluence of student activism and the emergent Black Power philosophy. When Southern universities began to desegregate in the 1950s, they saw only a slow trickle of black matriculants. Court-ordered desegregation had offered the nominal promise of equality, but black students felt isolated and unwelcomed, and they faced Jim Crow segregation in the cities and towns nearby. Dissatisfied with the status quo and determined to change it, students were at the vanguard of the civil rights movement during 88 Michael Welker

its peak in the 1960s. It was four students at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College in Greensboro who famously launched a nationwide movement of sit-ins when they insisted on being served at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in February 1960. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was born two months later at all-black Shaw University in Raleigh, NC. SNCC and other student groups would play key roles in marches, sit-ins, boycotts, and other public protests throughout the decade. By the late 1960s, black students entering colleges and universities had spent the majority of their lives in a country forced to realize its obligations to its minority populations. Those students heard the calls for inclusion and equality, but their youthful impatience left them frustrated with the slow

89 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

pace of change. In 1966, after being arrested for the twenty-seventh time during a march in Mississippi, beleaguered SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael proposed a new ideological turn for the civil rights movement. “I ain’t going to jail no more,” Carmichael said. “The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin’ us is to take over. What we gonna start sayin’ now is Black Power!” Carmichael explained that blacks needed to stop allowing themselves to be defined by white people. Instead, he argued for institutions that black people built and controlled, for pride in the black identity, and for the recognition and embrace of black history and culture. Any force that stood in the way of those ends, Carmichael said, would have to be torn down.1 Carmichael was far from the only black leader to call for a new approach in this era. Earlier in the 1960s, Malcolm X argued for a complete separation of blacks and whites in the US. Malcolm X believed that many blacks who favored integration were Uncle Toms hoping to bring themselves up by interacting with society’s dominant race. He promoted instead racial pride and self-determination, insisting that blacks must have the power to define their own culture, their own history, and their own communities. Malcolm X was also one of the earliest black leaders in that era to make a strong case for a global black struggle, which foreshadowed the Pan-Africanist currents of the Black Power movement. Carmichael once wrote that Malcolm X “knew where he was going before the rest of us did.” After Malcolm X’s death in 1965 and Carmichael’s call for Black Power the following year, Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton organized the Black Panther Party in California’s Bay Area. The Panthers believed that they carried on Malcolm X’s legacy, and they upped the ante with a strong commitment to violence. As the Panthers grew in influence, their willingness to use violence to promote black nationalism became a key element in the public image of Black Power. The influence of Malcolm X, Carmichael, and the Panthers spurred the rapid growth of Black Power as a popular alternative approach to race relations in the United States.2 These ideological thrusts of Black Power emerged at the same time that

1 “‘Black Power’ Speech (28 July 1966, by Stokely Carmichael),” Dictionary of American History, 2003, Encyclopedia.com. 2 William Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965-1975 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 2-11. 90 Michael Welker activism on college campuses became more militant. In the mid-1960s, white student activists, most famously at the University of California at Berkeley, adopted disruptive tactics such as strikes, building takeovers, and sit-ins in protests against censorship, the Vietnam War, and other issues. Black Power historian William Van Deburg has suggested that these protests proved that even “relatively small cadres of well-organized, deeply dedicated activists” could successfully shut down colleges and universities—and that groups of black students at colleges nationwide took notice.3 Pioneering demonstrations at Howard, Columbia, and San Francisco State set off a period of activism that the historian Ibram Rogers has referred to as the black campus movement. The movement reached across the nation, from Ivy League schools to historically black colleges and universities, from flagship state schools to small, regional institutions. For a brief period, black students carved out influence by combining the organizing strategies of the “classical” civil rights movement, the confrontational and disruptive tactics of campus protesters in the mid-1960s, and the philosophical goals of Black Power. Aiming to persuade universities to address black student and community concerns, students attained real power in shaping higher education. Faced with student unrest, universities had a sensible response: anyone who came to a campus to be educated had to buy in, on some level, to that school’s mission and academic frameworks. Members of the campus community were to research, teach, and learn in the pursuit of objective knowledge. Academic freedom would reign on campus, and students and scholars would feel no restraint or coercion in the exercise of that freedom. Change in the university would also come on those terms. Schools would not be forced to create new programs, disciplines, or modes of inquiry. Instead, proposals would be evaluated on their merits and judged on how they would contribute to a larger search for truth. As for community issues, universities’ academic focus seemed best suited to research and recommendations, rather than direct outreach and involvement. These sentiments reflected a conservativism that made universities resistant to the sweeping changes advocated by black students. Weighing students’ vision for education against the education they had known, faculty, administrators, and other

3 Ibid., 67. 91 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

decision-makers resisted many proposed reforms. The debate between activist students and traditionalist academics revealed significantly different understandings of the university’s mission and students’ roles within it. Both sides recognized, however, that universities could serve as a space to debate the meanings of freedom, equality, and citizenship. As William Van Deburg noted, “If knowledge was power, then institutions of higher learning were academic jousting fields upon which key societal power relationships were decided.” By making a strong claim that black students deserved a say in the education they received, activists could transform the way universities viewed their work and their student populations. Academic freedom in the university environment allowed students the opportunity to make that claim, but it also allowed campus authorities to push back and insist on caution and compromise in the implementation of any new programs.4 A small but quickly expanding historiography on the black campus movement has illuminated the ways in which activists created change within the university. Until recently, most literature has focused on localized

4 Ibid., 69. 92 Michael Welker accounts of black student protest at individual campuses. Some of the schools that have been studied include Jackson State University, the University of Illinois, Rutgers University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell University.5 By focusing on individual cases, historians have tended to atomize the movement and examine it through the lens of each school’s unique culture. In these accounts, student demands and protest strategies generally originated out of local concerns and were not directly shaped by national trends. Other accounts of the black campus movement have worked to synthesize both thematic and practical elements of individual campus protests into a larger analysis. William Van Deburg’s authoritative history of the Black Power movement, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965-1975, offers a brief overview of the black campus movement, sketching out shared characteristics and demands from protests across the nation. In From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline, Fabio Rojas produces a sociological analysis of the movement, posing the creation of black studies programs as an institutionally-defined response to activism on campuses. Noliwe M. Rooks also examines the creation of black studies programs in White Money/Black Power: The Surprising History of African American Studies and the Crisis of Race in Higher Education, arguing that black studies was shaped more by white philanthropists than by black student activists. Martha Biondi’s The Black Revolution on Campus and Ibram Rogers’s The Black Campus Movement both offer accounts that, in contrast to Rojas and Rooks, grant a great deal of agency to Black Power student activists. Both Rogers and Biondi argue that students at a variety of campuses across the country were successful in revolutionizing higher education by promoting racial based critiques of institutional practices and

5 The works about these schools are, respectively: Joy Ann Williamson, Radicalizing the Ebony Tower: Black Colleges and the Black Freedom Struggle in Mississippi (New York: Teachers College Press, 2008); Joy Ann Williamson, Black Power on Campus: The University of Illinois, 1965-75 (Urbana-Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2003); Richard P. McCormick, The Black Student Protest Movement at Rutgers (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990); Stefan Bradley, Harlem vs. Columbia University: Black Student Power in the Late 1960s (University of Illinois Press, 2009); Wayne C. Glasker, Black Students in the Ivory Tower: African American Student Activism at the University of Pennsylvania, 1967-1990 (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001); Donald Alexander Downs, Cornell ‘69: Liberalism and the Crisis of the American University (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012). 93 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

highlighting the lack of support for black students. All of this literature engages a number of key questions about race, activism, and higher education: How do students come together to advocate for change? Why did Black Power leaders like Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X resonate so strongly with students? What tactics were most effective in catalyzing reform in the academy? What made black, African American, or ethnic studies programs so critical to student protesters? To what extent should students be able to control their educational destiny? What obligations do colleges and universities have to underrepresented students? What were administrators’ interests during the movement, and how did those interests shape institutional responses? This article touches on all of these questions in order to speak to a larger one: What characteristics of institutions of higher education explain the types of changes that followed the black campus movement? By synthesizing events at multiple campuses while keeping a fairly narrow focus on the state of North Carolina, this work will shed light on how students at three schools—elite, private Duke University; the state’s leading public school, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and the state’s top historically black college, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical University—organized themselves, created power, and won limited concessions that it would not have seemed possible in the old system of higher education. The primary sources that form the backbone of this analysis include collections of administrative documents and correspondence from Duke University, the University of North Carolina, and North Carolina Agricultural & Technical University, Gov. Bob Scott’s speeches and notes from the North Carolina State Archives, and the personal papers of Cleveland Sellers, a central figure in the history of Malcolm X Liberation University. These sources provide insight into the institutional policies and processes that inspired, shaped, and evolved out of student unrest. Equally important in understanding this subject are the extensive interviews conducted by William Chafe on the history of civil rights in Greensboro; by Don Yannella, on the Allen Building incident at Duke University; and by the Southern Oral History Program, on the foodworkers’ strike at the University of North Carolina. Like much of the secondary literature about Black Power and campus unrest, these interviews are narrow in scope, but this article stands those oral histories alongside one another to reveal the

94 Michael Welker connections between black student activists in North Carolina. Key activist Howard Fuller offered further detail about the collaborations between activist groups in an original interview. Together, these sources reveal how a network of young but experienced student organizers across the state led protests, building takeovers, strikes, and the creation of an independent black educational institution, Malcolm X Liberation University. Along the way, student activists faced tough negotiations with administrators and state officials. Their victories were both tempered and enabled by bureaucratic processes, as institutionalization limited student control while ensuring university study of black culture and identity. To a lesser extent, they prompted institutional self-critique on race relations. To do so, they sacrificed elements of black separatism, solidarity, and institutional control that animated the Black Power movement, as universities held that change must square with the traditions of higher education, chief among them academic freedom for all.

Black Students Make Their Demands When Stokely Carmichael, a civil rights icon and leader of the Black Power movement, came to North Carolina in the fall of 1968, he made a case for violence. “We want to state now affirmatively that we are for revolutionary violence,” Carmichael declared at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) on November 21. It was a dramatic message to the overwhelmingly white crowd of 6,700. But Carmichael’s definition of violence was broad. He explained that it could come in forms political, economic, social, and cultural. Further, he claimed Lorem Ipsum yada yada yada. that white America had committed many (Photo courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) of these forms of violence against blacks through its control of powerful social institutions. In Carmichael’s view, institutionalized violence oppressed 95 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

blacks, and for the US to rid itself of that violence and oppression, it needed systems that would “speak to the needs” and “the basic desires” of its marginalized populations. According to Carmichael, the oppressed black man “is stripped of his culture, is stripped of his language, is stripped of his history, stripped of his self identity, and is forced to hate himself.” Asserting that blacks were “fighting for their humanity,” Carmichael told the students that if US institutions would not change, blacks would need to break them down to bring dignity, autonomy, and freedom to the nation’s minority populations.6 The next month, Carmichael took that philosophy to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T) in Greensboro and added a call to action.7 At UNC-CH, Carmichael mostly spoke about the limitations of liberalism, telling his audience that they should not only “be willing to die for freedom but . . . willing to kill for it as well.” He saw violence as an instrument of power. When asked a question about the previous month’s election, Carmichael replied, “I didn’t vote. I stayed at home and cleaned my guns.” There were no moral judgments in Carmichael’s definition of violence, only the assertion that institutional control entrenched power and, in turn, power legitimized violence. These principles defined Carmichael’s philosophy, and they resonated deeply with the emergent generation of black student activists.8 As an important figurehead of the nascent Black Power movement, Carmichael served as an intellectual icon for many black students in North Carolina. When he spoke on the campuses of UNC-CH, UNC-Charlotte, and NC A&T late in 1968, he gave voice to the concerns and frustrations of black students on those campuses. Headlines after his speeches emphasized radicalism and violence, but the substance of his remarks revealed a firm belief in the value of community, culture, and self-worth. It had not been a full generation since universities desegregated, and black students—still a small minority on many campuses— frequently felt alienated and isolated. Carmichael offered a vision of a world in which blacks controlled their own

6 Stokely Carmichael, Address at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, November 21, 1968, folder 22, Records of the Chancellor: J. Carlyle Sitterson, 1966-72. 7 The former North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College, mentioned in the introduction, was redesignated as a university in 1967. 8 William H. Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 182. 96 Michael Welker systems of power and influence. That vision resonated with the young black students because it reflected the ideological aims of a growing national movement of Black Power-minded student activism. In North Carolina, that movement emerged most strongly on the campuses of Duke University, UNC-CH, and NC A&T. Black students at these three campuses—an elite, conservative, private institution; the state’s leading public university; and a historically black college—faced their own unique challenges as they began to organize around issues on campus and in the community. However, these campuses should not be viewed individually and instead should be seen as aspects of larger trends of activism at the time. Three key conditions led North Carolina’s black students to advocate for change on their campuses: the limits of desegregation, the larger black campus movement, and the presence of a network of student organizers informed by the Black Power ideology. When the process of desegregation began in the 1950s, few authority figures thought of how to support new minority students adapting to an alien college environment. Black students in the state’s historically white colleges were particularly challenged. Universities remained disproportionately white in the decade following desegregation, with some school populations remaining less than 1 percent black in the late 1960s. This left blacks socially isolated at UNC-CH and Duke. Further, black students felt that their cultural identities were disrespected, given continued resistance to desegregation from some white students and faculty. Few courses on black life and culture existed, and the proposition that more should exist was a dubious one for many academics. Universities also failed to provide for other black student needs, such as academic remediation, tutoring, and other forms of academic guidance. Personal needs were also unmet. For instance, Duke’s black students complained that the school did not have a barber who knew how to cut black people’s hair. Though the challenges of desegregation were most evident at white schools, historically black colleges like NC A&T were also affected by continued white dominance in higher education. Students resisted paternalistic discipline policies shaped by white trustees and complained that courses on black history and culture were lacking. In general, students at schools both historically white and historically black felt that colleges permitted their presence but never embraced them. Students

97 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

also recognized that their schools were uninterested in responding to the concerns of blacks in the community. This absence of support shaped the missions and demands of black student groups and inspired their activism against campus authorities. One factor that was fairly unique to the movement in North Carolina was the presence of a strong, well-connected network of young black activists who shared philosophies and experiences. These networks were led by charismatic figures such as Nelson Johnson in Greensboro and Howard Fuller in Durham, who had cut their teeth organizing in black communities in the mid-1960s. These leaders worked with other youth in the state and steered them toward Black Power. When organizers took their work to college campuses, they recognized that universities often failed to provide adequate support for both minority students and nearby minority communities. Though organizers clearly drew inspiration from events nationwide, the networks in North Carolina represented a practical mechanism allowing black students to coordinate tactics, strategy, and goals. Moreover, they offered social and emotional support. When one activist group enjoyed successes, its methods spread to other campuses. When one activist group met resistance, other groups joined it in solidarity. This unity allowed the black campus movement to flourish across the state. In 1965, Howard Fuller, a young black militant from Wisconsin, traveled to North Carolina. Fuller was a new hire in the North Carolina Fund, an organization created to run experimental anti-poverty programs in North Carolina. Fuller was hired to lead the Fund’s new team of community organizers and over the next few years, his sensibilities as an organizer and his fiery rhetoric on the stage made him the most recognizable black activist in the state. He also brought controversy. As one of the first prominent figures to advocate Black Power in North Carolina, many people feared his radicalism. But Fuller’s ideological turn arose less out of anger than frustration. “The black people have to realize that blacks and whites are about different things,” he once remarked. “In a society that has proven it has no concern for your dignity and worth . . . you’re butting your head against the wall.” During his time in North Carolina, Fuller would teach his philosophy to young organizers like Nelson Johnson in Greensboro and Preston Dobbins in Chapel Hill, who would in turn carry the message to the

98 Michael Welker state’s college campuses.9 On these campuses, black students coalesced in social organizations that would eventually turn to activism. At colleges nationwide, minority students created these organizations initially because they felt a need for social supports in an unfamiliar and unwelcoming environment. At Duke, for instance, most black students had grown up in segregated communities, and they found that the transition to a desegregated but predominantly white institution was difficult. “We came up in all-black churches, all-black schools, all-black communities, all-black everything,” said one Duke student, “and then came here. And everything was all white.” No one at Duke University seemed to understand or respond to black student concerns, so the students formed their own community in an organization called the Afro-American Society (AAS). The AAS began as a social group, but members also engaged with the black community in Durham through their relationship with Howard Fuller.10 At UNC-CH and in Greensboro, activism was more central to the origins of student-driven black organizations. In Chapel Hill, Preston Dobbins brought his organizing experiences to campus following a stint with Youth Educational Services, a tutoring program based in Durham that was part of the North Carolina Fund and was staffed by young organizers, both white and black. When Dobbins began to attend meetings of the campus chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), he deemed it “a bullshit group” that failed to engage with the needs and interests of blacks in Chapel Hill. Dobbins crashed one meeting with a group of like-minded students and successfully motioned to reconstitute the NAACP as the Black Student Movement (BSM). As the new organization’s president, Dobbins moved to establish the BSM as a voice for both Chapel Hill’s black students and black community members. In Greensboro, Nelson Johnson followed a similar trajectory. As a YES tutor, Johnson had been concerned that the integrated organization encouraged whites to organize the black community, so he left to work

9 Tom Bailey, interview, July 9, 1977; “Howard Fuller: Controversial But He Wants to Be Flexible,” Raleigh News & Observer, December 14, 1969; Devin Fergus, Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 1965-1980 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2009), 21. 10 Bill Turner, interview, January 23, 1985; Tom Campbell, interview, February 8, 1985; Janice Williams, interview, February 13, 1985. 99 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

with the FCD under Fuller’s tutelage. Inspired by his experiences there, Johnson founded the Greensboro Association of Poor People (GAPP), a Black Power-aligned organization that pushed community control and black institution-building. Though he worked to unite blacks from a variety of social stations and ideological positions, Johnson took a particular interest in college students at NC A&T because he recognized the school’s significance in the community. In 1968, Johnson enrolled at NC A&T and focused on organizing students around community issues. The organizing background of the movement’s leaders was key to the formation of North Carolina’s black activist organizations. After working in some of the poorest, most disadvantaged communities in the state, organizers like Dobbins and Johnson saw how little the universities spoke to minority communities’ needs. In light of that, the movement leaders resolved to bring transformative change to campuses.11 In September 1968, Duke University reached out to the Afro-American Society in hopes of responding to issues faced by black students. Dean William Griffith put AAS leader Chuck Hopkins in charge of creating a committee of students, faculty, and administrators to discuss black student concerns. At the committee’s first meeting in October, Hopkins framed the conversation with the observation that a black student on a mostly- white campus had three options: “accepting the educational structure as it is and seeking his real self outside of it; [rebelling] at the lack of himself in the educational structure with extreme expressions of militancy; [or attempting] to have some of his own ideas and culture . . . incorporated into the overall structure of the educational institution.” The committee seemed to favor the third tactic. Hopkins and the other black students made a variety of requests. Some were small, like having a black campus barber, while others were functional, like increased recruitment of black students and the hiring of a black advisor. And some were primarily symbolic, like sponsoring a Black Culture Week, ending the playing of “Dixie” at public functions, and, most significantly, creating a black studies curriculum.12 Any optimism at the outset was short-lived. One Duke faculty

11 Nelson Johnson, interview, October 24, 1978; Tom Bailey, interview, July 9, 1977; Cecil Bishop, interview, October 13, 1977; Lewis Brandon, interview, July 1978; Howard Fuller, interview, January 8, 2014. 12 Frank L. Ashmore, “History of Afro-American Relations Prior to February 13, 1969,” folder 5, Black History at Duke Reference Collection 1948-2001 and undated. 100 Michael Welker member lamented the fact that the black students exhibited “studied mock aggression” in discussions. He also complained that the students did not sufficiently understand how the university was organized and administered and that they were not willing to speak about their demands “in terms of the possible.” Students had their own frustrations. AAS members felt that Duke’s faculty and administration did not consider it “part of their responsibility” to provide a supportive environment for black students. The university agreed to some of the AAS requests, including the sponsorship of Black Culture Week, but students nonetheless grew aggravated with the committee and Duke administration.13 In Chapel Hill, the university’s refusal to help finance Stokely Carmichael’s lecture angered BSM members. Because Carmichael was invited by a student organization rather than the university itself, the school declined to pay any part of Carmichael’s $1,500 fee. Upon learning of this decision, the BSM planned to pay Carmichael by charging admission to the event, but a campus administrator prohibited them from doing so. BSM members believed they could have raised $7,000 if they charged admission, but they collected only $700 in donations. Feeling that the school had deliberately attempted to undercut the BSM and the event, the students were primed to react. Beyond their financial frustrations, Carmichael’s strong posture underscored the necessity of black action and inspired students to launch protests against the administration.14 Carmichael’s lecture was also a catalyst at NC A&T. The media portrayed Carmichael as an enormous influence on young blacks in Greensboro, and although Nelson Johnson believed that influence was overstated, he conceded that Carmichael was able to “crystallize some points” about racial inequity and the importance of black community building. Johnson said Carmichael’s lecture “gave a little push to what was happening” in Greensboro and encouraged the growth of the activist movement there. Intellectually, Carmichael’s message also aided Johnson’s efforts to expand students’ consciousness of issues facing the black community. Up to that point, students had been concerned primarily with campus issues, but

13 Louis Budd, interview, March 1, 1985; Bill Turner, interview, January 23, 1985. 14 J. Carlyle Sitterson, letter to William C. Friday, December 16, 1968, General Administration/Consolidated University: Presidents, Office Records (William C. Friday files), Subgroup 1, Series 7, Subseries 1: Student Services. 101 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Carmichael made a much broader case about how and why to build power in black communities everywhere.15 Following Carmichael’s lecture in Chapel Hill, the Black Student Movement compiled a list of grievances regarding the university’s policies toward minorities. On December 10, 1968, the BSM presented Chancellor Sitterson with a document describing the school’s poor treatment of minorities and making 23 demands of the administration. The document charged the university with “perpetuat[ing] educational inequality,” being “totally unconcerned” with the black community in Chapel Hill, and making only “token, symbolic” changes in response to prior grievances from the black student community. The BSM’s demands were similar in many respects to those that emerged from the AAS two months earlier. The BSM made proposals both broad (“substantial financial aid” for black students) and specific (a payment of $7,000 to the BSM to make up for funds lost from Stokely Carmichael’s lecture). The demands constituted an expansive vision of what the university could do for blacks on campus and in the larger community, and they would be echoed at other North Carolina schools within a few months.16 In late January, Sitterson delivered an extensive, point-by-point reply to the BSM’s demands. The statement indicated his desire to be “responsive” to the needs of black students without offering “unique treatment” to one segment of the population. He then pointed to a number of areas where the university had already begun to act. He argued that the university had been particularly progressive on working conditions for university employees, paying a minimum wage above the federal standard and actively recruiting minorities for non-academic positions. To the demand for an African American studies curriculum, Sitterson claimed that a variety of courses concerning black history and culture were already available for students. Sitterson also absolved himself of responsibility in some areas where he said he did not have authority, such as admissions policy and economic development in Chapel Hill. Sitterson’s reply was by no means dismissive, but students took it as an example of the administration’s intransigence and

15 Nelson Johnson, interview, October 24, 1978. 16 Black Student Movement, “The Demands of the Black Student Movement,” December 10, 1968, folder 14, Records of the Chancellor: J. Carlyle Sitterson, 1966-72. 102 Michael Welker unwillingness to support blacks.17 In an official statement, the BSM argued the case for discrimination “which leads to the equality of all people,” contending that the university had to do more than provide the same treatment to everyone in order to ensure that minority students could succeed. The BSM also asserted that the university had more power than Sitterson was willing to acknowledge. The statement accused Sitterson of hiding behind “the myth of institutional neutrality” when he claimed that the university had limited influence on community development, and the BSM further said he had misunderstood or “consciously evade[d]” some of the demands. The BSM then restated many of its grievances.18 Privately, BSM members expressed a “need to force the institution to change—by any means necessary.” In an internal document, BSM leaders argued that if the university did not stand for change, it stood for the status quo, and, by extension, for the continuance of injustice and inequity. Colored by separatist sentiments in the Black Power movement, the statement said that if the school would not be more progressive on black students’ issues, the students did “not need the university as an institution.” In the fashion of the most radical Black Power activists, the students proclaimed that they were prepared to create a university of their own, tailored to the needs of black students. By this point, students were fully immersed in the goals and language of the national black campus movement, and they were prepared to adopt its protest methods as well. They indicated as much in early February, when 100 students entered the university’s administrative office in South Building and occupied it peacefully for ten minutes.19 Students at NC A&T combined their demands with a building occupation on the morning of February 5. Representatives of the school’s Student Government Association led a group of students to the Dudley Building, an administrative facility on campus. The students announced that they would occupy the building until administrators addressed their

17 J. Carlyle Sitterson, statement in response to Black Student Movement demands, January 24, 1969, folder 14, Records of the Chancellor: J. Carlyle Sitterson, 1966-72. 18 BSM statement on the Chancellor’s Reply, n.d., folder 14, Records of the Chancellor: J. Carlyle Sitterson, 1966-72. 19 Black Student Movement, statement on the Chancellor’s reply to BSM demands; Black Student Movement, “BSM DEMANDS: STAGE TWO, THE CHANCELLOR REPLIES (or) On our way to SF State?” folder 14, Records of the Chancellor: J. Carlyle Sitterson, 1966-72; “UNC Whites March in Support of BSM,” Daily Tar Heel, February 7, 1969. 103 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

list of demands, which included items as seemingly trivial as eliminating pop quizzes and relaxing attendance policies. Despite the narrow scope of some of the demands, the protesters at NC A&T, like those at Duke and UNC-CH, also insisted that more of the school’s course offerings be “black- oriented.” It seemed as true at all-black NC A&T as it did at mostly white Duke and UNC-CH that black students wanted to study “blackness” in an academic environment. That deep desire was shared across campuses, even when specific demands differed.20 In contrast to the drawn-out debate at UNC-CH, the situation at NC A&T was handled efficiently and smoothly by the end of that night. NC A&T President Lewis Dowdy worked with faculty representatives and the students to reach agreements on each of the demands. The narrow demands were easily addressed, while Dowdy made a commitment to examine the possibility of introducing more black-oriented coursework. Dowdy’s willingness to negotiate spoke to his reputation as a sympathetic friend to his students. Students generally trusted Dowdy to be responsive to their ideas and feelings, and even the more skeptical students conceded that Dowdy was not an “out-and-out [Uncle] Tom” like other black campus administrators who “run the most backward reactionary stuff.” Students might have expected that Dowdy, who answered to white trustees, would have resisted their protests, but instead he was open to black student concerns to a degree that white campus administrators never were.21 No North Carolina campus exemplified the demand and takeover models of protest quite like Duke University. By February, frustrations were growing. Progress was negligible on negotiations with the university administration, while at the beginning of the spring semester, sixteen of Duke’s 101 black students had withdrawn or had been suspended for academic reasons. The time was ripe for a bold student protest on campus, one that would draw inspiration from prior events in Chapel Hill and Greensboro.22

20 Lewis C. Dowdy, memo to Members of the Board of Trustees of North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, February 6, 1969, Box 104, Addresses and public papers of Robert Walter Scott, Governor of North Carolina, 1969-1973. 21 Ibid.; Carolyn Mark, interview, October 10, 1974; Lewis Brandon, interview, July 1978; Nelson Johnson, interview, October 24, 1978. 22 Don Yannella, “Race Relations at Duke and the Allen Building Takeover,” Undergraduate thesis in History, Duke University, 1985. 104 Michael Welker

Early on the morning of February 13, a large group of Duke’s black students climbed into the hold of a U-Haul truck and waited as it approached Chapel Drive in the heart of Duke’s West Campus. When the truck rolled to a stop, the students—carrying food, water, clothes, books, cameras, and playing cards—burst out and rushed to the Allen Building, the administrative center of the university and home of Duke’s Central Records Office. Students forced employees in the building to leave, then barricaded the doors with boards, ropes, and couches. Once the building was secured, the student occupiers made their first contact with the staff of the campus newspaper, the Chronicle. Student spokesman Chuck Hopkins listed their demands, claimed that they had kerosene, and said that if administrators entered the building, “these records are going to go.”23 Hopkins then called Dean William Griffith to read him the Afro-American Society’s list of demands.24 As had been the case at UNC-CH and NC A&T, the primary request on the Duke students’ list was the establishment of a program in African American studies, and the students released an extensive proposal for such a program in the Chronicle on the following day. Beyond that, they sought improved social and academic conditions for blacks across campus. Students demanded a black dormitory, advisor, and student union, financial assistance for black students, and revised admissions policies. Hopkins said that the AAS had tired of negotiating through “the so-called ‘proper’ channels” and had decided that the radical action of seizing the building would produce substantive change. Overall, the content of the demands, the justifications for them, and the methods used to highlight them were consistent with what had come from the AAS’s peers in Chapel Hill and Greensboro.25 President Knight, who was, ironically, in New York City seeking funding for a black studies program when he heard about the takeover, rushed back to Durham to help sort out the situation. Meanwhile, Provost Marcus Hobbs asked to negotiate the demands with the occupiers and was denied. At 3:30

23 It was later found that this was not the case. See Clark Cahow, interview, October 1984. 24 Clark Cahow, interview, October 1984; “Blacks leave peacefully,” Chronicle, February 14, 1969; Harry Jackson, memo to Douglas Knight, Barnes Woodhall, et. al; Tom Campbell, interview, February 8, 1985; Yannella, “Race Relations at Duke,” 30. 25 “Proposal for a Black studies program,” Chronicle, February 14, 1969; “The Black Demands,” February 13, 1969, Folder 3, Allen Building Takeover Collection. 105 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

that afternoon, Hobbs issued a one-hour ultimatum for students to leave the building. Like Sitterson in his reply to the BSM, Hobbs noted areas where the administration had responded to black demands, including the hiring of a black advisor and the creation of an African American living-learning group. The students remained unmoved. Half an hour later, Knight convened a faculty meeting to discuss the university’s response. Some faculty hoped that he would announce plans to negotiate, but Knight revealed that he had already made the decision to bring police officers onto campus to recover the building. “You know what has been happening on other campuses,” Knight said, referring to the wave of similar building takeovers at colleges across the country. His response indicated that administrators viewed the event as one more copycat protest in the larger black campus movement.26 As word about the police spread, fears of a violent confrontation grew. White students, some sympathetic and some simply curious, gathered on the quad during the day. Some students, worried that police would use tear gas or mace, passed out lemons and Vaseline. Inside the building, the black students—who had a police radio and heard of plans to retake the building— felt their resolve weakening and conferenced with Howard Fuller on what to do next. Fuller advised the students that “the guard’s going to come in here, they’ve got weapons, [and] you all are going to be dead . . . because their adrenaline is pumping and they’re armed for combat.” The occupiers decided to leave, and just before 5 p.m. students on the quad formed a human tunnel to shield the protesters as they emerged from the building and dispersed. Within an hour, police had entered, gassed the building, and restored it to Duke administrators.27 The police presence riled the students gathered on the quad, almost all of whom were white. When hostile, jeering crowds blocked in the officers who had retaken the Allen Building, police shot tear gas into the throng. Furious students raged back against the authorities. Tear gas canisters flew through the air as masses of students and officers merged in the confines of

26 Minutes of the Duke University General Faculty Meeting, February 13, 1969, Folder 3, Allen Building Takeover Collection; Marcus E. Hobbs, memo to Douglas Knight, February 17, 1969, Folder 4, Allen Building Takeover Collection; “University to meet most Afro demands,” Chronicle, February 17, 1969. 27 “Whites help blacks in Allen,,” Chronicle, February 14, 1969; Howard Fuller, interview, January 8, 2014; “25 Injured In Clash of Students and Police After Black Seizure of Duke Campus Building,” Durham Morning Herald, February 14, 1969; Janice Williams, interview, February 13, 1985. 106 Michael Welker the quad. Police cars plowed through the crowds, and students both black and white were pulled off the vehicles. Even Duke Chapel was gassed after students forced open the doors in search of refuge. The chaos lasted for over an hour. At 7:30 p.m., police reentered Allen Building to regroup, while a furious crowd of students assailed a police car, smashing its windows and headlights. Though the police were prepared to go back outside to protect their property, anxious administrators prevented the officers from returning to the quad. A short time later, police exited through a rear door and the crowds dispersed.28 At the end of it all, five students had been arrested, three for assault on an officer, one for interfering with an officer, and one for illegal possession of tear gas. It was reported that as many as 45 people were taken to the Emergency Room at Duke Hospital, two of them policemen. A hospital official stated that one officer was “lucky to be alive.” The campus community was shocked by the violence it had witnessed, but the dark turn of the day’s events fostered white student sympathy and increased black militancy. “I am morally incensed,” declared one young, white professor as the riot wound down, “that these people gassed you people—the students to whom this goddamn university belongs!” The protest and the subsequent riot had strengthened student solidarity, and an administration on its heels could no longer afford to ignore students’ growing power.29 A wave of dramatic and sometimes violent black student protest had reached North Carolina, and as a result, some of the state’s most prominent campuses witnessed demonstrations and takeovers. Protest methods from across the country were adopted and put into action by a network of experienced student activists. Agitated black student groups used public demonstrations and aggressive posturing to advance an agenda informed by the Black Power ideology and the larger wave of black student protest. The most important tenets of that ideology were the ideas of community control and black identity. From black studies programs to financial assistance for black students to university involvement in the community,

28 Tom Campbell, interview, February 8, 1985; Harry Demick, interview, February 12, 1985; “Police and students clash on main quad,” Chronicle, February 14, 1969; Student flier, n.d., folder 4, Allen Building Takeover Collection. 29 Harry Jackson, memo to Douglas Knight, Barnes Woodhall, et. al, May 27, 1969, folder 18, Allen Building Takeover Collection; “25 Injured in Clash of Students and Police After Black Seizure of Duke Campus Building,” Chronicle, February 14, 1969; “Police and students clash on main quad,” Chronicle, February 14, 1969. 107 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

student protesters sought resources that would support and dignify black populations both on campuses and in nearby communities. When institutional authorities would not help, student activists were willing to challenge the legitimacy of those institutions through attention-grabbing gestures and dedicated organizing efforts. It was an approach advocated by leading Black Power activists across the nation, who believed that when white America would not provide, black America should strike out on its own. That ideology took hold in a context of deep frustration felt by black students who had come of age during the peak of the civil rights movement. At Duke and UNC-CH, black students saw how desegregation left them isolated in a mostly white space. At NC A&T, students recognized the shortcomings of an education that failed to empower them. For all of the theatrics and high-minded rhetoric, students still responded to the oppression they felt with requests as seemingly insignificant as a black barber and the elimination of pop quizzes. On a human level, these students felt alienated from the institutions that held so much power over their lives and they sought to claim some measure of power for themselves. Their bold cries for acceptance, dignity, and inclusion could no longer be ignored. Official Responses to Student Protest North Carolina’s college leaders responded to incidents on their campuses with varying degrees of success. At Duke, in the aftermath of the Allen Building takeover, Knight lost a publicity battle on two fronts, with a Board of Trustees fearing he had given too much in negotiations with protesters and a student population crying that he had not given enough. In Chapel Hill, UNC System President Bill Friday and Chancellor Lyle Sitterson ran a skillful inside-outside strategy, in which Friday deflected external criticism by standing firm about the expectations of the law in regards to student protests while Sitterson negotiated with students to defuse tension on campus. At NC A&T, Lewis Dowdy had success working directly with students, but he was often marginalized by the will of white public officials in local and state government. Though black student leaders at schools across the state had made progress on campus issues, their backgrounds in community organizing also called them to tackle problems of labor and inequity. Those leaders saw highlighting the plight of campus cafeteria workers—almost always

108 Michael Welker black and working in poor conditions for low wages—as one way to connect university issues to broader concerns surrounding race and labor. Beginning in late February, the Black Student Movement at UNC-CH allied with cafeteria workers to help them plan a strike and advocate for improved working conditions and higher wages.30 The foundation for the strike was set in early 1969, when a group of cafeteria workers sought guidance from the BSM. Facing a $1.60 minimum wage, regular verbal abuse, and no opportunities to advance into management, the black workers felt as if they were treated “just like a bunch of slaves.” Given their concerns and needs, the cafeteria employees thought that the BSM would be a logical partner for a protest. When the workers suggested a strike, the BSM helped them develop a strategy and pledged strong support. On February 23, the plan was set into motion: employees reported to work that evening, but as soon as the cafeteria at Lenoir Hall opened, they walked out while BSM members banged trays on tables and countertops. This opening salvo led cafeteria management and university officials to seek a meeting with the striking workers.31 The BSM supported the strike in a number of ways. Members offered themselves as spiritual confidantes to the cafeteria workers, while others persuaded students not to eat in the dining halls. They helped the workers hire civil rights attorney Julius Chambers, rallied other students and faculty around the cause, and set up a soul food cafeteria so the workers could feed students and earn money during the strike. BSM leader Preston Dobbins and the workers insisted that the black students would not lead the strike, and Dobbins deterred white radicals from employing more disruptive methods. The deliberate choice to minimize student influence—particularly that of white students—spoke to the BSM’s commitment to Black Power, as they believed it necessary for the black workers to stand up for themselves.32 The BSM was nonetheless unafraid to provide physical strength on behalf of the workers. They frequently entered Lenoir Hall during meals and deliberately interfered with service. On March 4, their tactics led to a scuffle with angry white students. After the confrontation, BSM members worried that white student frustration might turn into violence against the

30 Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights, 183-5. 31 Ashley Davis, interview, April 12, 1974; Elizabeth Brooks, interview, October 2, 1974. 32 Ibid. 109 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

cafeteria workers. To deter any physical retaliation against the workers, BSM members reentered Lenoir Hall during dinner service later that evening and silently marched through, flipping tables and throwing chairs as they went. They had not discussed the plan with the cafeteria workers, but the BSM was determined to put up a strong defensive front. Thought they had never intended to employ force in the strike, their demonstration nonetheless stoked concerns that the strike might turn violent.33 Because of the BSM’s march through Lenoir Hall and the student outcry about black studies at Duke, the specter of violence on campus was raised again, and Governor Bob Scott was prepared for the worst. Scott stepped in on March 5 to handle the brewing trouble, announcing that four National Guard units would be standing by in Durham and that five squads of highway patrolmen were to be stationed in Chapel Hill. Scott also issued warrants for the arrest of the students involved in the Lenoir Hall incident. If ever there was a time for violence to break out at North Carolina’s colleges, that day seemed to be the one, and Scott was prepared to make good on his promises to maintain order on campus. Duke President Douglas Knight, fearing escalations of violence in the days after the Allen Building incident, had made significant promises to work with the African American Society on their key issues. Most critically, Knight agreed to further negotiations over the development of a black studies program. But students remained skeptical of the administration and frustrated with the pace of progress. On Monday, March 10, 23 black undergraduates at Duke announced that they would withdraw immediately, to be joined by another 17 students at the end of the school year. That night, over 1,000 people joined a peaceful torchlight march in Durham to support the students. The next night, however, a second march devolved into violence. Rioters broke windows, attacked a city bus, and fought police after plans for a march to Duke’s campus fell apart. Six students also were arrested for attempting to set fire to Duke Forest. Durham Mayor Wense Grabarek called for a curfew the next day, which would be enforced by the National Guardsmen sent in by Governor Scott. Though two fire-bombings were reported and 26 area students were arrested for violating the curfew,

33 Ibid.; “50 Negroes Stir Havoc at UNC,” Winston-Salem Journal, March 5, 1969; J. Derek Williams, It Wasn’t Slavery Time Anymore: Foodworkers’ Strike at Chapel Hill, Spring 1969, Master’s thesis in History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1979, 113-7. 110 Michael Welker

the night of March 12 passed without major unrest.34 With the city fearful of further violence, Duke’s Undergraduate Faculty Council prepared to vote the next day on a supervisory structure for the black studies program. The faculty proposed a committee of five faculty and three students. The Afro-American Society countered with a proposal for a committee of five faculty members, four students, and one other mutually agreed-upon member. When the proposals came to a vote, Duke’s faculty rejected the AAS offer. After another march that evening, the black students scheduled a press conference for the next day to announce plans for a new school called Malcolm X Liberation University. Howard Fuller and the students insisted that the new school would not be “a publicity stunt,” but would instead offer a “first-rate and practical” education that was “not at present possible at Duke.” They were weary of challenging institutions, and

34 “1,000 Join Parade Here Supporting Black Group Dropping Out of Duke,” Durham Morning Herald, March 11, 1969; “Violence Erupts in Wake of March,” Durham Morning Herald, March 12, 1969; “Negroes, Duke Near Compromise; Guardsmen, Police Enforce Curfew,” Durham Morning Herald, March 13, 1969; “Use of Fuller’s Car By Students ‘Beyond Intent,’” Durham Morning Herald, March 14, 1969; “UFC defeats compromise proposal,” The Chronicle, March 14, 1969. 111 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

they had decided it was time to build their own.35 At the same time, Governor Scott was determined to bring the strike in Chapel Hill to a close. On the morning of March 13, he ordered Chancellor Sitterson to clear Manning Hall, which the striking workers and the BSM had used as the site for meetings and for the soul food cafeteria. He also sought the arrest of all students involved in the March 4 Lenoir Hall incident. During the day, university administrators worked evacuated the building while highway patrolmen began to gather outside. By midafternoon, the workers and students—counseled by Howard Fuller, playing the same role he had played at the Allen Building a month before—made the decision to leave. The patrolmen herded a crowd of 2,000 onlookers onto the quad, and though the situation was fraught with the potential for violence, no serious incidents occurred. Seven students sought for their involvement in the events at Lenoir turned themselves in without protest. Scott had successfully followed through on his commitment to enforce the law on campus, but in doing so, he brought UNC-CH closer to violence than it had been at any point during the 1968-69 school year.36 The next day, Scott again reaffirmed his hard line on student protest. In remarks to the UNC System Board of Trustees, he said that under his watch, the university system would operate without regard to student protesters. He criticized administrators for “indecision, delay, and vacillation” and dismissed the notion that a conciliatory approach could help prevent “probable” violence and demonstrations. Despite his public proclamations, Scott privately asked Friday and Sitterson to determine the costs of an across-the-board 20-cent raise in hourly wages for non-academic employees. When Friday confirmed that the university system budget could withstand the raise, Scott approved salary increases for university personnel and announced the decision on March 21. Highway patrolmen had ended the occupation of Manning Hall, but concessions to laborers were the only way Scott could end the strike.37

35 “UFC defeats compromise proposal,” The Chronicle, March 14, 1969; “Black students in exile start Malcolm X school,” The Chronicle, March 14, 1969. 36 Williams, It Wasn’t Slavery Time, 125-126 & 207-214; “UNC building vacated by students, strikers,” Greensboro Daily News, March 14, 1969. 37 Bob Scott, Remarks to the Executive Committee of the University of North Carolina, March 14, 1969, William Friday, letter to Bob Scott, March 20, 1969, General Administration/Consolidated University: Presidents, Office Records (William C. Friday files), Subgroup 1, Series 7, Subseries 1: Student Services. 112 Michael Welker

Though Scott’s firm stand had delivered a blow to student protesters at Duke and UNC-CH, the governor could not stop a separate food workers’ strike at NC A&T on March 13. Nelson Johnson, who had been determined to bridge the gap between campus and community, saw labor conditions for cafeteria workers as a potentially unifying issue. Johnson calculated that students’ proximity to the cafeteria workers, and the fact that some NC A&T students worked across town in UNC-Greensboro’s cafeteria, would allow them to see the struggle of Greensboro’s laboring classes firsthand. He also had an eye on the strike in Chapel Hill. Though the strikes were separately planned and had different targets—NC A&T, unlike UNC-CH, contracted with a private food service provider—Johnson drew on the student activist network in North Carolina to discuss strategies during that period.38 The activists in Greensboro used a combination of large public demonstrations and a sustained boycott of NC A&T’s cafeteria to pressure food service managers. With 4,000 students participating, Johnson and his companions dedicated their time to securing food from community members and local grocery stores. Protesters’ success in sustaining the boycott was a testament to the strength and solidarity of the coalition Johnson had brought together. Beyond the simple feat of organizing the boycott, the most notable single incident in the strike was a march to NC A&T President Lewis Dowdy’s house on March 15. Roughly 2,500 students participated in the march, which devolved into a violent clash with the police. Just days after the riots in Durham and the near-riot in Chapel Hill, law enforcement had again intervened in a peaceful protest that would turn dangerous and volatile. The police response did not deter the strikers, and cafeteria workers won a newly-negotiated contract in early April.39 Nelson Johnson and other GAPP organizers spent much of the spring working with local students at Dudley High School, just blocks from NC A&T’s campus. One of the students was Claude Barnes, a GAPP volunteer who, in April, announced his intent to run for student body president on a Black Power platform. After Barnes declared his candidacy, Dudley administrators barred him from appearing on the ballot. Barnes and his supporters boycotted the election, but on May 2 he won as a write-in candidate, receiving approximately 400 more votes than the runner-up.

38 Nelson Johnson, interview, October 24, 1978. 39 Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights, 183-185; Nelson Johnson, interview, October 24, 1978. 113 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Outraged at Barnes’s exclusion, Dudley students spent the next three weeks picketing and holding walkouts with the support of students at NC A&T. In multiple incidents, crowds of protesters entered the high school building to disrupt classes and encourage other students to walk out. Dudley was twice dismissed early due to the disruptions. On May 21, following two days of tense picketing, police came to Dudley’s campus after an observer reported that one of the protesters had a weapon. When officers arrived, students hurled rocks at them, and the police responded by dispersing the crowd with tear gas. Protesters fled the gas and eventually made their way to NC A&T’s campus. That afternoon, Greensboro Mayor Jack Elam called Governor Scott to request assistance from state military personnel. With angry crowds throwing rocks at white motorists, vandalizing property, and setting fires across the city, Scott ordered National Guardsmen into Greensboro. Elam believed that Greensboro police were worn down after weeks of protest and hoped that fresher Guardsmen would be able to contain the situation.40 The arrival of 150 National Guardsmen on NC A&T’s campus instead led to a shootout between students and authorities. Within three hours of the Guard’s arrival, there were reports of sniper fire coming from Scott Hall, a campus dormitory. When law enforcement began to return fire after midnight, the campus quickly transformed into a war scene. Hundreds of Guardsmen and police were on hand, while posses of blacks and whites roved around to observe the conflict—or participate in it. NC A&T student Willie Grimes was in one of those groups. Grimes and his friends ventured out from campus to get food at a nearby restaurant. As they walked, a bullet hit Grimes in the back of the head, sending him to the ground. His companions rushed to lift him into a car and sped to nearby Moses Cone Hospital, but doctors pronounced Grimes dead on arrival. Through all of the protests and tense situations on campuses in North Carolina to that point, no student had been killed. When tragedy finally struck, it took the life of an innocent student with no real ties to the activist movement on campus. The identity

40 North Carolina State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Trouble in Greensboro: a report of an open meeting concerning the disturbances at Dudley High School and North Carolina A & T State University (Washington, D.C., The Committee, 1970); Jack Elam, interview, c. 1975; “The 50-Hour Ordeal: Greensboro’s March to Three Days of Virtual Warfare,” Greensboro Daily News, May 26, 1969. 114 Michael Welker of Grimes’s killer remains unknown.41 With gunfire and vandalism raging on into the morning of May 22, Elam declared a state of emergency, imposed an overnight curfew, and called for another 500 Guardsmen to enter the city. That afternoon, President Lewis Dowdy announced that his campus would be closed and vacated by 6 p.m. the following day. Scott came to Greensboro for a briefing and began planning a sweep of Scott Hall with Elam, the state attorney general, the director of the State Bureau of Investigation, and National Guard leaders, all of whom were white. At 6:30 a.m. on May 23, Dowdy—who had never been consulted about the decision to sweep the building, despite his past successes in negotiating with students—was notified that Guardsmen were preparing to move in. Students were then given 15 minutes’ notice to leave the building. At 7 a.m., Guardsmen entered Scott Hall, taking students from the building and searching for weapons, shooting the locks off doors when necessary, while a helicopter flew over campus, firing tear gas on the students below. More than 200 students were taken into custody during the sweep, but law enforcement found only two functioning weapons. Authorities suspected that most of the weapons and ammunition were furtively removed from the building during an overnight pause in gunfire.42 The gunmen in the Scott Hall incident were never identified, but it seems unlikely that Johnson and his allies in GAPP would have been involved in the shootings. Some believed that the resistance came from a contingent of Black Panthers led by NC A&T student Eric Brown, whose radicalism and penchant for violence were well-known. Though the gunmen’s identities were unknown, officials were quick to criticize outside agitators for their role in the conflict. Charles Dunn, the SBI director, noted that “outsiders will leave and leave the local ones to get in trouble,” and Scott added that “hard- core militants” had used the Dudley election to create confrontation. A local judge issued an order barring Claude Barnes, Nelson Johnson, NC A&T’s student body president Vincent McCullough, and Durham-based Howard

41 Trouble In Greensboro; “Witnesses Describe Grimes Death: Students’ Signed Statements Recall a Night of Violence,” Greensboro Daily News, July 7, 1969; “Coroner Says Grimes was Shot Only Once,” Greensboro Record, May 26, 1969. 42 Trouble in Greensboro; “Youth Dead, City Under Curfew - Four Shot in New Violence,” Greensboro Daily News, May 23, 1969; “A&T Campus Is Cleared After Extended Violence,” Greensboro Daily News, May 24, 1969; “City Tense, Quiet with Curfew Lifted,” Greensboro Daily News, May 25, 1969; “Police Evaluate What Did Happen In City,” Greensboro Record, May 26, 1969. 115 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Fuller from Dudley’s campus. In their public statements about the incidents, Johnson and McCullough refuted the idea that they were outsiders. Johnson said that nothing about his three years organizing in Greensboro made him an “outsider,” while McCullough turned the argument back on Governor Scott. “What does Governor Scott think he is?” McCullough said. “[He is] stirring up the National Guard, the police, and the Highway Patrol. Why, he’s the ringleader of outside agitators.” For Greensboro’s young activists, state officials’ attitudes were an absurd distortion of the reality of the situation. To those activists, white authorities had cracked down on protests that began peacefully, wreaking violence and destruction, rather than giving a fair hearing to the views of the black community. But in this instance, unlike every other campus incident in North Carolina in 1968 and 1969, there had been a deadly toll as a consequence.43 The Greensboro uprising highlights the major disconnect between student protesters and the authorities who responded to them: activists sought a voice, and officials sought order. For a time in the spring of 1969, it seemed impossible for those interests to coexist. When protests ratcheted up on campuses, college administrators tried to contain incidents through institutional channels and by engaging students in discussion and debate. These methods could sometimes placate students, and were obviously far more likely to do so than the threat of arrest or violence, but when tensions rose and protests bled out into communities, law enforcement could not be prevented from getting involved. Administrators saw their authority undermined as police and state officials intervened, seeking order through the application of the law. The use of legal and physical force could contain protests, but it could not remedy the alienation that students felt. As much as students disliked slow negotiations with university administrators, peaceful discussion was far preferable to the tear gas, clubbings, or gunfire that they endured when they engaged in demonstrations. Over time, the protesters realized that there were fundamental, irreconcilable differences between their aims and those of the state’s academic leaders and elected officials. The gap between students and institutional forces was perhaps best exemplified by Duke’s debate over

43 Claude Barnes, interview, September 27, 2002; “Scott, Dunn Put Blame on Agitators,” Greensboro Daily News, May 23, 1969; “Scott Raps Militants For Violence In City,” Greensboro Daily News, May 24, 1969; “It’ll Take Time To Clean Up,” Greensboro Daily News, May 26, 1969. 116 Michael Welker black studies. The issue of community-oriented content in the curriculum was significant in its own right, but the real sticking point was ensuring a student voice in what would be taught. Students felt that their exclusion from the conversation denied their right to self-determination, and that they had been shut out of decision-making processes at a white-dominated institution with immense influence over their lives. Despite the students’ calls for an equal voice, Duke was a university, and with that came a host of rules, norms, and precedents that would not be set aside because of the pressures of an upstart group. When dialogue failed, students took to direct action, only to be shut down by law enforcers’ intervention. As a consequence, students turned toward the separatist strain of the Black Power ideology. If institutional powers would not move for the activists, the activists would have to build their own institutions. As the turmoil of that spring in 1969 fell away, black campus activists in North Carolina set themselves on a new path. They would no longer push for change from within, but would create an educational institution for themselves. In doing so, they would satisfy demands for cultural relevance and self-determination that had for so long been denied.

The Founding of Malcolm X Liberation University The opening of Malcolm X Liberation University’s (MXLU) in Durham on October 25, 1969, marked the culmination of a protracted struggle of young black activists against North Carolina’s colleges and universities. After years of demanding change, Howard Fuller, Nelson Johnson, and other black activists in North Carolina had tired of higher education’s glacial bureaucracy and the law’s violent force. They turned in response to a new project, the creation of an independent black educational institution. Hundreds of community members, many in traditional Lorem Ipsum yada yada yada. African garb, gathered for the opening (Photo courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) celebration. MXLU had captured the 117 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

attention of national figures, including Malcolm X’s widow Betty Shabazz, who spoke at the event, and Stokely Carmichael, who wrote that the day was “one of the most important events that have taken place in our struggle.” Crowds marched across Durham, chanting “Power to the people! Black, black power to the African people!” When a white engineer in a passing train sounded his whistle to interrupt the ceremonies, several attendees jumped aboard and forced him to pass in silence. Nothing would detract from the celebratory mood as Fuller and his supporters commenced a bold new experiment in black education.44 MXLU was one example of a “black university” created as an outgrowth of the black campus movement. The separatist elements in the Black Power movement suggested that education of, by, and for the black community should be the end goal, but activists nationwide had found that that transformation was nearly impossible within universities, though there were some exceptions. In 1968, students at City University of New York forced their administration to introduce an open admissions policy by arguing that higher education was a “right of postwar U.S. citizenship” for all, including minorities and the working class. On the west side of Chicago, students and community members successfully convinced leaders at Crane College that the school had an obligation to better serve its majority black student body. The activists proposed that the school hire a black president, increase its number of black faculty, and implement a black-focused curriculum. The college’s administration openly welcomed the suggestions, and the school set out on a new course under the name of Malcolm X College. Most campuses, however, saw incremental change managed by white authorities, frequently in the form of black studies programs. For Fuller, that outcome was dissatisfying, as even if black students could secure an academic program or some other concessions, they still would not have an independent black educational institution.45 When confronted with student demands, especially in terms of black- focused curriculum, universities typically attempted to craft their responses in ways that would be consistent with the norms of higher education. This

44 Progress report on MXLU, November 15, 1969, folder 3, Cleveland L. Sellers papers; “Opening of Malcolm X U. includes all-day ceremonies,” Chronicle, October 28, 1969; “‘Liberation’ university opens,” Milwaukee Courier, November 2, 1969. 45 Howard Fuller, interview, January 8, 2014; Martha Biondi, The Black Revolution on Campus (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012), 116, 107-8. 118 Michael Welker approach offered both opportunities and threats for activists. On one hand, administrators knew how to create programs that would be sustainable and allow for the free intellectual expression of “blackness” within the university environment. On the other, new policies and programs were frequently perceived as watered-down or compromised versions of the initial student demands. Tradeoffs were necessary for student demands to be granted the protection of institutionalization, and for activists like Fuller, that exchange was not worth sacrificing ideological purity. In some instances, activists’ hardline stances on self-determination inspired the creation of independent black schools. One example was the Nairobi Schools of East Palo Alto, California. Community members in East Palo Alto decided to design a new school system after a Stokely Carmichael visit during which he told integrationists that he did not “understand why you would be working this hard to send your children’s minds to be educated by people who have oppressed you for 400 years.” The Nairobi Schools educated minority students exclusively from early childhood to college age. The program’s Pan-Africanist curriculum stressed that the struggle for black liberation was global, and taught nation-building skills that would be helpful for blacks everywhere.46 Self-determination was central to the existence of institutions like the Nairobi Schools, Malcolm X Liberation University, and their peers. With the power to choose an intellectual or philosophical course, the leaders of these schools exercised a freedom that up to that point had been denied to blacks in higher education. Curricula at these schools taught pride in black identity, revealed “objective” knowledge to have a Eurocentric bias, and focused on “relevance” both in teaching practical skills and developing a consciousness of black communities. In the colleges and universities these activists left behind, there was no space for these emerging approaches to black education, which made the creation of black universities an important part of the black campus movement’s evolution. Moderate interpretations of Black Power might suggest that white institutions could be remade to be “blacker,” but in cases like MXLU, that work was foregone in favor of the development of an independent black-controlled institution. At the same time, Fuller and others at MXLU found that an institution

46 Biondi, Black Revolution on Campus, 221-226. 119 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

founded on a controversial, separatist ideology would face enormous logistical barriers in its operations. It seemed obvious that MXLU would have to be careful in framing its mission and purpose if its programs were to secure funds from white benefactors, but the school’s organizers were surprised by the extent to which the black community resisted the project.47 In their activist zeal, MXLU’s leaders mistakenly assumed broad support for their program. If a school taught about black identity, it would need to acknowledge competing views about what it meant to be black in America and globally. If it called knowledge political, it would have to grapple with its own political motives and their implications. If it called for relevance to the community, it would need to understand and be a part of the community. MXLU’s program was just one vision for black education, and its competition with other views complicated the school’s operations throughout its brief existence. In May 1969, organizers released a proposal for the university, claiming that it would “provide an ideological [and] practical methodology for meeting the physical, social, psychological, economic, [and] cultural needs of Black People.” The proposal declared that the school would be based on “self-determination and the undying love of black people” and would teach topics as varied as community organizing, economics, and self-defense. Students in the two-year program would spend their first year learning about black civilizations, languages, and history. In their second year, they would be trained in technical skills. It was a program unlike anything that could have been achieved at Duke or any other North Carolina colleges.48 Howard Fuller and other university leaders decided that the ideological

47 Some have argued that white financial or institutional support ultimately had the effect of contaminating the hard separatism of Black Power in the creation of black studies programs and black universities. Both Fabio Rojas’s From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) and Noliwe M. Rooks’s White Money/Black Power: The Surprising History of African American Studies and the Crisis of Race in Higher Education (Boston: Beacon Press, 2007) discuss the role of white philanthropists at the Ford Foundation in shaping black studies programs, finding that though Black Power- influenced activists made the demands, responses and implementation were shaped by whites, who typically favored integration. Devin Fergus makes a similar argument about MXLU, specifically in Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 1965-1980. He claims that funds from liberal white benefactors, notably the national Episcopal Church, “helped contain MXLU, even as critics assumed Black Power ran amok over it.” 48 Malcolm X Liberation University Fact Sheet, May 14, 1969, Cleveland L. Sellers Papers, folder 3; “Malcolm X U Set To Open Doors Oct. 27,” Durham Morning Herald, October 10, 1969; Howard Fuller, interview, January 8, 2014. 120 Michael Welker bent of the new university would be Pan-Africanist, explaining the struggle of blacks as a global movement. At the time, two strains of Black Power philosophy co-existed: globally-minded Pan-Africanism and U.S.-focused nationalism. The tension between the two emerged at MXLU, and the ultimate decision to focus on Pan-Africanism affected many aspects of the university’s operations, defining the type of student the school would recruit, the type of faculty the school would hire, and the type of courses that would be offered. Most fundamentally, it determined that the school’s purpose would be to prepare students for the work of nation-building both at home and in Africa, or wherever the black struggle for liberation took place. Though there are few written accounts of the university’s development, Fuller has said that the decision to focus on Pan-Africanism created internal debates that plagued the school throughout its existence.49 Fuller emerged as the driving force behind MXLU. The self-styled “Head Nigger In Charge” made the case for the school in public forums and led its operations behind the scenes. Over the summer, Fuller decided to leave the Foundation for Community Development to focus on the school’s fall opening. By that point, there was significant interest. The school had received 65 applications for admission, many of them from North Carolina, but some from as far away as Massachusetts and Mississippi. Even so, the school was in a perilous financial situation, having raised only $850 in donations. Fuller prepared grant applications to a number of organizations, including the national Episcopal Church and his former employer, the FCD. The school faced added challenges because it was committed to keeping its program ideologically pure. Fuller was firm that the university would not “accept money that was going to have us be who we weren’t trying to be,” but at the same time, he recognized that this position would make it difficult to secure funds. The pool of organizations and individuals who would support a separatist university named for Malcolm X was already small, and it would take a leap of faith to offer funding with minimal say in how a donation would affect the school’s curriculum and philosophy.50

49 Howard Fuller, interview, January 8, 2014. 50 “Fuller Granted FCD Leave to Push Malcolm X Work; James L. Lee Replacing Him,” Durham Morning Herald, July 23, 1969; Progress Report on Malcolm X Liberation University, c. July 1969 , folder 3, Cleveland L. Sellers papers; Malcolm X Liberation University Fact Sheet, May 14, 1969, folder 3, Cleveland L. Sellers papers; Howard Fuller, interview, January 8, 2014. 121 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Though successfully procuring a grant from the national Episcopal Church did not solve all of MXLU’s funding problems, it gave the school the financial security necessary to open at the end of October. Fifty-one students enrolled for the first year, each of whom were charged $300 in tuition. The hope was that those funds would shore up the school’s financial condition, but most of the students were unable to finance their education and living expenses, creating additional burdens for the school. The school’s student population shrank to 19 by the middle of its first year. Whether because of an inability to pay expenses, disciplinary expulsion, or disagreements with the school’s educational approach, many of MXLU’s first students left the school behind, and its leadership had reason to doubt that MXLU would survive. By the spring of 1970, there had been discussion of moving the school from Durham to a place where community support and funding would be easier to acquire.51 The new university had not fully found its footing, but it was largely successful in executing its educational mission in the first year. A democratic Council of Elders comprised of administrators, students, and community members governed the university. The school made a strong commitment to limit white involvement in instruction and the operations of the university, instead drawing on local black professionals to serve as teachers and mentors. Eight subjects were taught in the academic curriculum, including black political thought and cultural expression, the colonized mind, community organizing, political economy, and physical development. The school also set up five technical concentrations in communications, engineering, food science, biomedicine, and education. Though some courses were initially ill-defined—starting out as black history or black English, for instance— they still spoke to the school’s vision for an education that explored the black identity.52 Historical accounts of MXLU have stressed how the separatist and Pan-Africanist feelings at the heart of the university’s philosophy rankled some in Durham’s black community, where a thriving middle class tended to advocate integration. In contrast, black leaders in Greensboro were more

51 Proposal for Malcolm X Liberation University, Spring 1970, folder 3, Cleveland L. Sellers Papers. 52 Ibid.; Minutes of the Council of Elders Meeting, May 1, 1970, folder 5, Cleveland L. Sellers papers; Howard Fuller, interview, January 8, 2014. 122 Michael Welker receptive to the younger, more radical voices like that of Nelson Johnson, who, regardless of his ideological leanings, had proven himself a skillful and diligent community organizer. Fuller believed that Johnson’s successes in Greensboro promised a more positive climate for the school there.53 The school’s associations with political activism frequently led to a perception that its students were unruly or misbehaved, but the school actually promoted strong character traits and emphasized strict rules of personal conduct. One student handbook stated that above all, students should display a “positive character which can be outlined as honest, cooperative, and productive.” The handbook claimed that to best serve black people, all those involved with MXLU would need to “be in the best physical, mental, and emotional conditions.” It accordingly asked students “to eliminate habits that are detrimental to the success and survival of the institution . . . such as drinking, maltreatment of brothers and sisters, and abusive language.” The school also made attendance mandatory for all classes and placed male and female students in separate homes to discourage sexual dalliances. Some more rebellious students found the policies onerous, but generally, the rules were accepted.54 By the time the 1972-73 school year began, Fuller had also begun a philosophical transformation that brought longstanding debates about the school’s ideological directions to the fore. Fuller traveled to Mozambique in 1971 to learn more about Africa and to spend time with freedom fighters. His experience was revelatory. For all of MXLU’s rhetoric about being a revolutionary university, Fuller realized that “it’s one thing to discuss revolution. It’s another thing to be in one.” In Africa and after his return, Fuller began to see the MXLU model of training students to be Pan-Africanist nation-builders as naive. In Africa, blackness was not the unifying quality that Fuller had believed it to be. He saw firsthand that some African blacks violently oppressed other blacks. When he returned to the US, he began to consider alternative views. Some in the school continued to believe in the Pan-Africanist approach, but Fuller increasingly gravitated toward Marxist class analysis and a focus on the black experience in America.55 Given Fuller’s revelations in Africa, it was not immediately clear where

53 Fergus, Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 77-78. 54 MXLU Student Handbook, n.d., folder 4, Cleveland L. Sellers papers. 55 Howard Fuller, interview, January 8, 2014. 123 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

the university would move from its ideological roots. In his own life, Fuller publicly distanced himself from the separatist and militant rhetoric that drove the black student movement in its early days. In 1972, he worked with a black-controlled, white-financed organization called the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organizations to secure funds for MXLU. He swore off revolutionary violence, and instead emphasized more traditional, restrained methods of change, such as voting and moral suasion. As Devin Fergus has written, “by 1972, MXLU’s president appeared to prioritize nonviolence and negotiating—the very outcomes the school’s namesake, Malcolm X, had feared most would result” from black activists’ engagement with whites. It was a far cry from the confrontational posture held by the black student activists who had first called Duke’s Allen Building by the name of Malcolm X Liberation University in February 1969.56 Ultimately, the school’s inability to find stable funding sources and its underdeveloped relationships with the black community in Greensboro left no easy path forward for MXLU. With little other option, Fuller announced the school’s closure at the end of June 1973. Fuller recognized that institutions outlived their usefulness when they failed to be dynamic. He also believed that inertia was not sufficient cause to keep an institution alive. If an institution could not serve the people it was intended to serve and could not accomplish the goals it was established to accomplish—and, indeed, if the institution saw its purpose and intellectual foundation eroded—that institution had no reason to exist.57 Malcolm X Liberation University’s tumultuous history contrasted starkly with the smooth institutionalization of black studies at UNC-CH. In the spring of 1969, after members of the Black Student Movement presented a list of demands to Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson, the university began to develop an African and African American Studies curriculum. Raymond Dawson, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, identified the university’s existing courses related to black history and culture and convened a committee of four faculty and three students to investigate the issue in greater depth. Dawson told committee members that he had chosen

56 Fergus, Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 88; Howard Fuller, interview, January 8, 2014. 57 “Malcolm X Meets Goals and Closes,” Greensboro Daily News, June 28, 1973; Howard Fuller, interview, January 8, 2014. 124 Michael Welker them based on their expressed interest in an African and African American Studies program. Two of the student members were BSM representatives. One student member, Evelyn Lewis, told campus newspaper the Daily Tar Heel that she believed the committee was “sincere” in its work. The mutual suspicion between Duke’s faculty and its black students had no parallel at UNC-CH.58 The committee outlined four goals that would characterize the program: defining “blackness;” learning black identity; preserving black cultures; and understanding “the third world concept.” The content seemed similar to that offered at black universities like MXLU, but lacked those schools’ commitment to independence and self-determination for black students. The committee drew from the examples of two pioneering black studies departments in developing its proposal: those at San Francisco State, the site of the first attempts to introduce black studies, and Yale, an academically elite institution that had welcomed the new discipline. Like Yale’s program, UNC-CH’s African and African American Studies curriculum was built around a concentration in established disciplines such as history and English, with core courses in African or African American Studies to provide context. Like San Francisco State’s curriculum, the committee’s plan highlighted the importance of community involvement and the development of concrete skills along with an academic view of black culture. The plan also recommended using black graduate students as instructors, pursuing exchange programs with predominantly black colleges, and encouraging students to participate in community service and internships. On May 9, with no opposition, UNC-CH’s faculty approved the new program in African and African-American Studies.59 Setting UNC-CH’s black studies program alongside MXLU illuminates an alternative process of institutionalizing social change. To be sure, there

58 Raymond H. Dawson to J. Carlyle Sitterson, memorandum, December 13, 1968, folder 13, Records of the Chancellor: J. Carlyle Sitterson, 1966-72; “Dawson Appoints Members to Afro-American Body,” Daily Tar Heel, February 7, 1969; Raymond H. Dawson to African and African American Studies Committee, February 5, 1969, folder 1, Townsend Ludington papers. 59 Faculty Committee Report, folder 1, Townsend Ludington Papers; Meeting notes from March 5, 1969, folder 1, Townsend Ludington papers; John H. Bunzel, “Black Studies at SF State” from The Public Interest: Number 13, Fall 1968, folder 3, Townsend Ludington papers, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Yale University African American Study Group, “A Proposal for a Major in Afro-American Studies,” folder 3, Townsend Ludington papers. 125 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

were many differences between the two experiences. Students in Chapel Hill never agitated as strongly as the Duke students did for representation on their planning committee. Though community engagement never became a central component of the curriculum, faculty at UNC-CH did not openly doubt its appropriateness in an academic discipline. While MXLU was defined by its separatist, Pan-Africanist ideology, UNC-CH’s program would examine the black identity and the third world concept from a number of angles, often within frameworks, disciplines, or ideologies already present in the university environment. Compromises were made on both sides throughout the process at UNC-CH, while discussions at Duke were marked by a constant tension that would eventually inspire the creation of an independent school. The most significant difference is that African and African American Studies at UNC-CH has survived, while MXLU has not. The reason for this has much to do with how “freedom” is defined in higher education. MXLU saw freedom as interwoven with self-determination, deriving from a group’s ability to chart a course for itself. Independence from existing institutions of higher learning allowed Fuller and his fellow activists to build the university they believed was right for the black community. In doing so, they made decisions that were challenged or rejected outright by potential funders and even by other blacks. MXLU exercised the freedom to create something new, but because it committed to one ideological direction, the school lost out on the intellectual diversity made possible by the type of freedom central to traditional academia. That freedom is about inquiry, expression, and thought. It welcomes dissent, nurtures new perspectives, and embraces uncertainty as a matter of course, all within the safe harbor that a college campus can provide. The university environment provided black studies programs with far more material stability than an institution like MXLU could provide for itself. At the same time, universities appropriated the idea of the “black university” by molding student demands to the context of higher education. While the old calls for community-based, relevant education and representative decision-making have mostly disappeared, the use of Black Power as an intellectual foundation for social and cultural critique within the academy has been allowed to persist. The Black Campus Movement’s Legacy in North Carolina Late in 2012, an independent investigation of the University of North

126 Michael Welker

Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Department of African and African American Studies found that two members of the department had committed academic fraud. Those individuals authorized grade changes and offered courses that failed to provide rigorous educational experiences, in some cases only meeting once or twice. Unfortunately for the department, the ensuing controversy extended beyond the actions of two rogue employees, as some critics used the findings to question the validity of African American Studies as a discipline. Weeks later, newly inaugurated Governor Pat McCrory invoked the scandal in a comment on the value of a liberal arts education, remarking that students “took Swahili on a night study course where they didn’t have to do any work, and they got B-pluses. What are we teaching these courses for if they’re not going to help get a job?” Looking beyond the evident issue of academic integrity, McCrory suggested instead that the content itself served no purpose.60 McCrory’s critique was one in a long line of criticisms leveled at the discipline since it was introduced to colleges and universities in the late 1960s. From the outset, programs struggled to recruit top faculty (and in many cases any faculty with a Ph.D.), and administrators found that even black academics were cool to the idea of separating themselves and their work from established academic disciplines. Even today, departments typically rely on adjuncts and joint faculty and are frequently among colleges’ and universities’ smallest programs. Shortly after the introduction of black studies, programs also emerged in women’s and gender studies, Asian American studies, Chicano studies, and others. Critics of these disciplines ask where schools would draw the line for any minority group making a claim for an “area studies” program. Moreover, those critics wonder why universities should continue to offer and fund programs that do not appear to teach anything other than a critical cultural perspective.61 One answer is that the conditions that led to black studies programs have changed remarkably little in the half century since the height of the black campus movement. Black students remain highly underrepresented in

60 “McCrory: Fund higher education based on results,” WRAL.com, January 29, 2013. 61 In White Money/Black Power, Noliwe M. Rooks offers particularly thoughtful and insightful criticism about the state of the field. Rooks relates her own experience as the founder and chair of an African American Studies department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and suggests that her own hiring and the department’s founding were effectively meant to make the school appear more diverse. After completing a three-year grant to develop the program, she left the school. 127 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

American colleges and universities. At UNC-CH, for instance, only 98 black males matriculated in 2013 into a first-year class of nearly 4,000. At Duke University, black students comprise only 10 percent of the student body in a state that is 21 percent black. In addition, many minority students face lower rates of degree completion, higher rates of remedial courses taken, and greater difficulties with affordability. As recently as the fall of 2013, a black student group at the University of Michigan launched demand-driven protests calling for increased institutional supports for minority students, nearly identical to those pushed in 1969. The story of the black campus movement in North Carolina demonstrates that underprivileged groups can convince colleges and universities to listen to their concerns, but they cannot control the means by which change occurs. Few would have predicted that small student groups could have organized and strategized so cohesively that bureaucratic, conservative institutions were persuaded in mere months to raise laborers’ wages, introduce new curricula, and make strides in improving campus life for black students. At the same time, this story shows the immense power that these institutions hold in students’ lives. That power tends to maintain itself and welcomes only the change that it can control. In practice, this meant that student activists’ proposals were molded into policies and programs defined by the educational bureaucracy. Housing for black students became Africa-centric living learning communities. Open admissions became “experimental” affirmative action policies. “Relevant,” community-based black education became black studies departments. The strong institutional critiques that students leveled toward colleges and universities were heard, and activists were successful in the sense that they made administrators reconsider institutional goals and priorities. But their participation beyond that was limited. In most cases, schools meant no malice in responding to protests as they did, and they often meant genuine good. The campus administrators involved in North Carolina’s protests were considered moderate, sympathetic liberals, and even Governor Bob Scott, who gained a law-and-order reputation in an era of student unrest, was considered a strong advocate for educational opportunity in the state. Regardless of any officials’ intentions, their positions disregarded the spirit of self-determination that inspired the black campus movement and made Black Power so critical to it. Even with

128 Michael Welker

Black Power’s rhetorical and philosophical split from the desegregationist focus of the “classical” civil rights movement, black campus activists found themselves in a familiar power dynamic, in which well-organized representatives of a minority group asked established authorities for agency in the determination of their rights and privileges. Campus authorities were slow to grant that right to self-determination in large part because of how they viewed the principle of academic freedom—the freedom of the university to define its own agenda, to allow its community members to pursue truth without coercion or restraint, and to shield itself from external judgment and critique. With minority students still viewed as “outsiders” on campuses, their activism was the sort of force that administrators believed academic freedom should protect against. While open to hearing critiques and willing to consider change, administrators were steadfast in limiting the decision-making authority granted to students. Howard Fuller and his colleagues came to grips with this when they opened Malcolm X Liberation University, which was perhaps the truest expression of Black Power in North Carolina’s black campus movement. The best way for black activists to control educational institutions, they reasoned, was to build those institutions themselves. For all of their organizing power and attention-grabbing displays, these activists did not fulfill the Black Power call until they had a school that they could call their own. They found that creating an institution was at least as difficult as convincing an institution to change, and the experiment petered out within a matter of years. Since MXLU’s close and the black campus movement’s ebb, black students in North Carolina and elsewhere have been left with a system of higher education that has never fully embraced them. While the intellectual currents of the black campus movement, such as its focus on black culture, have since been legitimated as areas of academic concern, its political goals of representative power in higher education remain unmet.

129 Andrew Paternalism and the First Red Loyd Craig Scare: Anti-Union Tactics and the Failure of Early Twentieth- Century Southern Unionism in Charlotte, North Carolina In August of 1919, the normally bustling streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, were emptied of the ringing streetcars that normally shuttled textile workers and businessmen from their homes in the suburbs to work in the city.1 On August 10, the workers who conducted and maintained the electric streetcar system refused to begin weekly operations. Dissatisfaction with their salaries and the length of their workweek kept workers on the picket lines and the streetcars in their barns for two weeks.2 By August 25, city officials and the Southern Public Utility company, which owned the electric car system, brought in armedtraces police officers to break the strike. Though a tenuous agreement was brokered between management and union officials, the workers were as dissatisfied as ever, and that night a mob of streetcar workers formed at the Dilworth street car barn. Charlotte police were called in to disperse the riotous crowd.3 Tempers flared and the mob quickly turned violent. By dawn the strike had found its end, as

1 “Workers Prepare to Strike,” Charlotte Observer, August 10, 1919. 2 Harley E. Jolley, “The Labor Movement in North Carolina 1880-1922,” North Carolina Historic Review (1956): 361. 3 Charlotte Observer, August 26, 1919. 130 Andrew Loyd Craig

had five workers shot by police.4 The Charlotte strike exemplifies the Southern labor movement during this period. Plagued by paternalism and deeply rooted social traditions, the labor movement in the US South often met with failure. Scholars have illustrated this failure through a wide range of examples. Much like the Charlotte streetcar bells in August of 1919, however, scholarship remains largely silent on the Charlotte streetcar strike: only two works address the strike in any detail. This is unsurprising, as a lack of primary sources makes the strike difficult to assess. At the same time, these works examine the strike strictly on the local scale. This article takes a new approach by focusing on the role of American industrialists, arguing that placing the Charlotte strike into a broader historic context demonstrates the influence that industrial magnates like James B. Duke held over local political officials. Focusing on the role of the industrialist reveals that the failure of the Southern labor movement was due in part to the industrialists’ manipulation of local politics, which undermined the ability of union activists to organize workers.

4 Jeffery Leatherwood, “Battle of the Barn,” Journal of the North Carolina Association of Historians (April 2011): 52. 131 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

A Changing Postwar South The world that gave birth to the Charlotte streetcar strike was in seemingly constant motion. The largest, deadliest, and most industrialized war to date had ended the year before. Countries across the globe were left to deal with a new balance of power. Russia was still trying to piece itself together after the October revolution of 1917, leaving many to fear that communism would spread if Lenin were able to retain power. The United States was abuzz with the Red Scare. Across the country, unionists and anarchists were attempting to disrupt the capitalist system.5 The front pages of every major newspaper were filled with coverage of strikes, anarchist bombings, and race riots. Streetcar strikes in major cities across the country paralyzed means of transportation.6 The US government, heavily influenced by industrialists, was busy “protecting” American citizens by suppressing these disruptive parties. Even as a world war ended in Europe, an economic war was raging on America soil. The South experienced the Red Scare as strongly as the rest of the country, if not more so. Until the turn of the century, the South was still a rural region whose economy relied almost entirely on agriculture.7 The South had been slow to industrialize following the Civil War, but by the early 1910s industry was booming across the region, especially in areas such as the North Carolina Piedmont. Urban areas like Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Raleigh, and Charlotte experienced population explosions as families parked their plows and turned in their hoes in hopes of finding better lives for themselves working on the floors of the textile mills that were appearing seemingly everywhere. As Southerners started to identify less as farmers and more as industrial workers, well-established unions in Northern and Midwestern industry strongholds began unionizing Southern workers. Unionism was by no means popular initially. In 1900, Southern union membership was well under

5 Robert K. Murray, Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919-1920 (Minneapolis, 1955). 6 Mallach, “The Origins of the Decline of Urban Mass Transportation in the United States, 1890-1930,” in American Cities, A Collection of Essays (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), 7-13. 7 Michael Sistrom, Documenting the American South, “North Carolinians and the Great War: Introduction.” 132 Andrew Loyd Craig the national average of 8.1 percent.8 North Carolina’s union membership stood at a mere 0.3 percent in 1900.9 But as the southern economy shifted increasingly from farming towards industry, union membership rose. By 1916, membership in Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees (AASERE) had reached 60,000 in the Southeast and was even gaining some political influence.10 But despite unionism’s gains, it was still not as fully embraced across the South in the years before the Charlotte streetcar strike as it had been in other industrial regions across the nation. Scholars continue to debate why unionism experienced such a difficult struggle in the South. According to historian W.J. Cash, the answer can be found in Southern “exceptionalism,” which began developing with the slave-holding planter class of the antebellum South and evolved after the Civil War into a unique brand of conservative individualism.11 The South functioned much like a country unto itself, with “natives” and “outsiders” easily identifiable. Southern planter culture gave birth to a unique brand of “authoritarian” politics tinged with racism.12 Many antebellum sources portray the slave owner as a nurturing “father figure” who had a responsibility to care for his slaves because the slave’s social status prevented them from caring for themselves. As the economy changed over time and the planter class found new opportunities for wealth in industry, the planter-cum- industrialist searched for a new way to control his workforce and prevent it from disrupting his income.13 Many Southern industrialists did this by backing state and local governments, giving them influence over labor laws and police forces.14 Arguably, union growth was most hindered in the South by this combination of the Southern individualist spirit, which extended beyond the former planter class, the always present sense that the South was a country and culture unto itself, and the continued influence of the

8 Gerald Friedman, “The Political Economy of Early Southern Unionism,” Journal of Economic History. 60.2: 390. 9 Ibid. 10 Leatherwood, “Battle of the Barn,” 53. 11 W. Cash, The Mind of the South (New York: Vintage Books), i-xii; 29-31. 12 George Sinclair Mitchell, Textile Unionism and the South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1931), vi. 13 Gerald Friedman, “The Political Economy of Early Southern Unionism,” Journal of Economic History 60.2: 385 14 Ibid. 133 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Southern elite, developed before, during, and after the Civil War.

Southern Industrialists Battle Unionization Perhaps no one exemplifies this type of Southern industrialist quite like James Buchanan Duke. Born on his father’s farm in Durham County, North Carolina, Duke turned his father Washington Duke’s regional tobacco manufacturing and trading business into an international corporation.15 In 1892, Duke partnered with his brother to invest part of their returns from American Tobacco Company in the growing North Carolina textile industry.16 In 1905, as part of his effort to create a profitable trust for himself after the federal government took anti-trust actions against his company, Duke began building a hydroelectric plant on the Catawba River to provide power for his textile mills in the region.17 Within six years he founded the Southern Utility Company, which grew to operate four hydroelectric dams and provided electricity to industries across the North Carolina Piedmont and the upstate region of South Carolina. Duke’s company grew by absorbing and buying out utility and railroad companies across North and South Carolina, including the acquisition of the trolley and gas properties of the Charlotte Consolidated Construction Company in 1910. Southern Power acquired the rights from Edward Latta, an industrialist who had built suburban communities to house his mill workers in areas of Charlotte such as Dilworth.18 In 1913, James Duke appointed Zebulon Vance Taylor to manage the new branch of his utility empire, Southern Public Utilities (SPU). After a career as a successful business attorney specializing in strike breaking for Duke, Taylor served as mayor of Greensboro before being appointed manager of SPU. As a member of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce he vehemently opposed all forms of business regulation.19 Headquartered in Charlotte, the new branch of Duke’s budding empire managed the growing number of

15 Robert Franklin Durden, Bold Entrepreneur: a Life of James B. Duke (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2003), 6-15. 16 Ibid., 87. 17 Ibid., 119. 18 Tom Bradbury, Dilworth, The First 100 Years (Charlotte: Dilworth Community Development Association, 1992), 46. 19 Jeffery Leatherwood, “Between the Wheels, Quest for Street Car Unionism in the Carolina Piedmont 1919-22” (Ph.D. dissertation, West Virginia University), 53. 134 Andrew Loyd Craig contracts with the textile mills and private individuals, while South Power was left to focus more on the infrastructure of the business. The new SPU would also control all of the railway systems of Duke’s Southern Traction Company, which included Duke’s urban electric transit holdings as well as Piedmont and Northern. By 1919 Duke would own and operate a majority of the mills, electric rail and trolley companies, and utility businesses surrounding Charlotte and across the Carolinas. The vertically integrated trust he had envisioned was a growing reality. He operated the main method of transporting goods made by the mills through the Piedmont and Northern Railroad, the streetcars on which the mill workers rode to their jobs, and the companies that provided the utilities with which workers powered their homes. Duke’s empire seemed to control almost every aspect of the regional economy by the summer of the Charlotte streetcar strike. Like many other Southern cities, Charlotte became a center for textile manufacturing after Reconstruction. Beginning in the 1880’s, industrialists began building large-scale textile mills in North Carolina’s “Queen City” that provided the region with a much-needed economic boost, which in turn sparked a population boom. In 1890 North Carolina was home to forty- nine textile mills. By 1910, the number exceeded 300.20 For the next three decades farmers left their profitless farms and flocked to Charlotte in hopes of finding opportunity. By 1920, the year after the Charlotte strike, the city’s population had grown to 46,338, compared with 7,094 forty years earlier.21 With a growing number of mills and workers, the city needed a place to house this expanding population. Mill town suburbs such as Dilworth were organized and built by industrialists such as Edward Latta, who built the first electric streetcar system in Charlotte in order to shuttle workers to the mills. Charlotte’s suburbs and mill industry continued to expand during the First World War. In 1917, Camp Green was established in Charlotte as the home of the 3rd and 4th infantry divisions of the US army, giving the city another economic and population boost. Many of the city’s textile mills also experienced a surge in growth due to contracts from the US War Department. By 1918, as the war ended, many of the men who had been stationed in Charlotte returned hoping to find work in the bustling textile

20 Ibid., 62. 21 1880 United States Census, Mecklenberg County, North Carolina. 135 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

industry and to settle, like the previous yeoman farmers, in suburbs such as Dilworth. When Duke acquired the rights to the Charlotte street car system in 1910, the system consisted of fifteen miles of track serving approximately 2.75 million passengers.22 Zeb Taylor used his power as head of the SPU to expand the system five more miles and increase rail lines going to his friend and boss James Duke’s plants. 23 The company employed 95 streetcar men prior to Duke’s acquisition of the company.24 These men were considered literate and required a great amount of technical expertise to perform their jobs, even though most did not have extensive schooling.25 The standard workweek for a streetcar man before Duke’s acquisition of the company consisted of twelve-hour shifts, six days a week for approximately $1.44 per day, with no vacation days.26 This was a low wage when compared to other electric railway workers across the country.27 According to 1910 Department of Labor data, the streetcar workers in Charlotte were making thirteen cents less than the national average for all workers skilled and unskilled, even while street car work was considered by most to be skilled labor because of the amount of mechanical and regulatory knowledge the job required.28 The company was no stranger to worker strikes. In 1903, when the company was still under the leadership of Edward Latta, streetcar men walked off the job after Latta turned off the electric heaters in the cars during the middle of winter to save money.29 The unorganized workers turned to mob violence in efforts to regain their jobs, but this only resulted in Latta firing all of the workers and hiring others in their place, and business carried on as usual. By the time the Southern Public Utility company took control of Latta’s streetcars, eighty-three of the ninety-five employees had organized in AASERE Division 901.30 The AASERE had been a conservative trade union and had won acceptance in some Southern states such as North

22 Leatherwood, “Between the Wheels,” 50. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid., 68. 25 Ibid., 69. 26 Ibid., 45. 27 Ibid., 45 28 http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/his/e_prices1.htm. 29 Leatherwood, “Between the Wheels,” 46. 30 Ibid., 67. 136 Andrew Loyd Craig

Carolina, which was beginning to experience a new era of Progressivism. However, men such as Zeb Taylor proved extremely hostile to these “outside influences.” In 1916, Taylor made an offer to raise the workers’ pay if they agreed to nullify their union charter, an offer the streetcar men could not afford to refuse at the time.31 By this time the workweek had dropped to a ten-hour shift, six days a week, but the disparity between the wages of the streetcar worker and the average daily wage of a worker in North Carolina had grown.32 By 1919, unrest had grown among the workers as the company increased the fees for riding the streetcars, while workers’ salaries remained stagnant. Across the country, union sympathy was growing. The Charlotte Observer’s front page was covered with reports of streetcar strikes across North Carolina and the country during the summer of 1919, including the strike of Piedmont and Northern workers.33 On August 1, Taylor gave streetcar men a modest raise in efforts to calm the growing tensions, but it was not enough to hold off a strike. Disgruntled workers in Charlotte saw their opportunity to better their working conditions by joining the growing wave of unionism. Albert Essex Jones of Ohio was one of the men who had helped organize the groups of workers that the Charlotte streetcar engineers had read about. As an organizer for the AASERE, he had gained a reputation among anti-union leaders as a force to be reckoned with. He was eager to lend his assistance to the Charlotte streetcar workers, after recently having organized streetcar men in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The week before the Charlotte strike, Jones set to work with the help of Charles O’Donnell of the American Federation of Labor and D.L. Gooble of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He began by gaining the support of the local textile workers and unions who had led a large strike under the United Textile Union earlier that year in February.34 The textile workers were after all the main users of the streetcars. He then rallied streetcar men employed by Taylor and the Southern Public Utility company in Charlotte, Winston- Salem, Greenville, and Anderson, South Carolina. By the end of the week,

31 Ibid., 54. 32 Ashe interview; Thirtieth Reports of the Department of Labor and Printing of the State of North Carolina, 1916 (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Printers, 1917), 30. 33 Charlotte Observer, August 10, 1919. 34 Le Gette Blythe and Charles Raven Brockmann, Hornet’s Nest (Charlotte: McNally of Charlotte, 1961), 372-3. 137 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Jones had gained the support of a total of 200 workers, 120 in Charlotte alone.

Charlotte Streetcar Workers Decide to Strike On August 8, the Charlotte constituents gathered at Woodman’s Hall in Dilworth to present their demands to Zeb Taylor.35 The workers demanded the following: that they be allowed to continue their association with the AASERE; that wages for those with less than a year’s service be raised from forty-one cents an hour to forty-three, and those with more than a year of service be granted a raise to forty-five cents an hour; and that the work day be reduced to nine hours and that men might be compensated more for any time exceeding those nine hours.36 In response, Taylor said he refused to work with the men as long as they associated themselves with the ASSERE or any other outside influence, but he suggested that he would be willing to consider a union among the men themselves.37 As he later claimed, his reason for not negotiating with the AASERE was to protect the workers from involvement with a violent union and to protect the public from any harm that might come from violent workers.38 On August 10, with support from the three other cities, and one hundred percent of the Charlotte streetcar men, they officially announced their strike and walked off the job until Taylor would agree to negotiate with them according to their demands. The tone of the initial strike was set by Monday morning. As reported in that morning’s edition of the Charlotte Observer, the strikers were orderly, with no need for police intervention. Taylor continued to refuse to negotiate with the streetcar men as long as they associated themselves with the AASERE, saying that the Southern Public Utility company held no resentment against its workers, “its boys,” only resentment against the union. Taylor also suggested that workers would not have walked off the job had the union organizers not incited them to do so. On Tuesday, electricians from SPU were asked to join in solidarity with their fellow SPU employees who worked on the streetcar lines and unionize with the International

35 Charlotte Observer, August 10, 1910. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 138 Andrew Loyd Craig

Brotherhood of Electricians. Early in the morning of Wednesday, August 13, 300 men, including electricians who sympathized with the streetcar workers, took over a utility sub-station that controlled electricity and gas flow, pulling the switch and leaving nearby homes, hospitals, and streets without lights.39 This situation was resolved when Police Chief Walter B. Orr and twenty men dispersed the mob. By Thursday, Taylor and representatives of the now combined force of streetcar and electric utility workers met to discuss a possible solution, but no agreement was reached. For the next week, after negotiating in talks ranging from small table talks with SPU leaders and union organizers to large courthouse meetings with the workers themselves and their employers, a solution seemed closer every day. However, it was still a distant hope amid the constant anti-union propaganda, which took form in editorials and letters written by Taylor that were published in local newspapers.

39 Charlotte Observer, August 13, 1910. 139 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Zeb Taylor’s “Red Scare” Anti-Union Campaign An anonymous letter to the editor published in the Charlotte Observer suggested that public opinion at the time was much the same as Taylor’s: had it not been for the intervention of the union, the workers and the SPU company would have been able to work through the issues without a strike. Another letter published described strikes as a luxury of the wealthy and suggested that no one truly in need of the raise requested by the streetcar men could afford to strike. According to the author, all strikes must be the result of a political agenda that streetcar men must be pushing.40 A private ad in the Observer during the first day of the strike provides a lens into the possible origin of public opinion. Toward the back of the paper, a full-page anonymous letter was published with the following opening line: “Tolerance does not mean consent.”41 What follows is a scathing letter about the ways in which toleration has a limit. It asks the question: how much more of the men who preach class hatred and direct action can the American public stand before it begins to encroach upon democracy and the American individualistic tradition? It suggests that union agitators are outsiders who could not possibly understand the tenants of American democracy, and evokes historic examples of Americans fighting for democracy, from the Revolution to the Great War. It goes on to suggest that these streetcar men will meet the same fatal end that those who have disrupted American freedom in the past have. This ad reflects the Red Scare, anti-union mindset of the public and local leaders at the time the streetcar workers started their strike. This sort of rhetoric poured forth from SPU leaders and the public while strikers continued their protest over the next week. The letters that Zebulon Taylor published in the Charlotte Observer over the course of the strike provide valuable insight into the paternalistic, anti-union mindset and propaganda of the SPU and its leaders. Taylor’s rhetoric resembles that of a general rallying his troops before a fight or a revivalist preacher warning of fire and brimstone unless salvation is found. The following selection from a letter published two days into the strike is quoted at length because it provides a particularly vivid example of the Red Scare tactics that Taylor used to disrupt the strike and silence the unions:

40 Charlotte Observer, August 12, 1910. 41 Charlotte Observer, 1910. 140 Andrew Loyd Craig

What we are fight!:

Reports have come to us of the intention of the individuals directing the strike of the streetcar men of this city to bring about a strike of the electrical workers who man our sub-stations and the operatives of our gas plant as a means of forcing compliance with their demands. We do not know whether or not these reports are true, but in order to prevent the disorganization and danger that would accompany a cessation of light, power and gas service, the men in our executive and engineering forces all of whom have grown up from the ranks are ready at a moment notice to don their overalls and man these substations and our gas plants. It is only when you realize how far-reaching would be the effects of a cessation of service of electricity and gas that you can get a full conception of the diabolical purpose behind this move…. These are some of the things that would add to the demoralization, the discomfort, the suffering and the danger that would result if success should attend this last effort of those responsible for the direction of the streetcar strike. AND WHO WOULD BE THE GREATEST SUFFERERS? THE SAME CLASSES WHICH SUFFERED MOST IN BELGUIM AND FRANCE AS A RESULT OF GERMANY’S ATTEMPT TO ENFORCE ON THE OTHER SIDE THE DOCTRINE OF “MIGHT MAKES RIGHT”—THE WOMEN AND CHILDERN.

We have always been proud of the personnel of our car men. Almost without exception they are native Carolinians. We do not, we cannot, impute them the dastardly, unfeeling, cunning motives behind the order for the workers in charge to abandon our substations and gas plant with the exception that the city would be without electricity or gas service. We know our “boys” too well. They are of our blood. They were raised by the same kind of mother as our mothers. The conception of the atrocious plan above described could not have been in their minds. THE OUTSIDE INFLUENCES WHICH PRECIPITATED THE CAR MEN’S STRIKE AND IS

141 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

DIRECTING IT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS ATTEMPT AT THE “FRIGHTFULNESS.” And all to force recognition of the organization responsible. TO RECOGINIZE OR HAVE ANY DEALINGS WITH SUCH AN ORGNIZATION WOULD BE A CRIME AGAINST THE PUBLIC WHICH WE SERVE.42

The language used throughout this letter is common to the series of letters Taylor published daily over the course of the two-week strike. In fact, the language in this anti-union propaganda only intensified as the strike continued. By referring to the union organizers as “foreign, outside influences” or even “Foreign Professional Agitators,” he associated them with Bolshevik and anarchistic activities.43 One could even go so far as to suggest that Taylor exhibited an anti-Northern agenda in his claims regarding the foreignness of the union organizers, as many, including Albert Jones from the AASERE, came from Northern states. He presents himself and the company as a protective father figure acting as a shield placed between these foreign invaders and the public, saving them from anarchy. He describes the workers, “his boys,” as children who have misbehaved and must be brought back into the fold to keep outside influences from corrupting them. On Sunday, August 18, Taylor’s letter even demands action of the governor and the use of the power of the state, if it becomes necessary, to bring the strike to an end. Nowhere in the literature surrounding the Charlotte strike is the paternalistic mindset or Red Scare tactics more widely used to turn public opinion against the strike. Over the course of the first weekend of the strike, the negotiations that had recommenced between the union organizers, workers, and SPU proved fruitless. Police were placed at the utility sub-stations in order to keep a mob of workers from trying to take control of them again. Taylor ramped up his Red Scare propaganda campaign in the pages of the ad section. This appeared to work, as letters from the public published in the editorial pages of the Charlotte Observer started to reflect a growing sense that the workers were doing the public a disservice. The beginning of the second week of the strike remained quiet, and no progress was made from either side, until

42 Charlotte Observer, August 12, 1910. 43 Charlotte Observer, August 18, 1910. 142 Andrew Loyd Craig

Taylor addressed the workers for the first time in a written public statement, presenting them with an ultimatum: return to work or lose their jobs. The following day, an ad was posted looking for their replacements.

The Strike Turns Violent The week passed with more public hearings and growing discontent from the public, the workers, and the SPU. On Friday, Charlotte Mayor Frank McNinch, a product of North Carolina’s progressive era of politics who had remained relatively quiet on the matter up to this point, called for hearings to settle the strike and to resume service.44 Over the course of the weekend the mayor, city commissioners, and a citizens committee proposed a settlement in which the SPU would recognize the unions of the streetcar men and the electricians and these men would be allowed to return to work.45 The unions unanimously adopted the resolutions on the second Sunday of the strike, but Taylor refused to accept them. As part of his official statement, Taylor announced that he could no longer extend reemployment to the striking workers because others had already been hired in their place.46 He promised the public that service would resume first thing Monday morning, with power stations protected by armed guards to assure that there were no disturbances. In his letter to the public published that day, he concluded by proclaiming that he was doing the public a favor in not hiring the strikers and was saving them from the forces of a “Foreign Autocracy” that was forcing America to surrender to a new brand of industrial slavery.47 Frustration among the workers was higher than ever. In the morning of August 26, a mob of workers gathered outside the Dilworth car barn, where police continued to stand guard. As tension flared on both sides, a fight broke out between the police and the strikers in which more than one hundred shots were fired, leaving five workers dead and twelve injured. It would later be revealed that Police Chief Walter Orr fired the first shot after one of the strikers was pushed toward the police line, which he interpreted as a charge on his officers.48 The next day six National Guard units were

44 Charlotte Observer, August 22, 1910. 45 Charlotte Observer, August 24, 1910. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 Leatherwood, “Battle of the Barn,” 74. 143 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

sent to the city to maintain order. As the city entered an undeclared state of martial law, Taylor continued to provide the public with his interpretation of the situation. His letter published the day after the riot at the Dilworth barn can be summed up as a simple “I Told You So.” The Charlotte public saw the riot in much the same way, claiming it would not have happened had it not been for the “false leadership” of the union organizers.49 Another city paper, the Charlotte News, filled its pages with claims that “Red terrorism was attacking the Southern way of business.”50 The immediate ramifications were few after order was restored a few days later. Streetcars began running again the next morning, with armed guards on board to protect against possible disturbances from strikers.51 Things returned to normal. Many workers felt that their efforts had been completely in vain.52

Strikes Alter Charlotte’s Political Landscape The strike did have some lasting ramifications. The SPU eventually gave in to the raise requested by the strikers, though it only affected the new workers they had hired during the strike. Other cities that had joined in support of the Charlotte workers were able to resolve their labor battles relatively quickly in order to avoid riots like the one in Charlotte. Investigations of the Charlotte police department’s handling of the situation led to the firing of Chief Walter Orr and exposed deeper levels of corruption within Orr’s organization. A citizen petition led to a mayoral recall election because of Frank McNinch’s handling of the strike. He was able to hold his seat as mayor, though he resigned in 1920 and went on to serve as chairman of the Federal Power Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. Zebulon Taylor would die of a heart attack in 1921 while riding in Duke’s private railcar headed north.53 Many would suggest that it was induced by the stress of his ongoing battles against labor and business regulation. Charlotte worked hard to put this violent part of its history behind it, but the strike had an immediate effect on the balance of power within the city’s

49 Charlotte Observer, Tuesday 26. 50 Leatherwood, “Battle of the Barn,” 71. 51 Ibid. 52 Loy Cloinger. Interviewed by Allen Tullos on June 18 1980. Tape recording and transcript. 53 “Obituary,” The Greensboro Record, April 18, 1921. 144 Andrew Loyd Craig municipal government. While the Charlotte strike and many others like it have been forgotten, examining these strikes helps to explain the failure of unionism in the South during the early twentieth century.54 First, the unique brand of Southern paternalism meant that great industrialists like Duke used their system of trusted, like-minded lackeys such as Taylor to control empires consisting of large populations of employees. By presenting themselves as “fathers” who graciously provided employees with jobs and the means to support their families, they were able to control their workers. These workers felt they owed their employers something for protecting them against poverty and unemployment. Industrialists were able to win over the public by presenting themselves as these father figures, by giving generously to charity, and by supporting local governments, creating the impression that they had the public’s best interests in mind. In addition, by associating union organizers with anarchist activities, industrialists were able to convince the public that these foreign organizers were a threat to their traditions and way of life. This threat was especially powerful for people with deep-rooted traditional identities and proved to be an effective tactic for turning the public against the unions. Without public support, even workers who were able to overcome paternalism would rarely succeed in unionizing. With Southern industrialists presenting themselves as shields between these outside threats and the interests of the public, unionization had an uphill climb.

54 Cloinger. Interviewed by Allen Tullos on June 18 1980. Tape recording and transcript. 145 Philip Schwartz Soviet International Cultural Politics in the Late 1960s and the Struggle for the Release of Andreĭ Rublev

In 1966 Soviet director Andreĭ Tarkovskiĭ completed work on his second full-length feature film, Andreĭ Rublev, which tells the story of a medieval Russian icon painter. Three years later, the Soviet government still had not granted permission to release it. By that time the Cannes Film Festival’s executive board had asked repeatedly for permission to show the film in the festival’s competitive section. According to Otari Teneĭshvili, a representative of Sovėksportfil’m, the state-owned company in charge of all Soviet film exports, there was hope in early 1969 that Soviet authorities “tired of the persistent requests from filmmakers fromtraces the West and the film’s almost scandalous story in our country,” would “finally decide to sendAndreĭ Rublev, like a dissident, West.” At the end of March 1969, the Sovėksportfil’m management ordered Teneĭshvili to sell the film in France.1 In April 1969, shortly after the sale ofAndreĭ Rublev to a French distribution company, Tarkovskiĭ’s film became a major talking point at a meeting of high- ranking French and Soviet cultural politicians. Over

1 Otari Teneĭshvili, “Kannskie i parizhskie taĭny fil’ma ‘Andreĭ Rublev,’” in Andreĭ Tarkovskiĭ: Iubileĭnyĭ sbornik, ed. Iaroslav Iaropolov (Moscow: Algoritm, 2002), 168. 146 Philip Schwartz

lunch at the Soviet embassy in Paris, envoys of the two countries discussed the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.2 Robert Favre Le Bret, General Delegate of the Cannes Film Festival, participated in this conference along with André Malraux, the French Minister of Cultural Affairs, and André Holleaux, head of the Centre national de la cinématographie (CNC). Moscow assigned representatives of the most important Soviet institutions for international film distribution to the meeting: Alekseĭ Romanov, chairman of the Committee of Cinematography, also known as the Kinokomitet or, during other periods, as Goskino; Aleksandr Davydov, chief executive of Sovėksportfil’m; and A. Slavnov, head of the Kinokomitet’s foreign relations department. The Russian delegation revealed to its guests at the embassy that Sovėksportfil’m had already sold the film to the French distribution company D.I.C. (Distribution Internationale Cinématographique) and that, by so doing, the Soviet Union had forfeited the right to send the film

2 Ibid., 168–70. 147 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

to Cannes as their official selection and to release it at the film festival.3 In informing Favre Le Bret, Holleaux, and Malraux about this, the Soviet delegates also admitted that their real motivation for selling the rights for Andreĭ Rublev in France was to quiet the furor over its withholding. Later, the German film historian Ulrich Gregor aptly called this maneuver an “administrative lapse.”4 The short-sighted Soviet officials had not foreseen the French riposte. Teneĭshvili recalls Malraux’s quick retort: “Well, so what, gentlemen, we will ask the French company D.I.C. to show the film Andreĭ Rublev out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival!”5 While a quiet release at a few arthouse movie theaters might have gone unnoticed, Tarkovskiĭ’s much-anticipated film would surely draw international attention at the world’s most respected and most publicized film festival. This surprising twist antagonized the Soviet envoys. Their tactic had failed, and a movie that the Soviet Union refused to release domestically would now be premiered abroad, attracting international media coverage. Understandably, the Soviet delegates to the festival reacted angrily when Malraux’s promise was realized.6 This crucial event in the history of the filmAndreĭ Rublev will serve as the point of departure for an examination of the film’s history, from the beginning of its production until its eventual release in Soviet movie theaters almost ten years later. Taking the script as a starting point, the film was conceived in 1962 and was released domestically in 1971, thus bridging

3 Joël Chapron, an expert on East European cinema who works as Russian interpreter and foreign correspondent at the Cannes Film Festival, identified this abbreviation. E-mail to the author from February 27, 2011. Other sources report different distribution companies that bought the rights for Andreĭ Rublev in 1969. According to the German news magazine Der Spiegel, the Compagnie Française de Distribution Cinématographique (CFDC) purchased the French distribution rights for Andreĭ Rublev. (“Film/Sowjetunion: Einprägsame Größe,” Der Spiegel, December 22, 1969.) Mark Le Fanu, a Danish-based film historian, claims that Promeco, a Western distribution company representing Columbia Pictures, had bought the rights for Andreĭ Rublev as early as in 1968, which seems unlikely, considering the chronology of Teneĭshvili’s account. (Mark Le Fanu, “Appendix: Vicissitudes of Andrei Roublev,” in The Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky, Mark Le Fanu (London and Ipswich: W. S. Cowell, 1987), 145.) 4 Ulrich Gregor, “Der unaufhaltsame Aufstieg eines Films,” Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin), August 12, 1973. 5 Teneĭshvili, “Kannskie i parizhskie taĭny,” 169. 6 Gregor, “Der unaufhaltsame Aufstieg.” 148 Philip Schwartz two periods of Soviet history.7 Set against the backdrop of the transition from Krushchev Thaw to Brezhnev Stagnation, this microhistory aims to illuminate the larger context in which the film’s creation and release took place. This article asks why and how Soviet authorities prevented Andreĭ Rublev from being screened at Cannes in the years 1966–1968, what the Kremlin’s reaction was when the festival finally managed to show it, and why Andreĭ Rublev experienced a fate different from that of other Soviet films shelved by censors in 1967, most of which languished for two decades or longer before being released. In answering these questions, this article examines not only the international cultural politics of the time, but also Soviet domestic policy, exploring the changing power structures in the cultural realm during those tumultuous years of transition and detailing internal Soviet power struggles to the extent that they had an impact on the decision to release the film. This research depends on three kinds of primary sources. First, the diaries, letters, and memoirs of Tarkovskiĭ, his friends, relatives, and colleagues, along with those of political figures, allow for a reconstruction of the Soviet handling of the Andreĭ Rublev affair. Second, formerly classified government documents, especially those issued by the Kinokomitet, the agency in control of Soviet filmmaking, enable an assessment of the film’s production and distribution, as they document policy guidelines, concrete decisions, and the internal discussions about Tarkovskiĭ and his work. Third, Soviet newspapers and periodicals provide insight into the official discussion and critique of the film. When General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev introduced his policy of glasnost, or openness and transparency, newspapers and periodicals began publishing investigative pieces, including some on Tarkovskiĭ and his film Andreĭ Rublev. The analysis here of international events rests upon these same Soviet periodicals along with West European and US publications.

7 V. Mikhaĭlov, “‘Andreĭ Rublev,’” in Zapreshchennye fil’my: Dokumenty. Svidetel’stva. Kommentarii, ed. V. Mikhaĭlov. 2nd ed. (Moscow: “NT-Tsentr,” 1993), 8. Tarkovskiĭ began making the film when Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev was First Secretary of the CPSU (1953–1964), and it was released under General Secretary Leonid Il’ich Brezhnev (1964–1982). 149 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Soviet Cultural Policy between Thaw and Stagnation The history of Andreĭ Rublev began during the Thaw, a period of political reforms and new liberties that started after Iosif V. Stalin’s death in 1953. In 1956 Nikita S. Khrushchev, the new First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), officially rang in this new era when he denounced his predecessor in his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress. Khrushchev subsequently initiated de-Stalinization and the Thaw gained momentum, offering new opportunities to artists and leading to an enormous increase in the number of films produced in the Soviet Union.8 Individuals such as Georgiĭ Kunitsyn, who occupied an influential position in the CPSU’s Central Committee, took advantage of the climate to help progressive filmmakers release their works, even if they did not align with the Party’s ideology.9 As Kunitsyn recalled, “I personally did not put films on the shelf. I took them off the shelf.”10 However, inconsistency marked the period of general liberalization, as the First Secretary adjusted his cultural policy from time to time. The years 1962 and 1963 witnessed one of the low points of the Thaw. Worried that the situation might get out of hand, the Party leadership decided to cut back the liberalization campaign. To enforce this change of policy, Khrushchev held several meetings with the creative intelligentsia. At these conventions of Soviet writers, artists, and filmmakers, a few eager propagandists or opportunists delivered speeches upholding the ideals of Socialist Realist art. While chief ideologist Khrushchev looked with favor upon such presentations, he denounced and humiliated other artists, such as the young poet Andreĭ Voznesenskiĭ.11 During one of his tirades directed at Voznesenskiĭ, Khrushchev shouted, “No! That’s enough! Quite enough! You can say now that this is no longer a thaw or a light frost but rather a

8 See, e.g., Oksana Bulgakova, “Der Film der Tauwetterperiode,” Chap. 4 in Geschichte des sowjetischen und russischen Films, ed. Christine Engel (Stuttgart and Weimar: J. B. Metzler, 1999), 111–2; and Miroslava Segida, “Der russische Film in Zahlen,” Chap. 8 in Geschichte des sowjetischen und russischen Films, ed. Engel, 332. 9 Georgiĭ Kunitsyn, “‘Pochemu ia ne stal ministrom kinematografii’ (Zapisala Galina Ikonikova),” in Kinematograf ottepeli, Bk. 1, ed. V. Troianovskiĭ (Moscow: Materik, 1996), 197–203. 10 Ibid., 201. 11 Emily Johnson, “Nikita Khrushchev, Andrei Voznesensky, and the Cold Spring of 1963: Documenting the End of the Post-Stalin Thaw,” World Literature Today 75, no. 1 (2001): 30–9. 150 Philip Schwartz truly bitter frost. Yes, for people like you it will truly be a bitter frost!”12 At the same meeting Khrushchev also vigorously attacked the Marlen Khutsiev filmIlyich’s Gate (Zastava Il’icha).13 This represented the first crackdown on “too liberal” filmmaking since Stalin’s death, and some scholars regard it as the beginning of the end of the cultural Thaw.14 Khutsiev’s movie portrays the 1960s generation to which he belonged along with Tarkovskiĭ, who makes a cameo appearance in the film. The censorship organs withheld Ilyich’s Gate for two years after a meeting between high Party officials and the creative intelligentsia in March 1963, until the director made changes and it was then released under the new title I Am Twenty (Mne dvadtsat’ let).15 This event reintroduced Soviet movie censorship, which had been almost absent during the years 1953–1962.16 However, in the realm of filmmaking, Soviet leadership brought the return to more restrictive cultural policies as late as 1966–1967. Leonid I. Brezhnev changed Soviet cultural politics gradually after he became First Secretary of the CPSU in 1964. Brezhnev’s crusade against liberalism and nonconformity peaked for a first time in 1965–1966 and reached a milestone with the infamous show trial against Soviet writers Andreĭ Siniavskiĭ and Iuliĭ Daniėl’. Their sentencing to hard labor camps sent a clear signal to the Soviet intelligentsia.17 After the Khrushchevian Thaw, as unsteady as it may have been, the repressions enforced by Brezhnev’s reactionary government came as a shock to the creative intelligentsia and made a lasting impression on Soviet society. But worse things were yet to come. The years of 1966–1967 proved disastrous for the Soviet film industry. Shortly after renaming the office

12 Ibid., 38. 13 “Iz rechi N.S. Khrushcheva na vstreche rukovoditeleĭ partii i pravitel’stva s deiateliami literatury i iskusstva,” March 8, 1963, in Kinematograf ottepeli: Dokumenty i svidetel’stva, comp. and ed. Valeriĭ Fomin (Moscow: Materik, 1998), 131–2. 14 Martine Godet, “L’œuvre dénaturée: Un cas de censure cinématographique dans l’URSS de Khrouchtchev,” Annales. Histoires, Sciences Sociales 51, no. 4 (1996): 781. 15 Kunitsyn, “‘Pochemu ia ne stal ministrom kinematografii,’” 200–1. 16 In “‘Pochemu ia ne stal ministrom kinematografii,’”Kunitsyn discusses other films that, in the wake of the “cold spring of 1963,” were withheld for short periods of time. 17 The documents published in N. Tomilina, et al., Apparat TsK KPSS i kul’tura, 1965–1972: Dokumenty (Moscow: ROSSPĖN, 2009) illustrate that the campaign against Siniavskiĭ and Daniėl’ was part of a crackdown on the Soviet creative intelligentsia in general. See, e.g., Vladimir Semichastnyĭ, “Zapiska KGB pri SM SSSR v TsK KPSS ob antisovetskoĭ deiatel’nosti tvorcheskoĭ intelligentsii,” December 11, 1965, in Tomilina, et al., Apparat TsK KPSS i kul’tura, 126–32. 151 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

of First Secretary to General Secretary of the CPSU, Brezhnev and his administration staged a major crackdown on Soviet culture that “reminded people ‘of the older generation’ of the gloom of 1937.”18 In 1937, the year of the Great Terror, the Soviet secret police persecuted, imprisoned, and executed Soviet citizens en masse. Thirty years later, Brezhnev’s crackdown drastically impaired the liberties of the creative intelligentsia, though this time the Party leadership did not repeat the violence and executions of the Stalin years. Throughout the first half of the 1960s, filmmakers managed to emancipate themselves from the Soviet state more and more. In 1965 they had founded the Filmmakers’ Union (Soiuz kinematografistov), which developed plans for radical reforms in favor of increased self-government and less bureaucracy and hierarchy. With these reforms Soviet filmmakers hoped to strengthen their trade union and weaken the role of the centralist Kinokomitet. Moreover, they aimed to simplify the system for the approval of projects and the system of communication with state authorities to the benefit of more liberal filmmaking. At the same time, however, the Central Committee contemplated the reestablishment of a neo-Stalinist Ministry of Cinematography. Finally, the Party leadership decided to suspend this reactionary move, preferring to gradually purge the existing institutions in order to prevent a fuss among the creative intelligentsia.19 In addition to shelving many films produced during the mid-1960s, the Central Committee removed several magazine editors in 1969, including the editor-in-chief of the major Soviet film periodical Iskusstvo kino (The Art of Cinema), Liudmila Pogozheva. As a replacement for Pogozheva, they appointed Evgeniĭ Surkov, who had made a successful career in censorship under Stalin.20 Likewise, the progressive politician Kunitsyn lost his seat in the Central Committee.21 Proceeding as thoroughly as possible, the authorities also purged the central institution for the education of filmmakers, the All-USSR State Institute of

18 “‘Delo’ ob Andree,” in Andreĭ Tarkovskiĭ: Arkhivy, dokumenty, vospominaniia, ed. Paola Volkova (Moscow: Izdatel’skiĭ dom “Podkova,” 2002), 361–2. 19 See the primary documents in “Tri perestroĭki: ot Minkul’ta k Goskino SSSR,” in Kinematograf ottepeli, comp. and ed. Fomin, 58–109. 20 Vasiliĭ Shauro, and A. Dmitriuk, “Dokladnaia zapiska Otdela kul’tury i Otdela propagandy TsK KPSS o nedostatkakh v rabote zhurnala ‘Iskusstvo kino,’” December 30, 1968, in Kinematograf ottepeli, comp. and ed. Fomin, 297–8; and Valeriĭ Golovskoĭ, Mezhdu otepel’iu i glasnost’iu: Kinematograf 70-kh (Moscow: Materik, 2004), 20. 21 Kunitsyn, “‘Pochemu ia ne stal ministrom kinematografii,’” 197–9. 152 Philip Schwartz

Cinematography (VGIK).22 At this time the studio Mosfil’m—the largest in Soviet Russia—alone produced at least six movies that censors shelved for twenty to twenty-two years.23 As with Andreĭ Rublev (1966), Western critics showered these films with accolades when the Soviet state finally permitted their release. Several of the other films shelved also had success at international festivals after a belated premiere. Yet, unlike most of the other films, Andreĭ Rublev did not have to wait for quite as long, as the Soviet government decided to release it after only five years.

The Director: Andreĭ Tarkovskiĭ Widely considered one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers in the history of film, Andreĭ Tarkovskiĭ directed only seven feature-length films during his twenty-five year career, all of which received critical acclaim and awards at various international film festivals.24 Born in 1932 in rural Russia, 280 miles northeast of Moscow, Tarkovskiĭ grew up as the son of two writers, Mariia Vyshniakova and the well-known poet Arseniĭ Tarkovskiĭ. In 1960 Andreĭ graduated from the Moscow film academy VGIK, producing for his senior project the short film The Steamroller and the Violin (Katok i skripka). Tarkovskiĭ’s international breakthrough as a filmmaker came only a year later when he completed his first feature film, Ivan’s Childhood (Ivanovo detstvo), which tells the story of the orphaned boy Ivan, who works as a scout for the Red Army during World War II. Some critics saw the movie as part of a “new wave” in Soviet cinema that emerged

22 Irina Shilova, …I moe kino: Piatidesiatye. Shestidesiatye. Semidesiatye (Moscow: Kinovedcheskie zapiski, 1993), 116–7. 23 Films that sat on the shelf for twenty years and longer include Aleksandr Alov’s and Vladimir Naumov’s The Ugly Story (Skvernyi anekdot, 1966, release 1988), Aleksandr Askol’dov’s Commissar (Komissar, 1967, release 1988, not a Mosfil’m production), Ėlem Klimov’s Adventures of a Dentist (Pokhozhdeniia zubnogo vracha, 1965, release 1987), Andron Konchalovskiĭ’s The Story of Asya Klyachina (Istoriia Asi Kliachinoi, 1966, release 1987), Kira Muratova’s Brief Encounters (Korotkie vstrechi, 1967, release 1987, not a Mosfil’m production), Larisa Shepit’ko’s The Homeland of Electricity (Rodina ėlektrichestva, 1967, release 1987), and Andreĭ Smirnov’s Angel (Angel, 1967, release 1987). 24 See, e.g., Thomas J. Slater, “The Soviet Union,” chap. 1 in Handbook of Soviet and East European Films and Filmmakers, ed. Thomas J. Slater (New York et al.: Greenwood Press, 1992), 45; Ulrich Gregor, Geschichte des Films ab 1960 (Munich: C. Bertelsmann Verlag, 1978), 272. David Gillespie even devotes a whole chapter of his monograph Russian Cinema to Andreĭ Tarkovskiĭ’s oeuvre: “Autobiography, Memory and Identity,” chap. 9 in Russian Cinema (Harlow, England, et al.: Pearson Education, 2003), 167–84. 153 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

due to Khrushchev’s increasingly liberal policies.25 Following the trend set by other Thaw-era films, Ivan’s Childhood brings the fate of an individual to the foreground and offers a narrative focusing on a personal tragedy rather than on national heroism in the Great Patriotic War.26 Despite the fact that Tarkovskiĭ’s debut film quickly attained the status of a landmark film in Soviet cinematic history, it stirred considerable controversy among Soviet film critics, some of whom accused the director of pacifism and, thus, resistance to the official representation of the Great Patriotic War.27 Tarkovskiĭ’s film challenged the myths on which the collective memory of the Great Patriotic War was based: in his opinion, “war produces hero- victims. There is no winner in a war.”28 Soon Tarkovskiĭ began to feel the consequences of his lack of alignment with official CPSU doctrine and in a letter to the head of the Kinokomitet, Alekseĭ Romanov, he complained about his film’s restricted distribution.29 Mixed reviews at home notwithstanding, Tarkovskiĭ’s first film became a huge success on the international stage and earned numerous prizes at film festivals around the world. The young filmmaker’s celebrity received a boost when Ivan’s Childhood won the Golden Lion at the 1962 Venice Film Festival, the festival’s most prestigious prize. Still, the film’s ideological ambiguity had repercussions beyond its native Russia, as international reactions in the aftermath of the roaring success at Venice show. Aligning with their Soviet big brother, the editors of L’Un i tà , the official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party, published a scathing review of Ivan’s

25 Cf. two interviews conducted in 1962, after Tarkovskiĭ’s debut had caused a sensation at the Venice Film Festival: Patrick Bureau, “Andrei Tarkovsky: I Am for a Poetic Cinema,” in Andrei Tarkovsky: Interviews, ed. John Gianvito (Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 4; and Gideon Bachmann, “Encounter with Andrei Tarkovsky,” in Tarkovsky: Interviews, ed. Gianvito, 7. 26 The term Great Patriotic War stands for the portion of World War II from June 22, 1941 (Nazi Germany’s attack against the Soviet Union), to May 9, 1945 (unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht in Berlin). Shortly after the attack in June 1941, the Soviet government coined the term. In Russia and other former Soviet Republics it remains commonly used until today. Other films of the Thaw that depict the war in a new light include Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes Are Flying (Letiat zhuravli, 1957), Sergeĭ Bondarchuk’s Destiny of a Man (Sud’ ba cheloveka, 1959), and Grigoriĭ Chukhraĭ’s Ballad of a Soldier (Ballada o soldate, 1959). 27 Nikolaĭ Boldyrev, Stalker ili trudy i dni Andreia Tarkovskogo (Cheliabinsk: Izdatel’stvo “Ural L.T.D.”, 2002), 131. 28 Laurence Cossé, “Portrait of a Filmmaker as a Monk-Poet,” in Tarkovsky: Interviews, ed. Gianvito, 164. 29 Tat’iana Vinokurova, “Khozhdenie po mukam ‘Andreia Rubleva,’” Iskusstvo kino, October 1, 1989, 66–7. 154 Philip Schwartz

Childhood. This criticism prompted Jean-Paul Sartre to respond with a letter to the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Mario Alicata, expressing his regrets about the ignorant critiques that Ivan’s Childhood earned in Italian left-wing newspapers and praising the film as an outstanding work of art.30 These events set the stage for years to come. Tarkovskiĭ quickly became a star, yet at the same time the ambivalent Soviet reaction represented the “beginning of the Calvary” for the up-and-coming filmmaker.31 The international media not only had found a new talented filmmaker, but one who made his films under aggravating circumstances. Tarkovskiĭ’s Soviet provenance and citizenship politicized his identity, making it all the more attractive. Sustained international press coverage did not cease until Tarkovskiĭ’s early death in exile in 1986. His originality and individualism allowed him to make timeless films appreciated by enthusiasts around the world, but these same virtues antagonized other Soviet directors and the authorities. Both of these tendencies determined the vicissitudes of the production of Tarkovskiĭ’s second feature film.

The Film: Andreĭ Rublev The young director knew how to use the publicity to his advantage and, as early as 1962, he publicly announced his plans to make the period film Andreĭ Rublev. The roughly three-hour-long movie portrays episodes from twenty-five years of the life of the eponymous Orthodox monk, who was the most famous icon painter in Russian history. Andreĭ Rublev was born in the late fourteenth century and died in 1428 or 1430. Virtually no contemporary historical records documenting the painter’s life survived to the days of Andreĭ Tarkovskiĭ. The director and his co-writer Andron Konchalovskiĭ based much of their depiction of historical events on scholarly literature and surviving chronicles, compensating for the lack of sources about the painter’s personality. The screenwriters also consulted a distinguished

30 Jean-Paul Sartre, “Discussion on the Criticism of ‘Ivan’s Childhood,’” trans. Madan Gopal Singh, in Andrei Tarkovsky: A Homage, ed. Amrit Gangar (Bombay: Screen Unit, [1988?]), 52–9. The letter was first published in Italian in L’Unità on October 9, 1963. 31 Cf. Nikolaĭ Boldyrev, “Strasti Andreia, ili nachalo Golgofy,” in Stalker, 131–52. Other authors also use the metaphor of Calvary when referring to the trouble Tarkovskiĭ faced with the production and distribution of Andreĭ Rublev and all his later films: see, e.g., Vladimir Motyl’, “Golgofa Andreia Tarkovskogo,” Sovetskaia kul’tura, September 30, 1989; Tat’iana Vinokurova, “Khozhdenie po mukam ‘Andreia Rubleva,’” Iskusstvo kino, October 1, 1989. 155 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

historian of the Rus’, the people inhabiting the first East Slavic states in the Middle Ages.32 The titular character was a well-known figure in Russia. The Soviet Union celebrated Rublev’s six hundredth birthday in September 1960 with the opening of the Central Museum of Ancient Russian Culture and Art. This anniversary fell within the period of a Rublev renaissance, manifesting itself as a nationalist glorification of the medieval painter. The figure of Rublev served as a symbol for a “selective mythological nationalism,” sanctioned by the atheist Soviet regime during World War II and outliving Stalin, as “the 1950s brought a sort of ‘Rublev Lorem Ipsum yada yada yada. boom’.” 33 After the publication of much (Photo courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) literature on the medieval monk in the 1950s, according to Gregory Miller, “by the early 1960s, Rublev had been adopted as an idealized nationalist symbol by everyone from the nationalist artist Ilya Glazunov (who painted an angelic, blue-eyed Rublev, remarkably different from the figure in Tarkovsky’s film) to respected art critics and historians.”34 The Rublev cult was closely linked to the memory of Dmitriĭ Donskoĭ, prince of the Grand Duchy of Moscow in the late fourteenth century. Donskoĭ fought against the Mongols of the Golden Horde who still occupied large parts of the Rus’ territories and defeated them at the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. This battle in particular

32 On historical accuracy and the screenwriters’ preparatory work see V. Pashuto, “Vozrozhdennyĭ Rublev,” Iskusstvo kino, May 1, 1964; Mikhail Dolinskiĭ, and Semen Chertok, “Vek piatnadtsatyĭ — vek dvadtsatyĭ: Snimaetsia fil’m ‘Andreĭ Rublev,’” Sovetskiĭ ėkran, no. 3 (1966); Georgiĭ Kunitsyn, “K istorii ‘Andreia Rubleva’ (Zapisala M. Tarkovskaia),” in O Tarkovskom: Vospominania v dvukh knigakh, ed. Marina Tarkovskaia (Moscow: Dedalus, 2002), 415. 33 Gregory B. Miller, “Reentry Shock: Historical Transition and Temporal Longing in the Cinema of the Soviet Thaw” (PhD diss., University of Oregon, 2010), 185. 34 Ibid., 186. 156 Philip Schwartz became part of the collective memory and myth associated with Rublev.35 The glorious Russian victory over the Mongols in 1380 still had its place in the original screen script, but during production Tarkovskiĭ axed the episode. His film also does not show any of the cultural flourishing that Rublev represented, according to popular myth.36 Instead, Tarkovskiĭ chose to focus on the misery and cruelties characterizing everyday life around 1400 under Mongol occupation. The Mongols (or Tartars) in Andreĭ Rublev appear wealthier and in a much more powerful position than any Russian in the film, except for the treacherous prince who collaborates with the Golden Horde. The film features explicit violence against humans and animals alike, relentlessly confronting the viewer with the general distress that the celluloid Rublev witnesses. The filmmaker balances this depressing imagery by depicting simple joys, folk culture, beautiful nature scenes, and Rublev’s icons at the very end of the film. However, Rublev is never shown painting his famous icons. Rather, A. Solonitsyn, the lead actor, plays a monk going through a creative crisis and struggling with religious and existential questions. The film ends on a positive note with Rublev finally returning to painting. When he meets an orphaned boy who guides the casting of a bell, Rublev renounces his vow of silence and rediscovers his joie de vivre and optimism. As the director explained many times, art and genius were the central themes of his film.37 Tarkovskiĭ was uninterested in producing a simplistic depiction of the popular myth that prevailed in the mid-1960s, instead focusing on an artist’s mental resurrection after great sufferings. Tarkovskiĭ draws explicit parallels between Rublev and Jesus Christ, including a scene consisting of the monk painter’s vision of the crucifixion of Jesus. Appropriately enough, Tarkovskiĭ and Konchalovskiĭ titled an early version of the script The Passion According to Andrei (Strasti po Andreiu). Tarkovskiĭ presented the first cut of the film to the censorship organs in 1966 under the same title.38 Since the cultural context of the 1950s and the boom of Russian

35 Cf. ibid., 186–8. 36 Cf. ibid., 188–9. 37 See, e.g., Dolinskiĭ, and Chertok, “Vek piatnadtsatyĭ — vek dvadtsatyĭ.” The authors draw on an interview with the director. 38 Vinokurova, “Khozhdenie po mukam.” 157 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

nationalism led the public to anticipate quite a different portrayal of Rublev and his time, Tarkovskiĭ’s masterpiece disappointed many. This doubtful young icon painter was not the Old Russian hero for whom supporters of the nationalist mythologization of Rublev had longed.39 Moreover, Tarkovskiĭ’s Andreĭ Rublev provoked fear among critics that it would feed the stereotype of cruel, primitive Russia and that an international public might even interpret it as a criticism of the Soviet regime.40 Foreign newspaper articles later confirmed these worries.41 In the context of a political backlash against the “excesses” of the Khrushchevian Thaw, a story focusing once again on an individual and his sufferings could hardly please Brezhnev, who sought to put a halt to the contestation of the official party line and of simplistic accounts of the past.

Censorship of the Script After Tarkovskiĭ and Konchalovskiĭ finished the script in the form of a novel in December 1962, two different committees assessed the work in a protracted and difficult procedure. Before the script’s ultimate approval more than one year later it had to overcome many obstacles. One of the criticisms foreshadowed a problem that the film, too, would face: the members of the artistic council (khudsovet) considered the piece too long. An instrument of Soviet censorship, the artistic council did not have permanent members. Rather, the Filmmakers’ Union elected the council’s members for each film individually. Apart from other directors, who were members of the Filmmakers’ Union, historians Vladimir Pashuto and Lev Cherepnin and art historians Mikhail Alpatov and Nikolaĭ Sychev participated as experts in the committee hearing for Andreĭ Rublev. Two of the consulting experts were well acquainted with the young filmmakers, since Tarkovskiĭ and Konchalovskiĭ went to Pashuto for his professional advice in the process of writing the script, and Sychev worked to restore Rublev frescos in the Dormition Cathedral at Vladimir, one of the main shooting locations for

39 “Otzyv o fil’me ‘Andreĭ Rublev’, podgotovlennyĭ v TsK KPSS,” 1967, in Kinematograf ottepeli, comp. and ed. Fomin, 146–7. 40 A well-known Russian writer and dissident advocated this point of view: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “Fil’m o Rubleve,” Vestnik RKhD 141 (1984). 41 See, e.g., Janet Flanner, “Letter from Paris,” The New Yorker, December 13, 1969, 180; Urs Jenny, “Die Legenden gehen zu Ende: Bericht von den Filmfestspielen in Cannes,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 23, 1969. 158 Philip Schwartz

Tarkovskiĭ’s film. These academics, as members of the intelligentsia, had no problems with the script’s content, according to the available protocol from the Mosfil’m archives, but objected to its length.42 The script faced more hostility in the state organ of censorship because, unlike in the assemblies of the artistic council, filmmakers had little influence on the constitution of theKinokomitet , which contained a large number of narrow-minded, loyal party functionaries. A special section of the committee, the Main Editorial Board for Screenwriting (GSRK), examined the script and found fault with its religiosity.43 Literary critic G. Brovman reminded his colleagues that “the Russian decadence always extensively used icon painting,” thus linking the art of icon painting to a “bourgeois,” and hence anti-Bolshevik movement.44 Chairman of the Board A. Dymshits even suggested that Rublev should be represented as an atheist. Another member of the editorial board, A. Bakurinskiĭ, blamed Tarkovskiĭ for failing to represent the heroic nature of the Russian people at the time. Other critics joined him in this accusation and also criticized the film’s lack of socialist ideology and its inappropriately explicit depiction of violence.45 In 1964 the GSRK finally approved the script that was supposed to serve as basis for the film, appending a list of instructions for the director to be observed in the process of filming, because certain parts of the script still left the state censors dissatisfied. These problematic sections probably could remain in the script thanks to the support of a benevolent party official in a more powerful position who eventually came to the rescue. Georgiĭ Kunitsyn, then deputy head of the Central Committee’s subsection on cinema, claimed that his intercession on the young filmmakers’ behalf saved their script from a premature death and helped Tarkovskiĭ and Konchalovskiĭ get away without having to change their work radically.46 Whatever the reason, the script of Andreĭ Rublev did not encounter any severe restrictions due to its content.

42 “‘Delo’ ob Andree,” 363. 43 GSRK stands for Glavnaia stsenarno-redaktsionnaia kollegiia. In his letters, Tarkovskiĭ also refers to this entity by the abbreviation GRK. Its official full name reads, according to Vinokurova, “Khozhdenie po mukam,” Stsenarnaia redaktsionnaia kollegiia Glavnogo upravleniia khudozhestvennoĭ kinematografii Komiteta po kinematografii pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR. 44 Mikhaĭlov, “‘Andreĭ Rublev,’” 10. 45 Ibid. 46 Georgiĭ Kunitsyn, “K istorii ‘Andreia Rubleva,’” 414–5. 159 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

In April and May 1964 the prestigious film periodical The Art of Cinema (Iskusstvo kino) published the lengthy script.47 Despite its unusual approach in dealing with the historical figure of the monk and its incompatibility with the popular myth of the national painter, the Soviet public received the work well. Arousing interest among academics, critics, and the average reader, it quickly sold out and then circulated in samizdat.48 In addition to the major Soviet film periodicals Iskusstvo kino, Sovetskiĭ ėkran, and Sovetskoe kino (a supplement to the magazine Sovetskaia kul’tura), many regional and several professional newspapers reported on the film during its production.49

Censorship of the Film In the course of the script’s adaptation to the screen it endured multiple changes. First of all, 250 pages of prose text proved too long for a two-part feature film, forcing Tarkovskiĭ to cut many scenes. Second, the director shifted the focus from the historic period to the artistic personality of Andreĭ Rublev and his philosophical and spiritual reflections, moving the former to the background. As a result, an accurate representation of historic events and the depiction of social realities in the medieval Rus’ became less important in the process of making the film.50

47 Andreĭ Tarkovskiĭ, and Andron Konchalovskiĭ, “Andreĭ Rublev,” Iskusstvo kino, April 1/ May 1, 1964. 48 Mark Zak, Andreĭ Tarkovskiĭ: Tvorcheskiĭ portret (Moscow: “Soiuzinformkino” Goskino SSSR, 1988), 9; Semen Chertok, “Strasti po Andreiu,” chap. 6 in Stop-Kadry: Ocherki o sovetskom kino (London: Overseas Publications Interchange Ltd, 1988), 152. 49 According to M. Rostotskaia, “Bibliografiia: ‘Andreĭ Rublev,’” in Andreĭ Tarkovskiĭ: Nachalo... i puti, ed. M. Rostotskaia (Moscow: Izdaniia VGIK, 1994), 193–6; articles appeared, for example, in these newspapers: B. Baraev, “Ekho vremeni,” Molodoĭ tselinnik (Tselinograd), December 1, 1965; B. Baraev, “Ekho umershego vremeni,” Pravda Buriatii (Ulan-Udė), November 20, 1965; V. Baulin, “Nachala i puti,” Tikhookeanskiĭ komsomolets (Vladivostok), March 13, 1966; “V strane drevnerusskogo zodchestva,” Moskovskiĭ komsomolets, June 13, 1965; F. Ivanov, “Rasskazyvaet Andreĭ Tarkovskii,” Novgorodskaia pravda, October 30, 1964; N. Ivanov, “Strasti po Andreiu,” Turkmenskaia iskra (Ashkhabad), October 9, 1966; “Idut s’’emki fil’ma,” Altaiskaia pravda (Barnaul), May 28, 1966; Iu. Kukanov, “Voskreshaia dalekoe proshloe,” Pskovskaia pravda, November 2, 1965; V. Kurbatova, “Zhdem ‘Andreia Rubleva,’” Pskovskaia pravda, October 2, 1965; V. Moshkov, “‘Mosfil’m’ na Pskovshchine,” Pskovskaia pravda, November 21, 1965; G. Osipov, “‘Andreĭ Rublev’ Andreia Tarkovskogo,” Komsomolets Tadzhikistana (Dushanbe), June 23, 1965; V. Sergeev, “Andreĭ Rublev edet vo Vladimir,” Priokskaia pravda (Riazan’), August 15, 1965; “Skoro nachnutsia s’’emki…,” Moskovskiĭ komsomolets, March 3, 1965; A. Troitskiĭ, “Na ekrane Andreĭ Rublev,” Stroitel’naia gazeta, September 26, 1965; S. Chudakov, “Strasti po Andreiu,” Smena, September 14, 1962; S. Chudakov, “Strasti po Andreiu,” Vecherniĭ Rostov, September 20, 1962. 50 Mikhaĭlov, “‘Andreĭ Rublev,’”16–7. 160 Philip Schwartz

When Tarkovskiĭ and his crew finished shooting the film in 1966 and presented it to government and Party officials, those officials raised the same complaints that the GSRK had when reviewing the script, only this time with more serious consequences. Vladimir Lenin’s dictum that “For us, the cinema is the most important of the arts” guided Soviet cultural politics since he made that declaration in the 1920s. Soviet authorities therefore expressed their doubts about Tarkovskiĭ’s work with more fervor than before. Film’s primacy over literature and other art forms or means of propaganda was also reflected in the filmmaker’s working conditions, which further limited his artistic freedom. Soviet film censorship started well before the process of shooting and editing a film was completed, as former Soviet film critic Semen Chertok noted. “The Soviet author has to think constantly about the censors in order to prevent his work’s premature death, if not his own,” wrote Chertok. “Every author has to do it, yet the film director most of all, for literature is written in solitude, in front of the desk, far from the eyes of strangers, even conspiratorially, yet Tarkovskiĭ directed his film at the main Moscow studio, where the walls have eyes and ears.”51

51 Chertok, “Strasti po Andreiu,” 154–5. 161 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Though Tarkovskiĭ’s colleagues received the film positively and surprised him with accolades, it came up against a wall of disapproval when he first presented it to the Kinokomitet board in 1966.52 Yet censors criticized the film for its details rather than its ideology. Now even the Kinokomitet’s artistic council complained about the film’s length and its “naturalist depiction.”53 In Soviet parlance, naturalism, which was thought to be modernist and therefore decadent and bourgeois, stood at the opposite pole from Socialist Realist art, which is characterized by the praise of socialist ideology.54 Works of art condemned as “naturalist” typically featured the explicit depiction of violence and nudity. Labeling a work of art “naturalist” in most cases spelled its doom. Complaints about “naturalism” forced Tarkovskiĭ to shorten his film in many places, even though the director pointed out that this objection seemed hypocritical and unpersuasive, since classical Soviet directors, such as Sergeĭ Eĭzenshteĭn and Aleksandr Dovzhenko, made frequent use of similar imagery.55 Presumably, Party officials preferred to concern themselves with such petty objections because the film’s concept displeased them, yet not to the extent that they were willing to ban the film entirely. In addition to the artistic council’s observations, the leadership of Mosfil’m criticized the film for certain inconsistencies and urged the director to shorten overtly religious scenes such as the crucifixion of Jesus or the recitation of scripture.56 While refusing to shorten or remove the latter scenes, Tarkovskiĭ conceded to general abridgements in order to reduce the runtime and tighten the narrative. With a first set of cuts he primarily intended to improve the film’s artistic quality and resisted accommodating nationalist and atheist criticism. In an interview with French journalists, Tarkovskiĭ asserted that only he edited the film, that the last, and the shortest, version was the best one, and that the changes only cut the length.57 However, this

52 Pomerantsev, and Tarkovskiĭ, “Ia nikogda ne stremilsia byt’ aktual’nym,” 229. 53 Mikhaĭlov, “‘Andreĭ Rublev,’” 25–6. 54 Valeriĭ Fomin, “‘Izbavit’sia ot naleta naturalizma…,’” in Kino i vlast’: Sovetskoe kino: 1965–1985 gody: Dokumenty, svidetel’stva, razmyshleniia, comp. and ed. Valeriĭ Fomin (Moscow: Materik, 1996), 36–9. 55 See his letter to Romanov in Vinokurova, “Khozhdenie po mukam,” 68. 56 Mikhaĭlov, “‘Andreĭ Rublev,’” 26–7. 57 Michel Ciment, Luda Schnitzer, and Jean Schnitzer, “L’artiste dans l’ancienne Russie et dans l’U.R.S.S. nouvelle: Entretien avec Andrei Tarkovski,” in Andrei Tarkovski, ed. Gilles Ciment, Dossier Positif-Rivages (Paris: Editions Rivages, 1988), 93–4. 162 Philip Schwartz claim seems suspect considering Tarkovskiĭ’s patriotism, as evidenced in another interview with a Western journalist in which the director said, “I do not tolerate foreigners criticizing Russia.”58 In addition, Tarkovskiĭ’s letters confirm that theKinokomitet ’s repeated requests to cut scenes led him to make more changes and erase “naturalist” depictions, which, according to his earlier statements, would alter the film’s content considerably.59 What is more, a formerly classified document from 1971, which includes an official recommendation to release the film in the Soviet Union, challenges Tarkovskiĭ’s claim that he had been the only one to edit Andreĭ Rublev, as it records the involvement of several other Soviet filmmakers in the film’s finalization dorabotka( ).60 Still, some critics agree with Tarkovskiĭ that the changes he made only improved the film’s artistic quality.61 Besides complaining of the film’s naturalism, religiosity, excessive length, and inconsistencies, censors accused it of elitism. Socialist Realist art was not only supposed to be about the masses, but for them. Judging his film by this standard, critics castigated Tarkovskiĭ for producing elitist art.62 Tarkovskiĭ dismissed these kinds of accusations in the same way he ignored nationalist criticism. Reflecting on the principles of his artistic philosophy, he quoted Friedrich Engels, who reportedly said that “the more the author’s views are hidden, the better it is for a work of art.”63 Making artistic quality the top priority, Tarkovskiĭ defied official ideology that

58 Ernst-Ulrich Fromm, “‘Ich dulde nicht, daß Ausländer Rußland kritisieren ...’: Der Filmregisseur Tarkowskij — Besuch in seinem Studio,” Die Welt, May 26, 1971. Fromm interviewed Tarkovskiĭ while he was shooting his next film, Solaris. 59 Vinokurova, “Khozhdenie po mukam,” 64–5. 60 Filipp Ermash, “Postanovlenie Sekretariata TsK KPSS o kinofil’me ‘Andreĭ Rublev’: Prilozhenie,” August 13, 1971, in Istoriia sovetskoĭ politicheskoĭ tsenzury: Dokumenty i kommentarii, T. Goriaeva, et al. (Moscow: ROSSPĖN, 1997), 205–6. 61 Kunitsyn, “‘Pochemu ia ne stal ministrom kinematografii,’” 202. L. Nekhoroshev takes the view that Tarkovskiĭ’s creative revising of the film led to important gains in its artistic quality. (L. Nekhoroshev, “‘Andreĭ Rublev’: Spasenie dushi,” in Mir i fil’my Andreia Tarkovskogo, ed. Sandler, 43.) 62 See, e.g., a letter by the secretary of the Vladimir oblast committee of the CP to A. Romanov, head of the Kinokomitet, which is quoted in full length in Marina Tarkovskaia, “Zerkalo sem’i Tarkovskich sobrano iz oskolkov,” Kommersant Daily, November 6, 1998. 63 Golovskoĭ, Mezhdu otepel’iu i glasnost’iu, 186. Regarding the immediate public response to the confined release of Andreĭ Rublev in 1971, see Andreĭ Tarkovskiĭ, Martirolog: Dnevniki (Castello, Italy: Tibergraph, 2008), 65. 163 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

valued cinema primarily as a means of ideological education.64 Tarkovskiĭ also knew, based on his own observations, that the public indeed received his films enthusiastically.65 Confronted with this array of criticisms, Tarkovskiĭ could hardly hope for Andreĭ Rublev’s approval in the foreseeable future. As the Party line regarding the film changed after the completion of shooting, the large-scale press coverage of Tarkovskiĭ ceased. One of the few articles on Andreĭ Rublev published in 1966 appeared in the Moscow newspaper Evening Moscow (Vechernaia Moskva), which again criticized the film’s “naturalism,” complaining about the cruelty and explicit violence in the film, particularly in a scene of a burning cow.66 Semen Chertok, then editor at the Soviet film magazineSovetskiĭ ėkran, recalled how, after a meeting of the Central Committee’s Department for Culture, the magazine’s editor-in-chief banned reports on Andreĭ Rublev because the film was deemed “unhistorical” and “unpatriotic.”67 Three years later, censors removed the material concerning Andreĭ Rublev from the cinema yearbook Ėkran.68 Yet all efforts to divert public attention through means of censorship and secretiveness only fueled the public’s interest. A Moscow correspondent for the British newspaper The Times referred to Andreĭ Rublev as “the most talked-about Russian film today,” along with Khutsiev’s July Rain.69 The Moscow public was eager to view the film. When the exclusive movie theater House of the Cinema (Dom kino) showed it for a single time in the winter of 1966, Muscovites attended the premiere in huge numbers and stood in line for tickets outside the building despite below-freezing temperatures.70 As Soviet attempts at silencing discussion of the film backfired, the film’s fame prior to its official release spread beyond Russian borders. International cineastes awaited Tarkovskiĭ’s next film ever since he announced his plans

64 On the educational value of cinema, as envisaged by the Party, see “Rech tovarishcha L.A. Kulidzhanova,” in XXIII S’’ezd Kommunisticheskoĭ partii Sovetskogo Soiuza, 29 Marta – 8 Aprelia 1966 goda: Stenograficheskiĭ otchet (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo politicheskoĭ literatury, 1966), 579–80. 65 Golovskoĭ, Mezhdu otepel’iu i glasnost’iu, 186. 66 I. Soldatov, „I zapylala korova...,” Vechernaia Moskva, December 24, 1966. 67 Chertok, “Strasti po Andreiu,” 153. 68 Golovskoĭ, Mezhdu otepel’iu i glasnost’iu, 14–5. 69 John R. Taylor, “Glimpse of New Generation of Russian Film-makers,” Times, July 25, 1967. 70 Tarkovskaia, “Zerkalo sem’i Tarkovskich.” On the exclusive character of the venue Dom kino see Golovskoĭ, Mezhdu otepel’iu i glasnost’iu, 44–5. 164 Philip Schwartz to make it in 1962. In 1968 the German film critic Enno Patalas published an article titled “Waiting for Tarkovsky,” based on an interview with the established Soviet filmmaker Mark Donskoĭ, who told him that Tarkovskiĭ still worked on finishing Andreĭ Rublev.71 The eagerness of international festivals to screen the film also reflected the interest in the Soviet newcomer. Hoping to host another excellent work by Tarkovskiĭ after his debut, the Venice Film Festival asked for Andreĭ Rublev as early as 1966, when the film was not yet completed.72 In the same year the complicated liaison of Andreĭ Rublev and the Cannes Film Festival began.

Cannes as an Arena for the Cold War One of the most influential film festivals that emerged after World War II, the Cannes Film Festival was an important venue for cultural transfer between East and West during the Cold War. The festival’s influence reached far beyond the realm of art, however, as films presented there often delivered a political message. Since during the late 1960s national governments selected the films from their countries to participate in the competition at Cannes, the films represented their countries as delegates of a sort. During the Cold War, the participating countries at Lorem Ipsum yada yada yada. Cannes focused on “propagating one’s (Photo courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) values and distributing one’s ideas in the world; one of the means employed for the purpose of this ideological conquest was the cinema [. . .] the most representative of

71 Enno Patalas, “Warten auf Tarkowskij,” Filmkritik, March 1, 1968. Donskoĭ maintained that despite Tarkovskiĭ’s undeniable talent the film still needed improvement and that the delay was due to Tarkovskiĭ’s refusal to cut certain inappropriate, “pathological or sexual,” scenes. 72 Le Fanu, “Vicissitudes of Andrei Roublev,” 144. 165 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

the arts.”73 As a consequence, “diplomatic relations occasionally trumped artistic considerations” during the initial years.74 For example, in 1946 the U.S. took advantage of France’s economic dependence and set a quota for the screening of American films in France by concluding the bilateral Blum- Byrnes agreement, which included an attractive loan contract for France in return.75 This international contract illustrates the US’s strong role in cultural politics in postwar Western Europe. American hegemony made Cannes a festival of the Western bloc. From the start Cannes was a state festival, and members of the government formed its organizational committee.76 During the late 1960s, Minister of Cultural Affairs André Malraux, head of the Centre national de la cinématographie (CNC) André Holleaux and General Delegate of the Cannes Film Festival Robert Favre Le Bret were the leading figures at Cannes. The Sovėksportfil’m representative Otari Teneĭshvili’s description of how French politicians eventually managed to show Andreĭ Rublev at the Cannes Festival demonstrates the close involvement of French government agencies in the process.77 Created as an international festival, Cannes depended on Soviet participation. In 1951 the festival directors limited the number of films selected for the competition to four from each country, and this weakened US dominance. The same year witnessed the Soviet Union’s return to the festival after five years of absence. Following turbulent relations between Moscow and Cannes in the first years of the festival, international cultural politics experienced significant change when Khrushchev introduced the doctrine of “peaceful coexistence” and promoted cultural exchange. The festival jury’s decision in 1958 to give the Golden Palm (Palme d’or), the festival’s highest prize, to Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes Are Flying, a film that international critics consider a quintessential example of the Thaw, exemplified this shift. The French also contributed to the thriving French-Soviet cinematic

73 Loredana Latil, Le festival de Cannes sur la scène internationale (Paris: Nouveau Monde, 2005), 80. 74 Ibid., 81. 75 For a detailed assessment of the Blum-Byrnes agreement see Michel Margairez, “Autour des accords Blum-Byrnes: Jean Monnet entre le consensus national et le consensus atlantique,” Histoire, économie et société no. 3 (1982): 439–70. 76 Latil, Le festival de Cannes, 32–6. 77 Teneĭshvili, “Kannskie i parizhskie taĭny,” 161–81. 166 Philip Schwartz exchange. As President Charles de Gaulle (1958–1969) aimed for French political as well as cultural independence—particularly from the US—he approached East European countries.78 The Gaullist doctrine of French independence dovetailed with Khrushchev’s plans to increase Soviet film exports, which were outlined in a secret May 1959 directive that mentioned among other measures the desire to increase Soviet participation in international film festivals.79 Whereas under Stalin the political use of art took top priority and determined which productions were sent to international film festivals, under Khrushchev the international success of Soviet cinema shaped the authorities’ decisions. After the Soviet turnover in leadership in 1964, Brezhnev at first continued Khrushchev’s policy of pushing the export of Soviet movies.80 As late as 1966, the French-Soviet negotiations in the run-up to the Cannes Film Festival proceeded without incident. In spite of palpable Cold War tensions, the negotiating parties could find a compromise through diplomatic bargaining. In 1966 the Cannes Festival directors invited Sergeĭ Iutkevich’s film Lenin in Poland (Lenin v Pol’she) to participate in the competition, in addition to the participants selected by the Soviet authorities. The Soviet government consented on the condition that the American production of Doctor Zhivago not open the festival, a point on which both sides could

78 Ibid., 173. 79 Nikita Khrushchev, and G. Stepanov, “Postanovlenie Soveta Ministrov SSSR ‘O merakh po uluchsheniiu prokata sovetskikh fil’mov v zarubezhnykh stranakh,’” May 21, 1959, in Kinematograf ottepeli, comp. and ed. Fomin, 364–6. 80 Alekseĭ Romanov, “Spravka Komiteta po kinematografii pri SM SSSR v TsK KPSS o prodvizhenii sovetskikh kinofil’mov v zarubezhnye strany v 1966 g.,” June 9, 1967, in Tomilina, et al., Apparat TsK KPSS i kul’tura, 358–65. 167 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

agree.81 Growing tensions still lurked below the surface, according to Teneĭshvili, who claimed that the Soviet government proposed sending Lenin in Poland in order to conciliate the delegates from the festival who had originally asked for Andreĭ Rublev, which they had seen in Moscow but which was not yet approved by the censors.82

Andreĭ Rublev Caught in the Soviet System In 1967 the Cannes Festival directors received the hoped-for “yes” from the Soviet government and scheduled Andreĭ Rublev for the festival competition but, at the last minute, Party officials withdrew the film under the official pretext that Tarkovskiĭ had not yet finished it.83 This was not the first time the filmmaker became the victim of such indecisiveness. A year earlier the head of the Kinokomitet, Romanov, disappointed Tarkovskiĭ when he nullified the documents authorizing the film’s official release.84 Tarkovskiĭ perceived these maneuvers as symptoms of a targeted persecution. In 1968 he complained about Soviet cultural politics in a letter to film critic E. Surkov, noting, “It is incredible: the film industry has a 300 million deficit, the country needs currency, we disgraced ourselves at the past festivals, but we firmly kept watch over ideology. If it were only over ideology! All this is

81 Vladimir Baskakov, and Lev Kulidzhanov, “Pis’mo Komiteta po kinematografii pri SM SSSR i pravleniia Soiuza kinematografistov SSSR v TsK KPSS po voprosu uchastiia sovetskoĭ kinematografii v XIX Mezhdunarodnom kinofestivale v Kannakh,” April 15, 1966, in Kinematograf ottepeli, comp. and ed. Fomin, 216–7. Boris Pasternak’s novel Doktor Zhivago triggered a major scandal of the Khrushchev era when it was first published in Italy in 1958. Prior to the publication abroad, the Russian literary magazine Novyĭ mir had refused to publish the work, as the views presented in the novel did not follow Party line. Regardless of Soviet displeasure, the Swedish Academy decided to award Pasternak the Nobel Prize in the very same year. Under pressure from Soviet officials and the KGB, the author eventually rejected the prize. Pasternak died only two years later in May 1960. Doktor Zhivago, his best known work, continued to circulate in Russian samizdat, until it was officially published in 1988, during glasnost. Knowing that a Nobel Prize for Pasternak would harm the Soviet Union’s international reputation, the CIA had faked Russian editions of the novel and submitted them to the Swedish Academy in order to make Pasternak eligible for the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature. (Mark Franchetti, “How the CIA Won Zhivago a Nobel,” The Sunday Times, January 14, 2007.) The novel’s first adaptation for the screen, directed by David Lean and released in the U.S. in 1965, certainly served as an instrument in a cultural battle of the Cold War when it was sent to Cannes in 1966. 82 Teneĭshvili, “Kannskie i parizhskie taĭny,” 167–8. 83 Flanner, “Letter from Paris,” 179. 84 Vinokurova, “Khozhdenie po mukam,” 68. 168 Philip Schwartz some perverted intrigue in the style of witch-hunting.”85 Considering Tarkovskiĭ’s relationship to some of his more powerful colleagues, it seems more likely that rivalry among Soviet directors caused these sudden turns of events rather than systematic persecution. At his Milan press conference in July 1984, Tarkovskiĭ revealed details about the last-minute withdrawal of Andreĭ Rublev in 1967. He mentioned that “a well- known Soviet director” called the matter to the attention of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, criticizing Andreĭ Rublev for its nonconformity.86 The film critic Chertok identifies this “well-known Soviet director” as Sergeĭ Gerasimov, who, out of envy, urged P. Demichev, then Secretary for Agitation and Propaganda, not to send a movie to the West that was as “anti-Russian, anti-historical, anti-patriotic and generally organized ‘around Rublev’ in sort of a Western spirit.”87 Gerasimov’s appeal to the highest Party organs succeeded, and Andreĭ Rublev went back on the shelf. The willingness of high Party officials to intervene in such a case facilitated the endeavors of an envious fellow director attempting to obstruct his colleague’s career. In fact, as Kunitsyn points out, motion pictures faced obstacles predominantly owing to loyal partisans in higher positions rather than objections from the subdivision in charge.88 This was demonstrated once again at a later stage of the Rublev affair. After the film’s showing at Cannes 1969, Demichev finally relented, but then Mikhail Suslov, one of the most influential Soviet politicians during Brezhnev’s reign, intervened and delayed the release once again.89

85 O. Kalmykova, and V. Shmyrova, ed., “Gde druz’ia, a gde vragi?: Pis’ma Andreia Tarkovskogo Evgeniiu Surkovu,” Sovetskiĭ ėkran, no. 10 (1989). 86 Angus MacKinnon, “Red Tape,” in Tarkovsky: Interviews, ed. Gianvito, 157. 87 Chertok, “Strasti po Andreiu,” 156–7. During a meeting at a film studio in 1963, Gerasimov also mentioned Tarkovskiĭ in the same breath as Khutsiev and other artists that are not quite in line with the Party ideology, saying that “their heads are spinning.” (“Iz stenogrammy zasedaniia Pervogo tvorcheskogo ob’’edineniia kinostudii imeni M. Gor’kogo po obsuzhdeniiu fil’ma rezhissera M. Khutsieva ‘Zastava Il’icha,’” March 12, 1963, in Kinematograf ottepeli, comp. and ed. Fomin, 133.) 88 Kunitsyn, “‘Pochemu ia ne stal ministrom kinematografii,’” 203. 89 Teneĭshvili, “Kannskie i parizhskie taĭny,” 179. 169 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Andreĭ Rublev in the Context of Cinéma d’auteur Auteur theory, which highlights the director’s role as “author” in film production, originated in postwar France and in the 1950s and 1960s spread to other European countries and the United States. As auteur, the director carries the responsibility for the whole production and leaves his distinctive artistic mark on the film. These criteria certainly apply to Andreĭ Rublev and other works of Tarkovskiĭ, whom critics consider one of the few Soviet auteurs of the 1960s and 1970s. Several interviews with the director attest to his appreciation for auteur theory.90 Reflecting on the Cannes Film Festival’s politics, Corless and Darke write that “the politico-cultural aspect comes into play when one considers the example of certain auteurs working in countries with repressive political regimes.”91 The festival directors used their power to invite films for participation as political leverage, e.g., “when making a stand against censorship by showing films banned in their home countries.”92 Thus, the film festival served as a tool to promote auteurism in the Eastern bloc. The opportunity of taking a political stance in this manner became particularly relevant after Brezhnev’s purges and rigorous film censorship circa 1967. Throughout the 1960s cinematic new wave movements evolved in many European countries, often in correlation with the rise of auteur theory, including Nouvelle Vague in France, Polska szkoła filmowa in Poland, nová vlna in Czechoslovakia, and Novaia volna in Russia. Whether or not the Russian variety actually fully matured is a matter of debate, but Soviet authorities certainly feared such a development. In 1960 Glavlit, a central organ of literary censorship, documented the endeavors of a group of young Russian filmmakers to bring about a new wave movement in Russia.93 In “other Socialist countries” like Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland, the Central Committee perceived the new wave as “a tendency of copycatting (kopiizm), i.e., an uncritical transfer of certain Western philosophical and

90 See, e.g., “Vsesoiuznaia pereklichka kinematografistov: Beseda s rezhisserom Andreem Tarkovskim,” Iskusstvo kino, April 1, 1971. 91 Kieron Corless, and Chris Darke, Cannes: Inside the World’s Premier Film Festival (London: Faber and Faber, 2007), 150. 92 Corless, and Darke, Cannes, 3–4. 93 P. Romanov, “Dokladnaia zapiska Glavlita SSSR v TsK KPSS o rukopisi V.I. Bozhovicha ‘Besedy s sovetskimi rezhisserami novogo pokoleniia,’” October 21, 1959, in Kinematograf ottepeli, comp. and ed. Fomin, 4–6. 170 Philip Schwartz aesthetic principles.”94 The Brezhnev administration managed to destroy any such aspirations in Russia by limiting filmmakers’ self-government and purging the institutions of progressive officeholders. As a result, Tarkovskiĭ remained out on a limb with his convictions and working methods. Complementing his domestic policy, Brezhnev set the course for the Era of Stagnation on the international stage, too. By commanding Warsaw Pact troops to invade Czechoslovakia in August 1968, he put an end to the short period of political liberalization in Eastern Europe that had culminated in the Prague Spring earlier that year. Meanwhile, Western societies experienced political, social, and moral crises, as student protest movements emerged. In France the protests of May 1968, starting in Paris, quickly spread to other cities and soon reached the Cannes Film Festival. As the protesters and the festival organizers could not come to an agreement, students from Nice organized blockades and several jury members resigned in what developed into a boycott of the festival, forcing the organizers to cancel it halfway through. This traumatic experience had long-term effects. French filmmakers of the Nouvelle Vague, such as Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, and their allies made requests to reform the festival, demanding that it be less commercial and politically opportunist. The Soviet leadership disapproved of these political developments, as demonstrated by an official report about the 1968 Cannes Film Festival that overflows with ideological bias. Worried about the festival directors’ tendentiousness, the reporting Soviet official remarked that the festival organizers supported the Czech New Wave cinema by inviting “anti- socialist” pictures such as Jan Němec’s subversive movie A Report on the Party and the Guests (O slavnosti a hostech) and characterized this activity as “bourgeois filmmakers’ reaction to the actions of anti-socialist elements in Poland and Czechoslovakia and the aspirations to give them moral support.” This report also condemned theNouvelle Vague filmmakers who led the unrest at the festival, alleging material support from the US and mentioning the American delegation’s positive attitude toward the protests. The report

94 D. Polikarpov, and Vladimir Baskakov, “Instruktsiia TsK po dokladu S. Gerasimova na konferentsii kinematografistov sotsialisticheskikh stran v Sofii,” October 8, 1960, in Kinematograf ottepeli, comp. and ed. Fomin, 375. 171 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

concludes with the judgment that the festival suffered a serious crisis.95 Following these events, Soviet authorities decided not to send any Soviet films to the Venice Film Festival of 1968 because the festival directors exhibited sympathy for the student movement by inviting the French protest leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit and other leading activists of the 1968 protests, whom Soviet commentators labeled “extremist elements.”96 Another conflict with the Venice Festival directors arose over requests for Soviet films that censors had put on hold. According to the German film historian Ulrich Gregor, in 1968 the festival director Luigi Chiarini even went so far as to demand “Andreĭ Rublev or none.”97 Overall, cultural politics mirrored the worsening international relations in 1968. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia exacerbated the situation, leading to an international boycott of Soviet films in the West.98 While Soviet authorities withheld Andreĭ Rublev partly in response to Western politics and because they perceived it as traitorous, embracing Western values and theories, Western companies in turn boycotted the showing of S. Bondarchuk’s War and Peace (Voĭna i mir, 1965–1967) as a response to Soviet politics.

The Consequences of Cannes 1969 After these ups and downs, 1969 finally brought the international breakthrough for Andreĭ Rublev and—despite one last attempt by the Soviet government to prevent it from happening—the film premiered at Cannes that spring. Fearing that the picture would attract international attention at the festival, Soviet authorities sold the rights for the film’s distribution in France to a Western distribution company. This turned out to be a tactical error. While they succeeded in preventing Andreĭ Rublev from participating in the competition, Soviet officials failed to realize that the

95 Vladimir Baskakov, “Dokladnaia zapiska v TsK KPSS zamestitelia predsedatelia Komiteta po kinematografii V.E. Baskakova o Kannskom kinofestivale 1968 g.,” June 28, 1968, in Kinematograf ottepeli, comp. and ed. Fomin, 414–7. 96 V. Golovnia, “Dokladnaia zapiska Komiteta po kinematografii o netselesoobraznosti uchastiia Sovetskogo kino v kinofestivale v Venetsii 1968 g.,” July 30, 1968, in Kinematograf ottepeli, comp. and ed. Fomin, 418–9. 97 Gregor, Geschichte des Films, 273. 98 Alekseĭ Romanov, “Dokladnaia zapiska predsedatelia Komiteta po kinematografii A.V. Romanova o prekrashchenii pokaza sovetskikh fil’mov v nekotorykh zarubezhnykh stranakh v sviazi s sobytiiami v ChSSR,” September 16, 1968, in Kinematograf ottepeli, comp. and ed. Fomin, 420–1. 172 Philip Schwartz film could still be shown out of competition. The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) publicized the film’s screening at the world’s most important international film festival by awarding Tarkovskiĭ the highly regarded FIPRESCI prize. After the film won this prize and the Western press celebrated it as the discovery of Cannes in 1969, Tarkovskiĭ and, consequently, Soviet censorship received international attention.99 The Soviet government’s attempt to circulate the problematic film quietly was a failure. The international premiere produced a wave of articles on Tarkovskiĭ in Western newspapers and periodicals, lasting well into the 1970s. The Soviet refusal to show the film at international festivals in 1967 and 1968 received media attention and Andreĭ Rublev’s inaccessibility increased its popularity. However, the film’s high quality largely contributed to its fame, as is evidenced by its continued success at international film festivals after its official foreign release in 1973.100 Before the official foreign release and in the aftermath of the 1969 Cannes Film Festival, the Western distribution company that purchased the rights released Andreĭ Rublev in five Paris cinemas without the Soviet government’s approval, provoking a furious reaction in Moscow.101 The influential director Sergeĭ Iutkevitch denounced the film in the presence of the Central Committee’s ideologists, which brought the film’s promotion to a standstill and reduced the Soviet authorities’ willingness to release it.102 In a letter to his friend and colleague Grigoriĭ Kozintsev, Tarkovskiĭ complained that everything became more complicated as a result of Cannes, and that Soviet authorities later urged him to return the FIPRESCI

99 See, e.g., Jean de Baroncelli, “Au festival de Cannes: Andréi Roublev et Arthur Rubinstein, héros du week-end,” Le Monde, May 20, 1969; Jean Delmas, “Cannes 1969,” Jeune cinéma, July 1969, 17; Flanner, “Letter from Paris,” 179; Klaus Hellwig, “Kleine Hoffnung aus der UdSSR,” Frankfurter Rundschau, May 22, 1969; Brigitte Jeremias, “Politisches Scheinengagement: Viel Film in Cannes,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 22, 1969. 100 Tarkovskiĭ, Martirolog, 85–6, 97–9. 101 The Paris release also received some media attention in the West: Flanner, “Letter from Paris,” 179; “Einprägsame Größe,” Der Spiegel; Jean de Baroncelli, “Le cinéma: ‘Andrei Roublev’, d’Andrei Tarkovsky,” Le Monde, November 21, 1969; Teneĭshvili, “Kannskie i parizhskie taĭny,” 176–7. 102 Paola Volkova, “Stat’ samim soboĭ,” in Andreĭ Tarkovskiĭ: Arkhivy, dokumenty, vospominaniia, ed. Paola Volkova (Moscow: Izdatel’skiĭ dom “Podkova,” 2002), 45; Teneĭshvili, “Kannskie i parizhskie taĭny,” 178–9. 173 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

award.103 Even during the Khrushchev Thaw, an award from a film festival in a capitalist country could cause Soviet filmmakers trouble. When in 1961 A. Naumov and V. Alov had received the Special Jury Prize at Venice, the working conditions at their Moscow studio worsened.104 While the Soviet government under Khrushchev still looked upon awards at international film festivals with pride, the strained international climate in the wake of 1968 led the Soviet Communist Party to see a prize for Tarkovskiĭ at Cannes as a mere provocation. Overall, international success hampered Tarkovskiĭ’s endeavors within the Soviet Union more than it helped. In contrast, Tarkovskiĭ’s first wife Irma Raush-Tarkovskaia, whom he divorced while re-cutting Andreĭ Rublev, remembered the positive consequences of Cannes, such as a change in the perception of Western opinion. As an example, she cited how, after the international success of Ivan’s Childhood, many foreign visitors wanted to meet Tarkovskiĭ, and the Central Committee made him receive foreign delegations at a dacha rather than at his own two-room apartment, so that foreigners would have a more favorable impression of Soviet living standards. Moreover, she claimed that in the case of Andreĭ Rublev the pressure to preserve the Soviet Union’s international reputation was even higher than in the case of international visitors coming to Tarkovskiĭ’s home, as in 1969 French cinemas showed the film while in the Soviet Union it was still banned.105

Release at Home Despite the growing difficulties in his own country, Tarkovskiĭ eventually managed to release his masterpiece at home. Next to international pressure, Soviet underground intellectual networks played a crucial role. Unofficial screenings and word-of-mouth promotion prompted several Soviet intellectuals to advocate the release of Andreĭ Rublev. On a few occasions Tarkovskiĭ managed to show his film to friends, among them Dmitriĭ

103 Grigoriĭ Kozintsev, and Andreĭ Tarkovskiĭ, “‘Ia chasto dumaiu o vas ...’ Iz perepiski Tarkovskogo s Kozintsevym,” in Mir i fil’my Andreia Tarkovskogo: Razmyshleniia, issledovaniia, vospominaniia, pis’ma, ed. Anetta Sandler (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1990), 345–6. 104 Vita Ramm, “Kinorezhisser Vladimir Naumov: ‘Ia chut’ ne podralsia s Tarkovskim iz-za Andreia Rubleva,’” Izvestiia, December 6, 2007. 105 Irma Raush-Tarkovskaia, “‘A stol odin i pradedu i vnuku…,’” Literaturnaia gazeta, April 2, 1997. 174 Philip Schwartz

Shostakovich and other eminent Soviet intellectuals.106 Although Brezhnev’s crackdown on the intelligentsia weakened these informal networks—for instance, by way of Kunitsyn’s removal from power—they survived and proved vital in bringing about the film’s release in the Soviet Union. At a time when Tarkovskiĭ, who no longer understood the goings-on within government organs, doubted that Andreĭ Rublev would be shown anytime soon, a secret recommendation by a high-ranking official presumably led to the domestic release in 1971.107 Afterward Tarkovskiĭ’s fellow directors Gerasimov and Iutkevich reviewed Andreĭ Rublev positively, even though both had put obstacles in Tarkovskiĭ’s way and denounced his movie earlier.108 Most likely, pressure from above induced this sudden change of mind, as suggested by the final recommendation to release the film, addressed to the Secretariat of the Central Committee. This recommendation makes the point that a positive review accompanying the release would be desirable

106 Kozintsev, and Tarkovskiĭ, “Iz perepiski,” 347, 350–1. 107 Ermash, “‘Andreĭ Rublev’: Prilozhenie;” Tarkovskiĭ, Martirolog, 42–4, 53. 108 Sergeĭ Gerasimov, Sergeĭ Iutkevitch, and Grigoriĭ Chukhraĭ. “‘Andreĭ Rublev’ — pervoe vpechatlenie,” Ėkran, 1971. 175 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

in order to conciliate the creative intelligentsia and foreign press.109 Even when Tarkovskiĭ finally obtained his goal of releasing Andreĭ Rublev in his homeland, he achieved only moderate success, because Soviet authorities confined his movie to a limited number of theaters and did not advertize the release at all.110

Conclusion Why did the Soviet government release Tarkovskiĭ’s Andreĭ Rublev sooner than the works of other progressive Soviet directors of his generation? First, the kinds of problems that censors encountered when dealing with Andreĭ Rublev, especially the elusive nature of some of their objections and the film’s own ambiguity, ensured that they did not ban the film, an important precondition for its comparably early release. Second, the high artistic quality of Tarkovskiĭ’s work and its success among cineastes kept its profile high. Third, Soviet authorities had no definite policy and did not develop a clear strategy for dealing with pressure from the West to release the film internationally. As a result, the film’s showing at the Cannes Film Festival and subsequent Western press coverage of Tarkovskiĭ pressured Soviet authorities to release it, notwithstanding the negative consequences that international success and media attention also had on Tarkovskiĭ’s later career in the Soviet Union. Fourth, Tarkovskiĭ experienced sustained support through Soviet underground intellectual networks. These factors reflect the transitional character of the period when Tarkovskiĭ produced Andreĭ Rublev. Even though this film did not explicitly criticize the regime or communist ideology, its conceptualization, storyline, and titular hero defied the concept of Socialist Realist art and eschewed a simplistic nationalist mythologization. This was a combination that challenged the censors. At the peak of the Khrushchevian Thaw such a film probably would have gone through the censorship organs without further ado. In the late 1960s, as the new leadership had not yet established its parameters of censorship, doubts about the film’s compatibility with the Party line cleared the ground for superficial criticisms that delayed the film’s release. As Brezhnev placed increasing pressure on the creative

109 Ermash, “‘Andreĭ Rublev’: Prilozhenie.” 110 Tarkovskiĭ, Martirolog, 65. 176 Philip Schwartz intelligentsia, an institution such as the Filmmakers’ Union aligned itself with the regime and the mechanisms of Soviet censorship under Brezhnev took shape. The same uncertainty prevailed at the Cannes Film Festival. While rivalry among Soviet filmmakers also had an impact on whether Andreĭ Rublev would be sent to the festival for competition, two principles of Soviet representation at Cannes competed here, the Khrushchevian and the Stalinist. Backtracking after the Thaw, Brezhnev deflated Khrushchev’s efforts to further cultural exchange and restore the reputation of Soviet cinema at Cannes. With the general political backlash of the late 1960s, international diplomacy in the realm of cinematic art had to be readjusted. Since Andreĭ Rublev could not serve as a tool of Soviet propaganda, the question of whether or not it could be sent to Cannes was debated, despite its high artistic quality. The film’s dubious ideological tenor left room for obstructing its success. Ironically, this Soviet indecisiveness also made the eventual screening of Andreĭ Rublev at Cannes possible. The invasion of Czechoslovakia and the international student movement, especially in France, likewise colored Soviet leaders’ approach to international cultural politics at the time. In the wake of these events, the Andreĭ Rublev affair became heavily political, culminating in the Soviet and the French governments’ negotiating its release. The question of whether the Soviet Union would allow Andreĭ Rublev to be shown in the West, particularly at the international film festivals in Venice and Cannes, epitomizes the international political climate of the time. Along with the support for the film from other Soviet intellectuals, first and foremost by Grigoriĭ Kozintsev, this tipped the scale. Because Tarkovskiĭ received critical acclaim and could name authoritative Soviet intellectuals among his advocates, the Central Committee finally rewarded the filmmaker’s patience. Soviet international cultural politics of the late 1960s constrained Andreĭ Rublev, but the film also profited from them. After all, it might have sat on the shelf fifteen years longer if it had not been for the screening at the Cannes Film Festival.

177 Kelsey Blake The Britons and the Welsh in Twelfth-Century Vernacular Literature

The twelfth century saw a great wave of intellectual and historical writing in Europe as part of what is known today as the Twelfth Century Renaissance. Norman armies under the leadership of William the Conqueror had defeated the English in 1066, had claimed their land, and were establishing increasing control over the island. Many of the writings that emerged in this period concerned the history of the conquered English, the time of the Anglo-Saxons. Very few early histories mentioned the people who had inhabited the island before the Saxons, however. These people were the Britons, a group relegated to folkloretraces and myth, whose history began entering into the consciousness of Normans only in the twelfth century. Before the twelfth century the Britons had been overlooked by most historians, as the people and their accomplishments were considered unworthy of note. The few historians who mentioned the Britons’ loss to the Normans attributed it to a flaw inherent in the British people that caused their cowardice and instability. However, King Henry II’s reign brought forth a wave of literary works in England and France, many of which were inspired or influenced by Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, a work from 178 Kelsey Blake

Miniature of the battle between King Arthur and Mordred’s armies on Salisbury Plain. (Photo by Xxxx Xxxx.)1

the first half of the twelfth century that introduced a new interpretation of the original inhabitants of Britain and the events that led to their decline. An analysis of these works provides a window into the minds of the authors and the patrons who requested and approved of these writings. Several authors translated Geoffrey’sHistory from its original Latin into the French vernacular, while others borrowed his historical figures and themes to create stories of their own. Geoffrey’s reinterpretation clearly influenced many of these portrayals of the Britons, who were described as a noble people whose kingdom and autonomy came to an end long ago, but whose essence survived in the Welsh. This notion shaped the image of the Welsh in these later twelfth-century works. While authors saw the Welsh as a barbaric and uncivilized race, this was due not to their innate wickedness so much as their distinct culture. This article will explore the popularity of Geoffrey’s chronicle among members of the twelfth-century Norman court and the works in the French vernacular that took the History of the Kings of Britain as their inspiration. These authors drew upon the tales and figures in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s chronicle, which shaped their creation of a literary world that reflected the courtliness expected in their own time and influenced their depictions of the Welsh people.

179 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Alternative History of Britain Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss describes a type of story, the “Genesis of Disorder,” that is told in many different societies. “The entire story aims at explaining why after their first beginning, a given clan or lineage or group of lineages have overcome a great many ordeals, known periods of success and periods of failures, and have been progressively led towards a disastrous ending,” Levi-Strauss explains.1 In the History of the Kings of Britain, Geoffrey of Monmouth provides such a story, detailing the origin, rise, and eventual fall of the Britons. Monmouth’s account is filled with noble kings and tales of heroic deeds, countering previously held notions of the “worthless” Britons.2 His work also advances the legend that, after their conquest by the Anglo-Saxons, the Britons had fled to the hills of Cambria, known in the twelfth century as Wales. The legends claimed that the Britons still lived there and that their descendants had come to be called by a different name: the Welsh.3 Much of Geoffrey’s text is believed to be invented.4 He claims to have learned of previously unreported events and unheard of kings through a mysterious book in the British tongue given to him by the Archdeacon of Oxford, but many scholars doubt that the book ever existed.5 Geoffrey mentions in his introduction that stories of British kings were “proclaimed by many people as if they had been entertainingly and memorably written down.”6 The source Geoffrey draws upon for his most famous stories

1 Claude Levi-Strauss, Myth and Meaning (London: Routledge, 2001), 32-33. 2 J.S.P. Tatlock, The Legendary History of Britain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1950); Siân Echard, “Geoffrey of Monmouth,” in The Arthur of Medieval Latin Literature, ed. Siân Echard (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2011), 43-59. 3 Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, trans. Neil Wright (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007). 4 There is much debate over the ancestry of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Some scholars believe he was of Welsh or Breton lineage, and invented the History out of a desire to present a more positive portrait of his ancestors. Others argue that his time spent living on the Welsh Marches, the border between Wales and England, gave him access to a unique variety of sources and tales. Michelle R. Warren, History on the Edge: Excalibur and the Borders of Britain (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 25; John Gillingham, The English in the Twelfth Century (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2000), 24-25; Tatlock, 440-443, 430. 5 Tatlock, 422-5; Geoffrey of Monmouth, History, 4. 6 Geoffrey of Monmouth, History, 4. 180 Kelsey Blake therefore was not a written and preserved text, but a body of oral tradition.7 Drawing upon sources different from those used by many other historians, Geoffrey invented details as he saw fit, relating these stories in a way that allowed for a new interpretation.8 Geoffrey influenced later works in the twelfth century because his History, fantastical though some events in it may be, refuted a work that had previously been hailed as the undeniable truth of ancient British history, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Written in AD 731, Bede’s was one of the earliest historical works to detail the history of the island of Britain and its transition to the hands of the Anglo-Saxons.9 His depiction of the land’s former inhabitants, the Britons, would prove influential, and thus any study of this subject must start with Bede. Bede portrays the Britons as a passive people, without control over their own fate, ultimately doomed to failure by their inherent flaws.10 Bede wrote in a time when great transitions of power were attributed to the will of God.11 Unsurprisingly, then, he argues that the Britons failed because they fell out of favor with God. As he states in his address to king Ceolwulf, “If history records good things of good men, the thoughtful hearer is encouraged to imitate what is good; or if it records evil of wicked men, the devout, religious listener or reader is encouraged to avoid all that is sinful and perverse and to follow what he knows to be good and pleasing to God.”12 According to Bede, God had placed the Anglo- Saxons in power over the Britons, who were found unworthy of their own leadership and even their own lands. Since the Britons were ultimately

7 Echard suggests that Geoffrey’s British book is “a place-holder for his access to oral traditions richer in his own time than their scattered survival today suggests.”: Echard, 45-7.For more, see Tatlock, 178, 206; Robert W. Hanning, The Vision of History in Early Britain: From Gildas to Geoffrey of Monmouth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 124. 8 Echard argues that “Medieval historians did not share our understanding of ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’: as a branch of rhetoric, history was properly embellished in ways we might regard as essentially literary.”: Echard, 46. 9 Michelle P. Brown, “Bede’s Life in Context,” in The Cambridge Companion to Bede, ed. Scott DeGregorio (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 3-5. 10 J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People: A Historical Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993); Clare Stancliffe, “British and Irish Contexts,” in The Cambridge Companion to Bede, ed. Scott DeGregorio (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 69-78. 11 Stancliffe, 19; Alan Thacker states that Bede viewed historical writing as “the unfolding of God’s purposes for mankind as the world moved towards final judgment and the end of time.” Alan Thacker, “Bede and History,” in The Cambridge Companion to Bede, ed. Scott DeGregorio (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 170-176. 12 Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, t rans. Leo Sherley-Price, rev. R.E. Latham (London: Penguin Classics, 1990), 41. 181 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

defeated, it stood to reason that they must have displeased God in some way, and deserved their fate.13 Scholars of this time judged Bede to be a trusted historian. William of Newburgh considered Bede the highest historical authority, one “whose wisdom and integrity it is sacrilegious to doubt.”14 Furthermore, he only trusted the British historian Gildas’s On the Ruin of Britain to the extent that the work agreed with the Ecclesiastical History.15 William of Malmesbury wrote of Bede, “I wonder which to praise the more, the great number of his writings or the modesty of his style.”16 William considered his work a continuation of the Ecclesiastical History, and himself Bede’s successor. Henry of Huntington used 132 out of 140 of Bede’s chapters in writing his Historia Anglorum, and he indicated that his patron wanted him to use Bede’s history as a reference for his own.17 Of 160 surviving manuscripts of the Ecclesiastical History, 30 percent were copied in the twelfth century.18 Bede’s Ecclesiastical History was not simply a historical work that happened to survive into the twelfth century: in the eyes of twelfth century historians Bede was “the standard against which all other historians must be measured.”19 Antonia Gransden argues that the Norman Conquest played a role in his popularity. As the Normans attempted to discredit the Church in England as partial justification for William I’s invasion, the English monks and churches referenced the “golden age” described in Bede’s work to defend their own claims. His work lent credibility to the English churches, a

13 Wallace-Hadrill points out that Bede compares the Saxon defeats of the Britons to Old Testament stories. He says, “It is the first time that divine sanction is invoked to account for English ravages among the British. It is not simply a historical reminder of an Old Testament parallel, but, for Bede, an historical instance of God’s retribution at work in modern times precisely as it had worked in the history of Israel.”: Wallace-Hadrill, 24. 14 William of Newburgh, The History of English Affairs: Book I, tran. P.G. Walsh and M.J. Kennedy (Warminster: Aris and Phillips Ltd, 1988), 37. 15 William of Newburgh, 29; For more on Gildas, see N.J. Higham, The English Conquest: Gildas and Britain in the Fifth Century (New York: Manchester University Press, 1994). 16 William of Malmesbury, History of the English Kings, trans. R.A.B. Mynors, comp. R.M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 87. 17 Allen J. Frantzen, “The Englishness of Bede, from Then to Now,” in The Cambridge Companion to Bede, ed. Scott DeGregorio (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010), 231-232; Henry of Huntington, The History of the English People, trans. Diana Greenway (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 7. 18 Antonia Gransden, Legends, Traditions and History in Medieval England (London: The Hambledon Press, 1992), 1. 19 Nancy Partner, Serious Entertainments (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 63. 182 Kelsey Blake point that they were able to circulate through their praise of his works, to a degree that “perhaps at no time in medieval England were Bede’s historical works more intensively studied than in the Anglo-Norman period.”20 By the end of the eighth century, Bede was considered the patron of the abbey at Wearmouth-Jarrow, and in the early twelfth century his relics were enshrined at the cathedral in Durham.21 Bede’s portrayal of the Britons influenced works for years to come, and none more so than that of William of Malmesbury’s The History of the English Kings.22 William devotes several passages of his history to praising the historian, noting that, “Without doubt, the divine wisdom had come upon him in good measure, to enable him in one short lifetime to complete so many great books.” William considers his opinion of Bede beyond argument, commenting that “so great was his reputation at that time that in the solving of its problems mighty Rome itself had need of him, nor could the proud Gauls ever find in this English scholar aught deserving of criticism; the whole Latin-speaking world gave him the prize for learning and for faith.” 23 William’s respect for Bede was so absolute that in many cases he refused to touch upon the topics that Bede’s work covered. Upon recognizing a discrepancy between dates given by Bede and those listed in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, William simply points out the difference, saying he is “content to call attention to it, and let it be.”24 Elsewhere in his work William defers to Bede, as if a detail or fact could not conceivably be wrong if Bede wrote that it was so.25 While William of Malmesbury praised what he considered the undeniable accuracy of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, Geoffrey of Monmouth was hard at work composing an alternative history that “challenged, by implication, Bede’s ascendancy as the primary authority for the early history

20 Gransden, 1-26. 21 David Rollason, “The Cult of Bede,” in The Cambridge Companion to Bede, ed. Scott DeGregorio, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 193-198. 22 William of Malmesbury 15, 21. 23 Ibid, 87-89. 24 Ibid, 29. See also 43: William points out a detail not clearly covered in Bede’s work, but does so in a way that seems almost apologetic. He would not mention it, but it would be “against his principle to conceal the facts.” William states that he chooses to quote Bede’s work at length rather than summarize so that he might not “run the risk of adding or omitting something,” 85. See also p. 23. 25 William of Malmesbury, 83,97, 79, 73. 183 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

of Britain.”26 As Geoffrey states in the beginning of his work, Bede was one of the only historians who had even covered the history of the Britons.27 Even in Bede’s history, however, very little information is offered about British kings, while more attention is devoted to foreign visitors and conquerors. Nearly a century passed between the reigns of Roman emperors Severus and Diocletian, yet no attention is given to the hundred years between Severus’s construction of an earthen wall in the north of Britain and the beginning of Diocletian’s Christian persecution.28 In his prologue, Geoffrey attributes his inspiration for the History to the weakness of Bede’s work, and in response he composes a detailed history of the time from the first settlement of the Britons to the decline of the last British king.29 Geoffrey provides details for a period that had been ignored by historians, including names and stories of heroic kings, bloody battles, abandoned and enraged queens, and victorious sons. He writes the story of King Leir and his daughters, of Belinus and Brennius, of resistance against Caesar, and the founding of a nation.30 The period before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons was not fully explored in any source prior to Geoffrey, which explains why Henry of Huntington was thrilled to discover a copy of Geoffrey’sHistory in 1139. Henry wrote a letter to Warin Brito about his find and included a summary of Geoffrey’s work, noting that he had begun his own history with the arrival of Julius Caesar’s army in Britain due to a lack of information. 31 Not only did Geoffrey introduce new historical figures and events, but the manner in which they were portrayed made his contributions worthy of note. Geoffrey’s Britons were not the wicked, malicious, and inherently flawed men of the Ecclesiastical History. Geoffrey presented strong, noble kings, brave and worthy knights, and a race of Britons who, despite facing periods of turmoil, should ultimately be remembered as good men who fell to ruin through forces outside of their control.32

26 Gransden, 18-21. 27 Geoffrey of Monmouth, History, 4. 28 Bede, 47-55. 29 Geoffrey of Monmouth, History, 4. 30 Ibid., 34, 36-44. This is the same King Lear who is later made famous by Shakespeare. 31 Gransden, 18-20; Tatlock, 205-206; Monika Otter, Inventiones (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 77-78, 80-82. This is not to say that there were no British histories. Gildas, Bede, and “Nennius” all wrote about the Britons, but not in the detail or completeness of the work provided by Geoffrey of Monmouth. 32 Geoffrey of Monmouth, 48-52, 36-44, 280. 184 Kelsey Blake

Arthur in council with his knights. (Photo by Xxxx Xxxx.)1

Geoffrey’s Influence Extends to the Twelfth-Century Norman Court Geoffrey’s History of the Kings of Britain seems to have been popular in the latter half of the twelfth century, though he was criticized by other historians. William of Newburgh, who also wrote a history of the English, said of Geoffrey, “To atone for these faults of the Britons he weaves a laughable web of fiction about them, with shameless vainglory extolling them far above the virtue of the Macedonians and the Romans.” He adds that Geoffrey “has taken up the stories about Arthur from the old fictitious accounts of the Britons, has added to them himself, and by embellishing them in the Latin tongue he has cloaked them with the honorable title of history.33 William of Newburgh devotes most of his introduction to debunking Geoffrey’s tales and suggesting that his readers should instead consult Bede, whom he holds in the highest regard.34 Regardless of his motives for doing this, the fact that he felt the need to mention the discrepancies between the accounts of Bede and Geoffrey indicates that Geoffrey’s work was well known. William, at

33 William of Newburgh, The History of English Affairs: Book I, trans. P.G. Walsh and M.J. Kennedy (Warminster: Aris and Phillips Ltd, 1988), 29. 34 Ibid. 185 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

least, had read it, and had to expect that others were aware of it too. Indeed, over 200 manuscripts of the History of the Kings of Britain survive today, proof of the popularity of this work.35 Another indication of the reception of Geoffrey’s History is the patronage of works that drew upon themes and figures presented in it. In 1154, Henry II ascended to the throne of England upon the death of his cousin Stephen.36 Many historians regard Henry II as a patron of the literary arts who aided such authors as Marie de France, Wace, and Walter Map. Though Henry II and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine are credited with the first commissioned works in the French vernacular, recent scholarship suggests that these claims are somewhat exaggerated. Henry II may have been connected with vernacular authors, or at the very least was aware of their works, but there is little evidence that he served as a patron of many.37 This does not mean he was unaware of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s work, however, as Henry was educated in Bristol at the home of his uncle, Robert of Gloucester, who served as Geoffrey’s patron and to whom theHistory was primarily dedicated.38 One literary work that caught the eye of Henry II was Le Roman de Brut, a work based upon the History of the Kings of Britain. Around 1155, Wace completed Le Roman de Brut, which he supposedly presented to Eleanor of Aquitaine.39 In this work, Wace rewrites the tales of Geoffrey’s

35 Jean Blacker, The Faces of Time: Portrayal of the Past in Old French and Latin Historical Narrative of the Anglo-Norman Regnum (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 17-18. There are 160 manuscripts of the ever-popular Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, indicating that Geoffrey’s work was just as popular, if not more so. Gransden, 1. 36 Richard Huscroft, Ruling England: 1042-1217 (New York: Pearson Education Ltd, 2005), 152. For a very detailed biography of Henry II, see W.L. Warren, Henry II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). For more on Henry’s reign, see John Gillingham, The Angevin Empire (New York: Arnold Publishers, 2001). 37 Kristen Lee Over, Kingship, Conquest, and Patria (New York: Routledge, 2005), 74-77; Martin Aurell, “Henry II and Arthurian Legend,” in Henry II: New Interpretations, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill and Nicholas Vincent (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2007), 362-380. Eleanor’s position as a literary patron may be exaggerated as well: Ruth Harvey, “Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Troubadours,” in The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France Between the Eleventh and Thirteenth Centuries, ed. Marcus Bull and Catherine Leglu (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2005), 101-114. 38 Tatlock, The Legendary History of Britain, 467, 436-437. Tatlock notes that, while various manuscripts contain different dedications, Robert is prominent in all of them. 39 Lawman indicates that Wace presented his work to “æðelen Ælienor þe wes Henries quene” in an early thirteenth-century translation of Wace’s Roman de Brut into Middle English, although this seems to be the only evidence to support the claim. Tatlock, 476-477. 186 Kelsey Blake

History in vernacular French verse, presenting the history in a form pleasing to the Anglo-Norman court. His Brut appears to have been well received, and it has been suggested that his appointment as a canon at Bayeux was connected to it. Furthermore, the commission of the Roman de Rou seems to have been a direct result of the reception of the Brut.40 Wace was not the first to translate Geoffrey of Monmouth’sHistory into the vernacular. Soon after theHistory of the Kings of Britain was completed, aristocrat Ralph FitzGilbert and his wife Constance brought the work to the attention of a poet, Geffrei Gaimar. Although the volume Gaimar composed based upon Geoffrey’s History has been lost, he refers to it several times in a second book, Estoire des Engleis. Gaimar credits the source for this history to a book brought to him through the efforts of Robert of Gloucester, who “had this historical narrative translated in accordance with the books belonging to the Welsh that they had in their possession on the subject of the kings of Britain.” Robert of Gloucester was the earl whom Geoffrey of Monmouth cited as his patron, indicating that the book about which Gaimar wrote was the History of the Kings of Britain.41 At the end of his second work, Gaimar writes, “This book is not fiction or fantasy, but it is taken from an authentic historical source concerning the kings of the past, and tells of those who ruled over England, some peacefully, others by waging war. This is how it has to be: it cannot possibly be otherwise.”42 TheHistory of the Kings of Britain was so popular upon its completion that members of the aristocracy like Constance and Ralph FitzGilbert commissioned a verse edition in the vernacular, and wanted it badly enough that the work was finished in just over a year.43 Furthermore, the work was commissioned from a writer who took pride in accuracy and presented himself as a serious historian.44 This suggests that the history of the Britons was seen as a subject appropriate for a serious historian such as Gaimar, and that it excited the public to the degree that patrons requested the work. The portrayal of the Britons within the works of Wace and Gaimar

40 Peter Damian-Grint, The New Historians of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1999), 53-55. 41 Geffrei Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis, trans. and ed. Ian Short (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 348-349. Geoffrey of Monmouth, History, 4-5. Tatlock, 452-453. 42 Gaimar, 354-355. 43 Tatlock, 452. 44 Daimian-Grint, 52-53. 187 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

sheds light upon their views of British history as well as those acceptable to their patrons. Although Wace retells the stories contained within Geoffrey’s chronicle, he is not judgmental and seems not to favor either the Britons or their enemies. Jean Blacker argues that Wace’s Brut is a “depoliticization” of the History, written in a factual way that in no way glorifies the Britons, as Geoffrey’s work does. The Brut does not depict the Britons in a negative fashion, but it exposes the “inevitability of change.” As Blacker notes, “Through the rise and fall of different peoples, the shifts of language, and the rebuilding of towns and mountains, Wace shows the revolutions of the wheel of fortune.” Wace does not depict the coming of the Saxons or any of the events that occurred during the time in which the Britons ruled the island as divine judgment or something for which they were at fault. They were defeated by an invading force, and this has no bearing on the qualities of the Britons themselves.45 Tatlock says of Wace’s writing, “On the whole the style is unadorned, bare, hardly distinguished, with few phrases which light up the page, spread-out though not quite wordy; well fitted to be read aloud to people who were intelligent but not highly cultivated, and wished to feel that they were getting a history and not romance.”46 This portrayal evidently met the approval of Wace’s readership. The positive reception of the Brut is clear from the existence of another work based upon it, Lawman’s Brut, a very close translation of the work into Middle English that appeared in the early thirteenth century.47 Gaimar composed a verse history in the vernacular, detailing the period from the time of the Trojans through the Saxon conquest. Unfortunately, no copy of this work has survived—the popularity of Wace’s Roman de Brut seems to have supplanted it.48 However, traces of the original remain within his second work, the Estoire des Engleis. “You have, if you recall, already heard, in the previous volume, how Constantine ruled over this domain in succession to Arthur, and how in his turn, Yvain was crowned King of Moray and Lothain,” begins Gaimar’s history. He goes on to recount the conquest

45 Blacker, 96-97. Kenneth J. Tiller, Laʒamon’s Brut and the Anglo-Norman Vision of History (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007), 76-78. 46 Tatlock, 466. 47 Françoise H.M. Le Saux, Laʒamon’s Brut: The Poem and its Sources (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1989), 24-25. For more on Lawman, or Laʒamon’s translation of Wace, see Tatlock, 483-490, and Tiller, 81-87. 48 Otter, Inventiones, 77. Tatlock, 451-453. 188 Kelsey Blake by Hengest, leader of the Saxon armies, and the final battle between Arthur and Mordred, as told in Geoffrey’s work. Gaimar’s explanation for the fall of the Britons is particularly interesting: the blame lies not on cowardice or some failing on the part of the Britons themselves, but with the overwhelming number of Anglo-Saxons, who steadily laid claim the island until they exerted control over so much of the land that it became known as England rather than Britain.49 Although one can only speculate about how Gaimar might have portrayed the Britons in his lost volume, he refers several times to the deeds of the most famous of their kings, Arthur. In one instance, he details Arthur’s conquest of the Danes and its aftermath. Aschil, the king to whom Arthur gives Denmark, died fighting for him “when Mordred had acted so wrongfully against him,” and his brother inherited the crown. Although the brother, Edulf, is a cruel king, no portrait of Aschil is presented. However, the fact that he died fighting for his lord, “Artur le fort,” is made plain. While Aschil fought for his lord, Mordred betrayed Arthur’s trust. Wace’s Le Roman de Brut describes a slightly different relationship between Arthur and Aschil, in which Aschil is king of the Danes upon Arthur’s arrival in Denmark and chooses to submit to him rather than fight and risk losing his kingdom. Aschil then “came to accord with Arthur: He swore him fealty, became his man; he kept his kingdom under Arthur.”50 According to Geoffrey’s work, King Aschillus of Denmark died at a battle near the river Camblan, the same battle in which Mordred died and Arthur was mortally wounded. 51 Aschil died with his lord, supporting Arthur until the end. Thus, any cruelties on Edulf’s part are not the fault of Arthur, as he performed his duty and acted appropriately toward Aschil and the Danes and was no longer in power by the time Edulf took the Danish throne. Gaimar portrays Arthur as a powerful king whose control is unrivaled until the time of the Anglo-Saxon King Edgar in 959, who was “a devoted supporter of Holy Church, and knew how to tell the difference between right and wrong. Because he was noble-minded and high-born, he took pains

49 Gaimar, 2-5. Short’s translation replaces the names of characters with variations from later sources in the tradition. For example, Gaimar’s Modret becomes Mordred and Arthur’s sword Caliburn becomes Excalibur. The names Gaimar uses are closer to those used by Geoffrey of Monmouth, while Short uses the more familiar versions. 50 Wace, 265-266. 51 Geoffrey of Monmouth, History, 248-253. 189 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Decorated initials at the beginning of Book 2 of William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum Anglorum: the prologue and first chapter,. (Photo by Xxxx Xxxx.)1

to do good, and he established good customs.”52 The reference to Arthur, which precedes this high praise of Edgar, presents the historic king as a standard for comparison. No king had yet matched Arthur’s prowess and reputation, and the next one who came closest was a man of great faith and an admirable character, who lived 500 years after the end of Arthur’s rule. Gaimar presents Arthur as a king who held great power, who inspired loyalty and faith in his followers, and whose accomplishments set a precedent and goal to which only the worthiest kings can aspire. Throughout the twelfth century, stories and legends of King Arthur appeared continuously in the writings of vernacular writers of history and romance. He was the Briton considered the most interesting and important from all those within Geoffrey’sHistory . In Geoffrey’s work Britain reaches its greatest expanse and height during King Arthur’s reign. Arthur has sparked the imagination for years, yet no one can say for certain whether

52 Gaimar, 194-195, says “Not since the disappearance of Arthur had a single king been so powerful.” 190 Kelsey Blake the man existed.53 Fictional or not, Arthur crops up in various works in the twelfth century, in various roles, and may have derived from Geoffrey’s oral Welsh mythology.54 However, the Arthur presented in these twelfth- century texts was not only the great conqueror from the History of the Kings of Britain. Although his Celtic origin was recognized and his place in history was acknowledged, the Arthur of the twelfth century was very much a contemporary figure who embodied the expectations and ideals of the time. A.B. Taylor attributes this to the fact that writings of this nature were not meant purely as historical works, though they were accepted as such. Their purpose was to entertain, to enrapture the audience with tales “of strange events in far off lands and distant times,” while maintaining a resemblance to the world with which readers were familiar. Thus, these works were faced with certain expectations, as “the character of literature designed for entertainment is determined by its patrons.”55 If the work did not meet with the approval of the patron, that patronage would be lost. This meant that the Britons could not be portrayed as a barbarous and wicked people, but had to behave in ways familiar to the intended audience and patrons. In order to meet the expectations of the patrons, the focus of Arthur’s reign was not his conquest, but his court, establishing a literary world in which the society of the Britons reflected the same respectability and manners as the world in which the patrons lived. Wace therefore describes Arthur’s court as a center of chivalry and courtly manners:

For twelve years after this return King Arthur governed peacefully… Alone, without another’s urging, He started such great learning up And spoke with such nobility So beautifully and courteously

53 For discussion on the story behind the Arthur legend, see N.J. Higham, King Arthur: Myth-making and History (New York: Routledge, 2002), 38-95; Frank D. Reno, The Historic King Arthur: Authenticating the Celtic Hero of Post-Roman Britain (Jefferson, North Carolina: MacFarland and Company, 1996). 54 For more on Welsh legends of Arthur, see O.J. Pade, Arthur in Medieval Welsh Literature (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2000). 55 A.B. Taylor, An Introduction to Medieval Romance (New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1969), 57-59. 191 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

that no one’s court had speech like this— not even the Roman Emperor’s! He heard no talk of any knight Who did some deed worthy of praise Who would not be one of his men, If he had means to make him be.

Wace continues to describe a court in which knights and nobles come from all over to “seek honor and for fame/ As well as to hear the courtesies.”56 He portrays Arthur as a man “of great valor and glory” and a king “above all other princes/ In courtesy and nobleness,/ In strength and generosity.”57 However, while Wace relates the tales of Arthur, he does not necessarily trust their accuracy. Certain tales seem to him so outlandish that they had to have been embellished by the imagination:

…adventures were turned up That so often told of Arthur In stories that have been dressed up— Not all lies and not all truth Not all folly, not all wisdom. The storytellers tell so much And the yarnspinners spin so much Embellishing their story lines That all they tell does not sound true.58

Indeed, Wace appears to treat some Arthurian lore with great skepticism. While he includes the legend of Arthur’s survival on Avalon, he does not translate Merlin’s prophecies, saying of them:

Then Merlin said the prophecies Which I believe you’re heard before, About the kings who were to come, Who rightfully possessed the land. I don’t want to translate this book

56 Wace, 261-263. 57 Ibid., 243-244. 58 Ibid., 263. 192 Kelsey Blake

Since I cannot interpret it; I do not wish to say a thing If it were not as I would say it.59

This passage occurs in Geoffrey’s History where Merlin tells king Vortigern of two dragons, one red, one white, which will fight to represent the fate of Britain.60 Wace’s reluctance to include Merlin’s prophecies indicates that while he expected the tales of Arthur’s conquests and courtliness to be pleasing to his audience, certain Celtic elements of the legend would not. Another depiction of Arthur’s court appeared toward the end of the twelfth century in theArthurian Romances of Chretien de Troyes, which received the patronage of Marie de Champagne, the daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine from a previous marriage to King Louis VII of France.61 Marie commissioned works and romances from Chretien de Troyes that depicted Arthur and his knights, in particular requesting the romance Knight of the Cart, which depicts the affair of Lancelot and Guinevere, and even providing the author with the interpretation that she wanted to see.62 Chretien’s work as a whole may have been inspired in part by the writings of Wace, which provided the model for a king whose court epitomized chivalry and courtesy.63 Notably, Chretien’s Arthurian Romances focus not on the king himself, but his court and the knights who swear their fealty to him.64 The romances detail the deeds of Arthur’s knights, such as Gawain, Lancelot, and Yvain, who are drawn to the king because of his courtly reputation. In the romance Cliges, Alexander, the son of a Greek emperor, had “heard mention of King Arthur, who reigned in those days, and of the barons who always accompanied him, making his court feared and renowned throughout the world.” He continued, “Whatever might come of it, whatever might happen to him, nothing in the world could prevent his wanting to travel to Britain.” Alexander then goes before his father and announces his plan, declaring,

59 Ibid., 203. 60 Geoffrey of Monmouth, History, 140-145. 61 Huscroft, 152-153. 62 N.J. Higham, King Arthur: Myth-making and History (New York: Routledge, 2002), 221. 63 Duggan, 222, 31-32. 64 Karl D. Uitti and Michelle A. Freeman, Chretien de Troyes Revisited (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995), 11, 31-33. 193 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

“I’ll never arm my face or put a helmet over my head as long as I live unless King Arthur girds the sword upon me, if he will deign to do so, for I do not wish to be knighted by anyone else.”65 Arthur’s court is portrayed in Chretien’s work as a place of order and respectability where only the best knights may claim a seat.66 However, Arthur is not always portrayed in the best light, appearing at times old and rather feeble while finding himself unable to protect Queen Guinevere from kidnappers or defend himself from rude knights.67 Yet the magnificence of the court and its reputation remain undiminished. Even as he is shamed, Arthur is acknowledged as “the king who makes knights,” and his court is considered the

Decorated initial ‘R’(es) at place where those seeking knighthood should the beginning of William go.68 Though his court is not without flaws, it of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum (Photo still reflects the ideals of the twelfth century courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) as a center for chivalric behavior.69 Chretien’s Arthur is portrayed as a historical figure whose reign had fallen into chaos as he found himself unable to resist the rebellion of his nephew Modred. The chivalry and nobility of Britain then suffered a decline as the Britons lost their land entirely.70 Chretien’s depiction of Arthur does not deny that he was a great king, but it presents the end of his reign, incorporating the historical notion

65 Chretien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances, trans. William W. Kibler (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 124. 66 Donald Maddox, The Arthurian Romances of Chretien de Troyes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 8-9. 67 Uitti and Freeman, 31. In the Knight of the Cart, the villain Meleagant enters Arthur’s court and issues a challenge: Arthur must entrust his Queen to one of his knights. If the knight can protect her, then prisoners whom Meleagant has taken from Arthur’s lands will be freed. Kay takes on the challenge, and loses Guinevere to Meleagant until she can be rescued by Lancelot. Chretien, 207-210, 269-271. 68 Chretien de Troyes, 387. 69 Over, 97-101. 70 See Wace, 396-397, for the details that Chretien may have read in reference to this decline. 194 Kelsey Blake of the British decline into the king of his Romances.

The Legendary Britons and the Contemporary Welsh Stories and romances based upon Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain and other Arthurian legends brought the tales of the sixth- century king into the setting of the twelfth-century court.71 The Britons, Arthur’s kin, were no longer visible except in the legend that they had survived to become the ancestors of the Welsh. How did twelfth-century writers reconcile their ideas of Arthurian Britain with the contemporary Welsh? John Gillingham argues that the Celtic people were seen as barbarians by the twelfth-century aristocracy, as they did not behave within the social and cultural expectations dictated by chivalry.72 How, then, could these uncouth mountain people have sprung from the noble Britons of the fabulous tales that Wace and Chretien de Troyes presented? Wace writes of the creation of Wales in a manner similar to that in Geoffrey’s History. According to Wace, after the coming of the Anglo- Saxons, a great plague swept the land of Britain, driving the surviving Britons to the hills, where they struggled to survive and maintain their culture. In the end they lost Britain to the English “until the time of prophecy/ That Merlin said would come to pass.”73 The Britons then moved into the western portions of the island, where they lived under the leadership of Yvor and Yni, to whom Cadwalader passed control: “To Wales’ he said, ‘you will now go/And you will be the lords of the Britons/So that through lack of noble lords/The Britons do not become dishonored.” Yvor and Yni do as asked, and under their leadership the “remnants of the British people” come to be known as the Welsh, who are said to lack “the honor, customs, nobleness/ And life of those who’d lived before.”74 Thus the work that gained Wace the patronage of Henry II ended with the origins of the Welsh, presenting them

71 Geoffrey of Monmouth places Arthur’s death in the year 542, A.D: Geoffrey of Monmouth, History, 252. 72 Gillingham, The English in the Twelfth Century, 9-10, 42-44, 101-109. 73 Wace, 393-395; Wace lists a series of linguistic changes that occurred in the transition of power between Saxon and British rule, but states, “Among the Welsh there still endures/ The language coming straight from the British.” As to Merlin’s prophecy about the return of British power, Geoffrey of Monmouth writes a very similar passage, 278-279. 74 Wace, 396-397. Wace gives the etymology of the word Wales as deriving from Duke Gualon or Queen Galaes, the same given in Geoffrey of Monmouth. 195 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

as a people who had come from noble origins but who lost those qualities with their land. His comparison of the Welsh language with Anglo-Saxon and French depicts the Welsh as belonging to their own unique group, society, and culture. Their language still remains, in Wace’s estimation, as evidence of the people they once were. The Welsh also appear in courtly romances that are not directly descended from Geoffrey of Monmouth. The last of Chretien’s works,Le conte du Graal, tells of Perceval’s quest to become a knight and to discover the meaning of the Grail. This work is significant because the hero, Perceval, is a Welshman. Early in the tale, Perceval appears as an ignorant youth who doesn’t know the names for a shield, a lance, or even a knight, whom he mistakes for an angel of God. However, Perceval gradually becomes a great knight and accomplishes tremendous deeds. This is not the tale of a young man overcoming the limitations of his lineage, but the story of a man proving the prejudices against him unfounded.75 The idea that people of Welsh descent are inferior is a recurring theme throughout the work. A knight whom Perceval calls an angel tells him that “all Welshmen are by nature more stupid than beasts in the field.”76 But it is almost immediately revealed that Perceval’s ignorance is not born of inherent stupidity, but a sheltered existence. Because his father and brothers, all knights, had been killed in battle, Perceval’s mother kept his lineage a secret and hid him away so that he would never become a knight himself. His mother tells him, “You were destined for knighthood, fair son … there was no worthier knight, no knight more feared or respected than your father in all the Isles of the Sea. You can confidently boast that neither his lineage nor mine is any disgrace to you.”77 Chretien’s Perceval is destined for greatness—all he lacks are the knowledge and experience to make him great. Chretien calls him “untutored,” not ill-bred or unintelligent. King Arthur observes that “had someone instructed the boy and taught him enough of weaponry

75 Duggan calls Perceval a “Quest for Kin,” as many of the characters whom Perceval meets throughout his journeys are his mother’s relatives, and Perceval learns much of his family and identity. He also presents an intriguing theory that Perceval’s birth was the result of an incestuous union between close relations, based upon the rather fragmented family tree described within the work. Duggan, 77-78, 80-84. 76 Chretien de Troyes, 384. 77 Ibid., 386. 196 Kelsey Blake that he could use his shield and lance a little, no doubt he would have made a fine knight.” Perceval receives instructions and lessons from Gornemant, a worthy gentleman, who says of Perceval’s ignorance, “Every profession requires effort and devotion and practice: with these three one can learn everything. And since you’ve never used weapons nor seen anyone else use them, there’s no shame or blame if you don’t know how to use them.” Arthur and Gornemant share the opinion that proper knightly conduct is not inherent, but learned. Through Gornemant’s tutelage, Perceval begins to use his weapons and ride “as if throughout his life he had frequented the tournaments and wars, and wandered through every land seeking battle and adventure.” Once he received a proper education, he became a worthy foe for any courtly opponent. 78 But what does this say of Chretien’s attitude Detail of a miniature of King towards the Welsh? The knight who claims that Arthur dictating to a scribe. all Welshmen are dumber than animals is never (Photo courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) named, nor is he heard from again, while the characters who are important to the work, such as Arthur, Gornemant, and another knight named Gawain, treat Perceval with respect. Those who doubt his abilities are humiliated and defeated, and Perceval is said to have the potential to become a truly great knight. As one handmaiden says to him, “In this whole world there will never be, nor will anyone ever acknowledge, a better knight than yourself.” It is said that he will become “the supreme lord among all knights.”79 Chretien makes sure that his audience knows that Perceval is Welsh before these words are spoken and that his potential is clearly not

78 Ibid., 397-399. Duggan argues that what Perceval lacks is the concept of shame. Because he does not know the ideals of knighthood, he cannot embody them, hence he is “lacking in experience and naive, and … becomes worthy only through training and adjustment to the values and expectations of his society.”: Duggan, 119-121. 79 Chretien de Troyes, 394. 197 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

inhibited by his ancestry. That a Welshman has the capacity to become the greatest knight who ever lived is certainly a different sentiment than that expressed by Bede and William of Newburgh. Once Perceval dons his armor, no one can identify him as Welsh.80 This reality is recognized by the characters, particularly Perceval’s mother, who attempts to dress him such that he does not “appear so markedly Welsh.”81 Evidence of Welsh heritage can be removed as easily as changing one’s clothes. In Chretien’s work, the character flaws a Welsh heritage instills are purely imagined, it seems. Once he appears as a knight, Perceval is just as good as any other knight. Chretien was not the only writer to present a Welsh hero in a positive light. In the Lais of the mysterious late twelfth-century writer Marie de France, another knight of Welsh heritage finds renown. In the story of Milun, the titular character is a Welshman described as a worthy knight. “From the day he was dubbed a knight he did not encounter a single knight who could unhorse him,” Marie writes. “He was an exceedingly fine knight, noble and bold, courtly and fierce.”82 When Milun and the girl he loves conceive an illegitimate child, the infant is hidden away with an aunt and, much like Perceval, not told of his heritage until he is an adult. The young man is told of his father, “There was no one in the entire land of greater fame or valor.”83 As the man has been raised in England, the “land” referred to is not merely Wales. The son becomes a knight himself, and “because of his prowess, excellence, and generosity … those who did not know his name everywhere called him The Peerless One.”84 Indeed, the young man gains such renown that Milun comes to challenge him, not knowing that the knight of such fame is his own son. In the end, the only man who can unhorse Milun is his son, a Welshman by heritage. The son is not portrayed as a better man than his father because he was not raised in Wales, but if he bore some internal flaw as a result of his ancestry, the story would have reflected this. Marie was an educated woman, and thus would have been of noble birth. She was connected to the courts, and her

80 Ibid., 404, 408, 410, 429, 433, 434-436. 81 Ibid., 388. 82 Marie de France, The Lais of Marie de France, trans. Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), 97. 83 Ibid., 101. 84 Ibid. 198 Kelsey Blake stories were written to reflect stories she heard and the conventions she was familiar with.85 The tale of Milun allows Milun and his son to become great warriors and worthy knights. In Marie’s Lais, the fact that the characters are Welshmen has no bearing on their capacity to achieve. Walter Map also deserves mention for his depiction of the Welsh. Like Wace, Map received the patronage of Henry II, though he differed from Wace in significant ways. Map was Welsh, and unlike the authors discussed above Map wrote his De Nugis Curialium, or Courtier’s Trifles, in Latin, sometime during the 1180s or 1190s. His work is not a romance or history and does not cover the reigns of kings or the rise and fall of empires. Instead, the book consists of a series of tales full of miracles, fantastic stories, moral fables, and humorous anecdotes. Map served Henry II’s court as a clerk and eventually rose in esteem and position to serve as a representative at the Third Lateran Council in 1179, and later he was named archdeacon of Oxford. Compared with his other accomplishments, Map’s writing was almost insignificant. It was not seen as noteworthy during his lifetime and was not widely circulated, but it merits study due to its author’s ancestral heritage. Much like Geoffrey of Monmouth, Map came from the Welsh marches, but nevertheless became a person of great importance in the Anglo-Norman world. In addition, many of his stories seem to derive from the Welsh oral tradition.86 Map’s stories do not portray the Welsh in an entirely positive light, however.87 He says that the Welsh are given to the “disuse of civility, that if in one respect they may appear kindly in most they show themselves

85 Martin Aurell suggests that Marie de France may have been the daughter of Waleran de Meulan, a wealthy aristocrat connected with the court of Henry II, who may be the king to whom Marie dedicates her Lais. Furthermore, he states that her work was greatly influenced by Wace’s Le Roman de Brut: Aurell, 375-376. Ad Putter argues that Marie’s Lais were based on Breton songs, none of which have survived: Ad Putter, “The twelfth- century Arthur,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend, ed. Elizabeth Archibald and Ad Putter (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 36-37. 86 Tony Davenport, “Sex, Ghosts, and Dreams: Walter Map (1135?-1210?) and Gerald of Wales (1146-1223),” in Writers of the Reign of Henry II, ed. Ruth Kennedy and Simon Meecham-Jones (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 133-136. M.R. James, “Master Walter Map,” in De Nugis Curialium (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), xii-xix. 87 William of Newburgh wrote in the prologue to his History of English Affairs of the British writer Gildas’s comments on the Britons, “It is no slight proof of integrity that he does not spare his own nation in revealing the truth; though quite sparing of compliments to his fellow-Britons, he condemns many evil traits in them.”: William of Newburgh, 29. If a writer could only be considered trustworthy if he acknowledged the negative qualities of his own people, it is possible that Map intended to do the same. 199 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

ill-tempered and savages.”88 However uncivilized they might be, he still portrays them in a way that is somewhat admirable, noting that “they so punctually observe respect for generosity and hospitality that before the third day no one will ask a guest whom he has taken in who or whence he is, lest he should be put to shame or seem to be suspected by his entertainer of taking forcible liberties.”89 In Map’s telling, the Welsh are a varied group. Although he makes general statements about their character, he also presents figures who challenge the stereotypes. In one tale, a young Welshman says of his king and his own people, Miniature of Authur on the Wheel of Fortune above an “Brychan our king so excels in his own valour illuminated initial. (Photo and that of his men that neither you nor any courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) other king could take away spoil from him by force on any day when at the dawn the tops of the mountains are clear and cloudless and the rivers in the valleys are covered with mist.” Still, King Brychan is presented as possessing a quick temper, so much so that his men fear bringing him unfavorable news, such as the fact that an enemy army approaches his kingdom. This temper causes him no harm, however, as he understands the danger in time to defeat the invaders. Furthermore, much like the leadership portrayed by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Brychan’s army is unsuccessful until the king himself joins them in the fray. The king’s strength and courage lend his troops the inspiration to defeat their foes. King Brychan displays the warring and somewhat barbaric nature often attributed to the Welsh, but he proves to be a capable leader and an admirable opponent.90 In another tale Map portrays the former Welsh king Gruffud ap Llywelyn—who ruled Wales from 1055 to 1064 and met his death at the hands

88 Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium, trans. and ed. M.R. James, rev. C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983, 147. 89 Ibid., 183; see also 184-185. 90 Ibid., 149-155. 200 Kelsey Blake of Harold before the Norman invasion—as harsh and immature.91 Gruffud ap Llywelyn calls for vengeance against a young man who he dreams had an affair with the queen. When the innocent young man is charged with the crime, however, a man well-versed in the law of the land comes up with an ingenious solution. The penalty for the real crime would have been a payment of “1000 kine.” As the affair only happened in a dream, the payment is offered to the king on the side of a lake. It is the reflection of the money that the king then owns, because “a dream is the reflection of the truth.”92 Despite the fact that the king clearly favors imprisonment or death for the young man, his court approves of this alternative decision, and the king is forced to follow their advice. As a boy, the future king Gruffud ap Llywelyn is chastised by his sister for behaving “to the great shame of the king and of this realm that you are become a scorn and a byword to everyone.”93 His nephew, on the other hand, is described as “a boy of good abilities, tall and handsome, who attained great successes and showed many signs of strength and worth.”94 Two Welshmen of the same bloodline therefore are portrayed quite differently. The king’s behavior is seen as shameful, even to the Welsh, indicating that he acts outside of what is expected in the Welsh court, while his nephew is described only in a positive manner. In contrast with the king, the Welsh people are portrayed in these passages as wise, noble, and worthy of admiration. There is no one model for a Welshman in Map’s work, despite his overarching claims. Map’s work played a particularly interesting role in Anglo-Norman society. De Nugis Curialium was intended to be read aloud to the court, and to an elite audience. Map’s patron was Henry II, and it appears that Map, unlike Wace, was kept on for a while. The tales in hisDe Nugis were meant to entertain an audience of courtiers and aristocrats through “retellings of Celtic ghost-and fairy-stories.”95 The contents of these tales therefore could not be displeasing to the court. Henry’s treatment of Wace indicates that he had no qualms about dismissing authors who did not do as he wished, but Map’s stories, including his portrayal of the Welsh, were acceptable to

91 Roger Turvey, The Welsh Princes (New York: Pearson Education, 2002) 39, 49-50. 92 Map, 187-189. 93 Ibid., 189. 94 Ibid., 191. 95 Siân Echard, Arthurian Narrative in the Latin Tradition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 18-21. 201 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Henry and other members of the court. Further evidence of Map’s role as a teller of exciting Celtic tales comes from a source with which he was unconnected. In the thirteenth century, long after Henry II’s rule had come to an end, Arthurian legends were once again written in what is known as the Vulgate Cycle. Two of these works, the Queste del Saint Graal and La Mort le Roi Artu, are attributed to Walter Map. The close to the Queste reads, “When Bors had related to them the adventures of the Holy Grail as witnessed by himself, they were written down and the record kept in the library at Salisbury, whence Master Walter Map extracted them in order to make his book of the Holy Grail for love of his lord King Henry, who had the story translated from Latin into French.” The claim to authorship continues in the Mort Artu: “After Master Walter Map had put down in writing as much as he thought sufficient about the Adventures of the Holy Grail, his lord King Henry II felt that what he had done would not be satisfactory unless he told about the rest of the lives of those he had previously mentioned, and the deaths of those whose prowess he had related in his book.”96 The fact that these writings are attributed to Map and not the actual authors indicates that other writers of the time must have viewed him as a trusted and respected authority on Celtic literature.

Conclusion As the chronicle of Geoffrey of Monmouth gained reputation throughout the Anglo-Norman courts, the tales his work contained were translated into the French vernacular by several other authors, who, taking their cue from Geoffrey, presented the Britons in a positive light. The decline of the Briton kingdom was not presented as the result of their inherent evil nature, but as an event that could befall any nation. Many of these works were completed at the request of patrons like Geffrei Gaimar’s Constance, or Chretien de Troyes’ Marie de Champagne. These patrons were familiar with tales of the Britons and their most famous king, Arthur, and they deliberately requested similar stories from their writers. These stories, written to entertain an

96 Queste del Saint Graal, trans. P.M. Matarasso (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), 284; La Mort le Roi Artu, trans. James Cable (New York: Penguin Books, 1971), 23. Both romances were written after at least 1230; Walter Map died around 1210, and so could not have been the author: James Cable, “Introduction,” La Mort le Roi Artu, (New York: Penguin Books, 1971), 9-10. 202 Kelsey Blake aristocratic audience, set the tales in a society that reflected the customs and expectations of the twelfth-century court, transforming Arthur into a courtly and chivalrous king. However, this reimagining of the Britons brought them into sharp contrast with the Welsh, who the legends said were their descendants. As the romances attempted to reconcile the chivalrous Briton with the barbaric Welshman, the Welsh were represented as flawed due to culture rather than kinship. They were not useless or weak, and they were not suffering God’s disfavor. Though they were portrayed as less civilized than the Anglo-Norman aristocracy, it was in a way that cast them as unsophisticated, not a reviled enemy. Not all Welshmen were subject to the common failings, however. Milun and his son both become worthy knights, and Perceval had the potential to become great. Numerous Welsh figures in Map’s work are also portrayed as wise and honorable. Thus, the authors of twelfth-century vernacular romance and courtly literature refit the tales of Geoffrey of Monmouth’sHistory of the Kings of Britain to the needs of their own society and the tastes of their patrons, creating depictions that were entirely new and carried over to the depictions of the Welsh.

203 Anderson Kingship in Miniature: Phillips Richard I and the Third Crusade

Just days after lavishly celebrating Easter with his crusade army in April of 1192, King Richard I of England received some stunningly bad news. A messenger from England informed him that his younger brother John had expelled the king’s administrators and would soon seize most of Richard’s lands and revenues if the king did not return to England immediately.1 The Third Crusade had not been going well, and after some deliberation Richard elected to leave for home as soon as possible. Before heading to England, the crusader-king needed to grant someone the authority to command the crusade in his absence. Guy of Lusignan, whom Richardtraces supported, and Conrad of Montferrat, who enjoyed the support of many of the barons in the crusader states, emerged as the most likely candidates. Richard could not simply appoint his preferred candidate and be on his way, however. According to Ambroise, the eyewitness Third Crusade chronicler who authored L’Estoire de la Guerre Sainte, the king’s men informed him that “if he did not create in the land a lord who understood war and whom everyone could support…they would all follow him and

1 Ambroise, L’Estoire de la Guerre Sainte, ed. Marianne Ailes and Malcolm Barber, trans. Marianne Ailes (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2003), 146. 204 Anderson Phillips

This 1927 oil painting by artist Glen Warren Philpot depicts Richard I departing England for the Holy Land with his crusading host. (Photo courtesy of www.parliament.uk.)1

abandon the land.”2 Faced with this reality, Richard put the issue to a vote, and the crusade army unanimously voiced their support for Conrad. Although Richard did not care for this outcome, he had little choice but to respect the camp’s decision. This episode perfectly encapsulated Richard’s style of command both as a ruler of the Angevin empire and as a monarch on crusade. Far from an all-powerful ruler, Richard needed the support of his men in order to lead successfully, and he rarely acted without at least consulting a council of advisors, even on crusade.3 The king ultimately derived his power through the support of the great men of the realm. If his support base dried up, the monarch faced political catastrophe. Richard therefore used a variety of methods to ensure both the stability of his position and the satisfaction of the aristocrats surrounding him. Angevin rulership entailed a constant give- and-take between the king and his leading men, and an armed expedition into the Levant proved no different for Richard I. This article argues that Richard I effectively transposed many of the

2 Ibid., 148. 3 Ibid., 173. 205 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

ruling strategies he employed in governing the Angevin Empire onto his attempt to lead the Third Crusade. For Western European monarchs in the late twelfth century, successful rule required a delicate balance of negotiation, persuasion, and occasional force, and this balance could often be quite difficult to strike correctly. Indeed, the crusader camp became something of a laboratory for Richard, allowing him to experiment with and determine the degree to which various aspects of Angevin kingship translated to the Levant. Richard the Lionheart’s preferred methods of rule proved exceedingly adaptable, to the point that the king of England enjoyed great success implementing them during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. These malleable tools of the trade included the king’s personality and skillful manipulation of his image, patronage, readiness to negotiate, and warfare tactics. Historians of Richard I generally fall into one of two schools, viewing Richard as either a poor monarch who neglected and exploited his kingdom, or conversely as an exemplary ruler who either met or exceeded contemporary ideals of kingship. The less rosy view of Richard’s reign came into prominence in the late nineteenth century, with the publication of England Under the Angevin Kings by Kate Norgate, who found Richard to be a reckless warmonger, and something of a political lightweight.4 Sir Steven Runciman reinforced this negative portrait in the 1950s with his towering work, A History of the Crusades. Runciman cast Richard as an impetuous hothead who “had neither the political astuteness and administrative competence of his father, nor Queen Eleanor’s sound sense.”5 In 1974, James Brundage largely echoed Runciman’s view of Richard as a talented military leader with few other virtues of note, going so far as to label Richard “one of the worst rulers that England has ever had.”6 This school of thought held sway until the late 1970s, when John Gillingham began attempting to counterbalance what he viewed as inaccurate portrayals of Richard’s reign. In 1999 he published a biography, Richard I, that stands as the premier piece of scholarship in the field.7

4 Kate Norgate, England Under the Angevin Kings (London: MacMillan, 1887). 5 Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol. 3, The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), 35. 6 James A. Brundage, Richard Lion Heart (New York: Scribner, 1974), 258. 7 John Gillingham, Richard I (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999). 206 Anderson Phillips

Gillingham contends that, far from a neglectful king or feckless knight- errant, by the standards of his day Richard I was an excellent monarch and skilled diplomat. Jean Flori’s excellent study of Richard’s reign in connection with the emerging chivalric ethic arrives at many of the same conclusions, although Flori chides Gillingham for his tendency toward hero-worship.8 Nevertheless, Gillingham’s view of Richard I gained traction throughout the final decades of the twentieth century, particularly in the works of J.O. Prestwich and Richard Heiser. Prestwich praises King Richard as a ruler “intelligibly concerned to employ his great military talents in the widely extended interests of the house of Anjou,” while Heiser points to Richard’s shrieval appointments as proof of his administrative competence.9 Even so, such positive portrayals of Richard’s reign by no means enjoy universal acceptance, and in many ways his legacy remains a topic of debate.10 Regardless, this almost obsessive focus on whether Richard ought to be remembered as a “good’ or “bad” monarch has left a gap in scholarship that this paper is intended to fill. While the reign of Richard I has been scrutinized extensively, particularly his involvement in the Third Crusade, there has been no study analyzing the commonalities between Richard’s strategies of rulership in the Angevin and his strategies of command on crusade. The majority of the work dealing with Richard’s time on crusade attempts to determine whether the Third Crusade should ultimately be deemed a “success” or a “failure.” As with the good king/bad king dichotomy, this preoccupation does little to forward our understanding of Richard I or the period in which he lived. By looking at Richard’s methods of command and governance both in Europe and on crusade, this paper sheds some light on a neglected area ripe for further study.

8 Jean Flori, Richard the Lionheart: King and Knight, trans. Jean Birrell (Paris: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 40. 9 J.O. Prestwich, “Richard Coeur de Lion: Rex Bellicosus,” in Richard Coeur de Lion in History and Myth, ed. Janet L. Nelson (Exeter, UK: Short Run Press, 1992), 15. See also Richard R. Heiser, “Richard I and His Appointments to English Shrievalties,” English Historical Review 112, no. 445 (1997): 2. 10 Michael Markowski, “Richard Lionheart: bad king, bad crusader?” Journal of Medieval History 23, no. 4 (1997): 351-365. 207 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

The Man Who Would Be King: Richard I in Aquitaine and the Angevin At its height, the Angevin Empire extended from England’s Scottish border to the Pyrenees.11 It encompassed all of England, as well as large swaths of continental territory that included Brittany, Poitou, and Normandy, among others. The term “empire,” however, with its connotations of centralization and relatively unified governance, is something of a misnomer in the Angevin case. The territories comprising Angevin dominions functioned as completely separate entities, a loosely connected collection of lands with distinct sets of laws and customs.12 Henry II treated his “empire” as something akin to a family business, owned and operated by the king and his sons. Each son received a parcel of land for his own that he then ruled as a fief.13 Despite his position as the duke of Aquitaine, however, Richard remained his father’s vassal, owing him both loyalty and service. In contrast to more firmly attached Angevin dominions like England and Normandy, Richard’s duchy of Aquitaine harbored an independent streak that often made it more difficult to rule effectively. As Gillingham put it, “in Aquitaine … it is not that ducal authority did not exist at all; it is rather that it was ‘patchy.’”14 As duke of Aquitaine, Richard found himself constantly at odds with rebellious local lords, particularly Viscount Aimar of Limoges and Count William of Angoulême. Dealing with this cabal of enemies dominated Richard’s time and efforts until his accession to the throne.15 Thus, the nature of the Angevin Empire, and feudal societies more generally, accustomed Richard I to recognizing another’s authority over him, as well as to the difficulties of enforcing his will on unruly vassals and seigneurs. The concept of an all-powerful king simply did not exist in twelfth-century Western Europe. In its place there existed a constantly shifting balance of power between the king and his nobles. If Richard wished to govern Aquitaine and the Angevin Empire effectively, this balance required him to make good use of all the techniques of rulership

11 John Gillingham, The Angevin Empire (London: Hodder Arnold, 2001), 1. 12 Richard Huscroft, Ruling England: 1042-1217 (London: Pearson, 2005), 152. 13 Ibid., 159. 14 Gillingham, Angevin Empire, 54. 15 Gillingham, Richard I, 52. 208 Anderson Phillips

at his disposal, methods that he effectively transposed onto his attempt to command the Third Crusade army. These included Richard’s personality and image, patronage, ability to negotiate, and warfare tactics. All proved useful to the king in the Levant. When Richard I left for the Holy Land with his crusading army in July of 1190, he departed less than ten months after his coronation at Westminster as the new king of England.16 Despite his relatively recent ascension to the throne, the newly minted monarch proved anything but a neophyte when it came to rulership. At age thirty-two, Richard already possessed over a decade and a half of experience in governance and warfare through his role as the duke of Aquitaine. Installed as the nominal ruler of the duchy in 1172 at the age of fifteen, Richard spent two years governing Aquitaine under the watchful eye of Henry II, his father and the reigning king of England, before gaining enough latitude to exercise sole control.17 In many ways, Richard the Lionheart’s initial position as a lord in his father’s Angevin Empire served as a training ground in which Richard forged and refined his preferred

16 Ibid., Richard I, 107, 128. 17 Jean Flori, 30. 209 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

methods of ruling. Ironically, Richard only received free reign in Aquitaine after a failed rebellion against his father in which he and two of his brothers played leading roles.18 Roger of Howden, a royal clerk who chronicled the reigns of both Henry II and Richard I in his Chronica Magistri, reported that Richard, “coming with tears … fell on his face upon the ground at the feet of his father, and imploring pardon, was received into his father’s bosom.”19 Although Howden’s anecdote seems to imply that Richard’s celebrated career as both a military commander and a leader of men began rather inauspiciously, such an interpretation ignores the societal conventions prevalent here. Performance and ritualized emotion both played important roles in the lives of medieval elites, and in later years Richard repeatedly demonstrated that he understood the importance of putting on a good show.20 True, prostrating himself before his father after a failed military endeavor and begging forgiveness through tears hardly fit the image that Richard later cultivated, when his brave deeds earned him both the adoration of contemporaries and the epithet “Lionheart.” Nevertheless, here Richard might be more accurately characterized as a shrewd diplomat rather than a naïve teenager out of his depth. He recognized his situation, conceded defeat, and performed an elaborate type of public penance to enable reconciliation with his father. At any rate, this public display of contrition accomplished its objective, and Henry II entrusted Richard with the pacification of the Aquitainian lords that took his son’s side in the revolt.21 Perhaps grateful for the chance to prove himself, Richard embraced his new task of subduing the rebels. Although still a promising young knight at this stage, there clearly remained much for Richard to learn regarding the complexities of both rulership and war in order to become “the Richard of legend” described by J. O. Prestwich.22 The future king proved to be a quick study, however. Over

18 Roger of Wendover, Flowers of History: The History of England from the Descent of the Saxons to A. D. 1235, trans. J. A. Giles (London: H.G. Bohn, 1849), 2:23. 19 Roger of Howden, Chronica Magistri Rogeri Hoveden, in The Annals of Roger de Hoveden: Comprising the History of England and of Other Countries from A.D. 732 to A.D. 1201, trans. Henry T. Riley (London: H.G. Bohn, 1853), 2:385. 20 Flori, 407. 21 Ibid., 390. 22 Prestwich,16. 210 Anderson Phillips the next fifteen years, Richard learned to use all the tools of negotiation, leadership, and coercion at his disposal as a feudal lord. These techniques of command and governance informed not only Richard’s decision-making as ruler of the Angevin Empire, but also greatly influenced his leadership of the Third Crusade. According to Richard Huscroft, “One thing more than any other remained crucial in determining the effectiveness of royal rule: the personality of the king.”23 Richard I understood this well, and his charismatic, larger-than-life personality made him the kind of ruler that other men wanted to follow. One example from Richard’s time in Aquitaine demonstrated this point in spectacular fashion. Then twenty-two years old, Richard established his reputation as both a warrior and a leader by successfully capturing the previously untouchable castle of Taillebourg in 1179. In his Flowers of History, a largely secondhand work compiled during the early thirteenth century, the English monk and chronicler Roger of Wendover makes it clear that contemporaries viewed the young commander’s conquest as a triumph over nearly impossible odds: “Richard duke of Aquitaine … laid siege to Taillebourg, one of his castles, a bold enterprise, which none of his ancestors had dared to undertake, for the castle was up to that time unknown to its enemies … for which reason it entertained no fear from duke Richard’s approach.”24 Nonetheless, within three days, with Richard himself leading the way in the climactic battle at the castle gates on the final day, Taillebourg capitulated, and Richard returned to England, “where he was received with the greatest honors by king Henry.”25 A successful king needed to court the favor of the powerful aristocratic establishment. Such displays of Richard’s chivalric prowess and virtuosic military talents played particularly well with men who viewed themselves as members of an elite military caste.26 Patronage represented another crucial arrow in the king’s quiver. The ruler of the Angevin Empire, as the kingdom’s most powerful feudal lord, had it well within his power to instantly make or break men by determining

23 Huscroft, 170. 24 Roger of Wendover, 2:48-49. 25 Ibid., 49. 26 John France, Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000-1300 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), 39. 211 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

who received coveted marriage rights, wardships, and other privileges.27 An especially famous example of Richard dispensing patronage concerned the favor he bestowed on William Marshal, a knight in his father’s household.28 Richard awarded William the right to marry the daughter of the Earl of Pembroke. As Gillingham put it, this action made Marshal “a millionaire overnight” and ensured the loyalty of a potentially hostile holdover from the reign of Henry II.29 Fortunes stood to be made through the process of royal patronage, and the nobles and great men of the realm hoping to become the next William Marshal clamored for the king’s attention. This zero-sum game often required a deft touch on the part of the monarch. Favoring one man usually meant spurning another, and as a result patronage spawned many aristocratic malcontents. Theoretically, the king could also demand full repayment of outstanding debt at any time, although in practice this rarely occurred.30 Thus, patronage served as both a carrot and a stick, and political stability in the Angevin often hinged upon the king’s skillful management of a small but incredibly powerful class of nobles and landowners.31 Richard I’s skill at settling disputes emerged as another hallmark of his reign. Examples abound of Richard’s aptitude at the negotiating table, with many of the most prominent occurring amid the flurry of activity that accompanied the monarch’s preparations to embark on crusade. In November of 1189, Richard successfully arbitrated a seemingly insoluble dispute between the archbishop and monks of Canterbury.32 According to Richard of Devizes, an English monk writing about a generation after the king’s death, before departing Richard “accepted a pledge from the petty kings of the Welsh and the Scots that whilst he was on pilgrimage they would not cross their borders to do harm to England.”33 In the case of his agreement with William the Lion, the king of Scotland, Richard also received 10,000 silver marks, no doubt an appreciated addition to the crusade war chest.34

27 Huscroft, 158. 28 Roger of Howden, 2:115. 29 Gillingham, Richard I, 101. 30 Gillingham, Angevin Empire, 79. 31 Ibid. 32 Roger of Wendover, 2:85. 33 Richard of Devizes, Cronicon Richardi Divisensis de Tempore Regis Richardi Primi, ed. and trans. John T. Appleby (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1963), 7. 34 Roger of Wendover, 2:86. 212 Anderson Phillips

Finally, Richard proved particularly adept at transplanting Western methods of warfare into the Levant. Indeed, his overall strategy changed remarkably little. Eighteen years of constant campaigning and nearly unbroken fighting in Aquitaine left Richard well prepared to lead an army, especially since warfare in the Holy Land revolved around sieges and supply lines just as it did in Europe.35 Gillingham noted that “if one looks at Richard’s campaigns in Europe … they conform [to] a pattern of ravaging and besieging.”36 Medieval warfare rarely involved engaging enemies in battle. Most commanders found pitched combat Lorem Ipsum yada yada yada. far too risky, and balked at the idea that the (Photo courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) careful work of months might be undone in a few unlucky hours. Only in the most extreme circumstances did commanders consider risking their prohibitively expensive medieval war machines on the battlefield.37 Indeed, Gillingham estimates that, at most, Richard fought only two or three battles during his entire military career.38 The dominant strategy, then, became outlasting opponents by cutting off their supplies and starving them out. Roger of Howden described a typical campaign of the period led by Richard’s younger brother Geoffrey against Henry II, in which Geoffrey and a group of foreign mercenaries began to “ravage his father’s territories, and nefariously lay them waste … burning towns and villages to the ground … so as to cause utter destruction in every quarter.”39 Richard himself engaged in similar activities at the siege of Taillebourg, where he “carried off the produce, cut down the vines,

35 John Gillingham, “Richard I and the Science of War,” in Richard Coeur de Lion: Kinghsip, Chivalry and War in the Twelfth Century, ed. John Gillingham (London: Hambledon Press, 1994), 212, 217. 36 Ibid., 218. 37 France, 8. 38 Gillingham, “Richard I and the Science of War,” 213. 39 Roger of Howden, 1:23. 213 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

burned the villages, and demolished every thing” in the hopes of inducing a quick surrender.40 Thus, military engagements in the late twelfth century often amounted to wars of attrition, with victories determined by solid supply routes and well-built fortifications, as opposed to brilliant battle strategies. Military historian John France declared Richard I the greatest European commander of the period from 1000-1300 precisely because Richard enjoyed unparalleled success at this type of siege warfare.41

The Best-Laid Plans: Difficulties, Detours, and Delays on the Road to Acre Upon his accession to the throne in 1189, Richard hurriedly set about making preparations for the crusade. Although ten months passed before he departed for the Levant, Richard hardly sat idle during the intervening period. The king’s most pressing concern involved raising money for his crusade, an incredibly expensive enterprise. Although Richard gained access to approximately 100,000 silver marks that remained in the treasury of Henry II, this sum still fell short of his needs.42 To address the problem of fundraising, Richard shifted the regular business of royal patronage into overdrive and began selling offices, lordships, and lands at breakneck speed. Richard of Devizes famously recorded the king joking that he “would have sold London itself” if he had managed to find a buyer, a comment that captures the remarkable efficiency with which Richard I conducted financial transactions during this period.43 Richard needed funds not only to provide for his troops in the field but also for reasons closely bound up in contemporary methods of rule. Royal largesse, a critical component of kingship, served several purposes. It helped cement loyalties and alliances with major lords and also functioned as payment and encouragement for lesser men.44 Richard regularly used largesse on crusade to accomplish a variety of goals, from securing loyalty to raising his own prestige. After several delays and false starts, Richard I and Philip II of France

40 Roger of Wendover, 2:49. 41 France, 142. 42 Flori, 84. 43 Richard of Devizes, 9. 44 Flori, 337, 340. 214 Anderson Phillips departed for the Holy Land on July 4, 1190, with the understanding that they shared command of the crusade equally.45 The Sicilian port of Messina served as the first major stop along the monarchs’ rather episodic journey to Outremer, and this extended layover functions as a useful case study for kingship on crusade. Ambroise’s L’Estoire de la Guerre Sainte and the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi I comprise the two major primary sources for the Third Crusade and Richard’s time in the Levant. An ardent admirer of Richard’s, the Norman minstrel-crusader Ambroise personally witnessed much of what he describes and probably wrote his chronicle sometime between the conclusion of the crusade and Richard’s death. This is evidenced by the fact that he makes no mention of the monarch’s demise. The unknown author of the Itinerarium, believed to be a monk named Richard de Templo writing around 1216, borrowed much of his material from Ambroise, although the account contains a great deal of original content as well. Both chroniclers make it plain that rulers in the twelfth century were fully expected to look the part. The author of theItinerarium believed that “he should not appear less than he is; no, his appearance should match his actual power” and “whatever sort of character the king has, it is naturally reflected in outer appearance.”46 Richard I understood the importance of image and thus calculated his arrival at Messina to create a sense of awe among onlookers, which included French crusaders. Sailing with a huge fleet of galleys, the king of England “stood out on a prow which was higher and more ornate than the rest … willingly putting himself on show for all to see.”47 Richard’s grand entrance achieved its aim, and viewers on the shore remarked that such a display befit his royal status. While in Messina, tensions ran high between the crusaders and the native Sicilians, called Griffons by the crusade chroniclers. Although Philip chose to ignore these spats, Richard took a decidedly more demonstrative tack: “The king of France concealed whatever his men did or suffered, or kept silent about it. The king of England, giving no heed to the nationality

45 Ambroise, 35. 46 Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, in Chronicle of the Third Crusade, trans. Helen J. Nicholson (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1997), 156. 47 Ibid., 157. 215 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

of anyone involved in a crime, considered every man his subject and left no offence unpunished.” He continued, “For this reason the Griffons called one king the Lamb and the other the Lion.”48 Thus, the king of England demonstrated his zeal for justice by taking actions both public and symbolic. As with his carefully stage-managed arrival, Richard inflated his reputation and gained respect through a combination of image and personality. Throughout his stay in Sicily, Richard negotiated with the island’s ruler, Tancred, for the return of his sister Joan’s dower. Joan had been married to the recently deceased William of Sicily, and now Tancred refused to surrender what Richard felt was rightfully his.49 Negotiations seemed to be at an impasse when, during a meeting with Tancred, news reached Richard of street fights between the crusaders and Sicilians. Seizing his chance, Richard “at once put on his armour, took up his weapons, shut them up inside their city and laid siege to it.”50 Throwing himself into the fray, the king of England quickly took Messina. Never missing a chance to praise Richard for prowess in warfare, the author of the Itinerarium wrote he “was the first in every attack … giving his troops an example of courage and striking fear into the enemy.”51 Although this account of Richard’s role in the fighting is likely overblown, a clear picture nonetheless emerges of Richard as a commander who preferred to lead from the front. This trait greatly endeared the king to his men, who respected him for his courage in battle. Sufficiently cowed by Richard’s show of force, Tancred came to terms quickly enough, offering twenty thousand ounces of gold for peace.52 Richard self-consciously associated himself with chivalric ideals, and reciprocated by presenting Tancred with Excalibur, the Arthurian sword of legend.53 Afterward, in a representative display of royal largesse, the king of England handsomely rewarded his soldiers: “Richard—who is not mean or miserly—gave them such great gifts … that all men praised him for his fine gifts … and he did them such honour that even he who went on foot had one hundred sous from him.”54

48 Richard of Devizes, 16. 49 Gillingham, Richard I, 137. 50 Itinerarium Perigrinorum, 160. 51 Ibid., 162. 52 Ambroise, 45. 53 Gillingham, Richard I, 141. 54 Ambroise, 46. 216 Anderson Phillips

According to Gillingham, several unexpected months in Sicily had begun to wear on many of the crusaders, and “only Richard’s generosity in distributing gifts to all and sundry held the troops together.”55 Through a combination of calculated acts, military prowess, and a healthy dose of charisma, Richard lived up to contemporary notions of rulership at Messina. Much of medieval kingship involved performance, and Richard the Lionheart excelled as a performer. The next lengthy stopover along Richard’s route to the Holy Land came at Cyprus. Philip sailed from Messina on March 30, 1191, and arrived without incident in Acre three weeks later.56 Richard’s fleet, however, became separated by a storm, and three ships ran aground at Cyprus. At the orders of Isaac Comnenus, the rogue Byzantine ruling the island without imperial sanction, Cypriots pillaged the wrecks and captured the surviving sailors.57 When Isaac refused Richard’s order to hand over the prisoners and treasure, military engagement became inevitable. The chroniclers found in the interlude at Cyprus yet another opportunity to extol Richard’s heroic

55 Gillingham, Richard I, 140. 56 Itinerarium Pergrinorum, 173. 57 Ambroise, 51. 217 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

deeds, and the king provided them with ample material. The Itinerarium reports that Richard “took the lead himself in jumping out of his barge into the sea, and boldly attacked the Griffons.”58 After Richard’s army routed the Cypriots into a full retreat, Ambroise records a chivalric anecdote bordering on the preposterous: the king of England chasing the fleeing Isaac on horseback and shouting, “Emperor, come joust!”59 Although the veracity of such tales is questionable, they reinforced Richard’s formidable reputation for valor. Far from mindless bravery, the king’s recklessness in warfare accomplished the practical goals of elevating his troops’ morale and intimidating his enemies.60 There was a method to Richard’s apparent madness. Two important developments for Richard’s future role as a crusading monarch stemmed from the Cyprus campaign. First, he acquired an enormous treasure haul from his capture of the island, and this money gave him the freedom to spend extravagantly and recruit soldiers.61 Second, while at Cyprus Richard threw his support behind Guy of Lusignan in the succession crisis facing the Latin crusader states. This decision proved controversial in the extreme, as Guy’s rival, Conrad of Montferrat, enjoyed more widespread support in the crusader settlements.62 It appears that Richard ultimately supported Guy because he considered him family, since Guy had been married to Richard’s cousin, Queen Sibylla of Jerusalem, until her death a few years earlier. This conformed to the well-established Angevin ruling philosophy that placed a premium on protecting family land interests, however distant the relationship.63 Richard’s widely criticized choice amounted to an act of royal patronage firmly rooted in the traditional ruling methods of the Angevin Empire.

58 Itinerarium Peregerinorum, 185. 59 Ambroise, 53. 60 Gillingham, “The Art of Kingship: Richard I 1189-99,” in Richard Coeur de Lion: Kingship, Chivalry and War in the Twelfth Century, ed. John Gillingham (London: Hambledon Press, 1994), 101. 61 Flori, 118. 62 Itinerarium Peregrinorum, 303. 63 Gillingham, Angevin Empire, 41. 218 Anderson Phillips

A Crusade Deferred: Rivalry, Infighting, and the Derailment of the Third Crusade Having been delayed nearly two months, Richard finally left Cyprus and sailed into Acre on June 8, 1191.64 Almost a year after his departure, the king of England at last arrived in the Holy Land. He entered Acre with his customary pomp and, as Richard of Devizes describes it, “was received by the besiegers with as much joy as if he had been Christ Himself returning to earth to restore the kingdom of Israel.”65 The king of England’s behavior during the siege of Acre, however, could hardly be described as Christ-like. Throughout the crusade, the rivalry between Philip and Richard simmered, and at Acre things finally came to a boil. The Itinerarium describes Richard’s determination to outdo Philip in every conceivable sphere: “He later learnt that the king of France paid each knight three gold coins a month, and as a result had won the favour and gratitude of everyone. King Richard did not wish anyone to seem superior or even equal to him in dealings of any kind.” He therefore “ordered a proclamation made to the whole army that he would pay a fixed rate of four gold coins a month to each knight who wanted employment, regardless of country of origin.”66 In addition to generosity and valor, pride constituted an integral element of Richard’s kingly personage, at times to the detriment of the crusade. For example, soon after Richard’s arrival, Philip urged an immediate full-scale assault on the city.67 Richard had fallen ill, however, and according to Ambroise wished to delay the attack until he recovered.68 Richard, then, showed himself unwilling to help Philip take the city unless he could personally play a significant role in the fighting. By the time Acre finally fell a month later, the relationship between the two monarchs had soured beyond any hope of reconciliation. Making excuses related to an illness—although the Itinerarium claims “there was no evidence to support his assertion”—Philip returned to France.69

64 Ambroise, 62, 66. 65 Richard of Devizes, 39. 66 Itinerarium Peregrinorum, 204. 67 Justin L. Matthews, “The Great Men of Christendom: The Failure of the Third Crusade” (Master’s Thesis, Western Kentucky University, 2011), 40. Accessed April 7, 2013. http:// digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1115/ 68 Ambroise, 95. 69 Itinerarium Peregrinorum, 223. 219 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

In theory, Philip’s sudden departure left the king of England in sole command of the crusader army. The reality of Richard’s situation proved much more complicated. Although serving as the nominal leader for the remainder of the expedition, Richard could not simply issue commands and expect them to be universally followed. The Third Crusade army contained English, French, Genoese, Pisan, and German crusaders, in addition to Templars, Hospitallers, and knights from the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.70 Balancing and pacifying so many competing interests became the chief task confronting Richard for the remainder of the crusade. As a result, his practiced skill of negotiating the complex political landscape of Western Europe came to the fore in the Holy Land. Following the departure of Philip, Richard encountered great difficulty convincing the French crusaders to leave their comfortable positions at Acre and variously resorted to prayer, bribery, and force to compel them to follow him.71 According to the Itinerarium, Richard regularly convened councils of “princes and magistrates of the people” when deciding strategy and generally consented to Lorem Ipsum yada yada yada. (Photo courtesy of Xxxx Xxxxx.) the majority view.72 Even after deciding on a course of action, the king of England could still be convinced to change his mind. On two separate occasions, Richard bowed to the wishes of the crusader army and began to march toward Jerusalem, only to ultimately side with the military orders and call off the march when the army was within a few miles of the Holy City.73 The first time a march on Jerusalem ended in a disappointing retreat, the French crusaders left the army and only agreed to rejoin Richard several

70 Flori, 148. 71 Itinerarium Peregrinorum, 233. 72 Ibid., 263. 73 Ambroise, 137, 173. 220 Anderson Phillips days later, with the conditions that they were only to be bound to him until Easter, and that if they wished to leave before that date they should be free to do so.74 The second occasion so incensed the rank-and-file that it more or less led to the dissolution of the Third Crusade. Distraught Frenchmen camped as far as possible from the rest of the army, and Hugh of Burgundy composed a mocking tune about Richard that Ambroise described as “a base song, full of baseness, which spread throughout the army.”75 Never one to be outdone, Richard attempted to save face in front of his men by responding with an unflattering song of his own directed at Hugh.76 By this juncture, no doubt remained that Richard’s efforts to balance opposing interests had failed, and factionalism soon tore the crusade apart. The crusader-king also channeled his diplomatic energies outwards and frequently met with Saladin’s brother, Safadin. According to Bahāʼ ad-Dīn, a contemporary Arab chronicler and close confidant of Saladin, during one round of negotiations the king of England attempted to broker a peace settlement by marrying his sister Joan to Safadin.77 Unfortunately, talks broke down when Joan was actually told of the plan: “The royal lady had been presented with the marriage plan by her brother and it made her very displeased and angry.” He continued, “Indeed, she rejected it utterly and swore by her religion with the most binding of oaths that she would not consent. How could she possibly allow a Muslim to have carnal knowledge of her!”78 Richard’s willingness to negotiate with the enemies of Christendom rubbed many crusaders the wrong way. According to the author of the Itinerarium, “His people felt he was open to considerable criticism for this, and it was said to be sinful to contract friendship with Gentiles.”79 While diplomatic overtures and marriage proposals of this sort constituted standard operating procedure for settling disputes between the rulers of Western Europe, this aspect of kingship did not translate particularly well into the Levant. To a number of crusaders, Christians and Muslims were

74 Itinerarium Peregrinorum, 288. 75 Ambroise, 174. 76 Ibid., 174. 77 Bahāʼ ad-Dīn Ibn Shaddād, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, trans. D.S. Richards (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002), 187. 78 Ibid., 188. 79 Itinerarium Peregrinorum, 273. 221 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

natural enemies, and that ought to have been the end of it. In contrast, Richard encountered little trouble integrating his deep knowledge of warfare and tactics into his leadership of the crusade. At Acre, Gillingham points out, “the Franks had faced military problems essentially the same as those they would have faced in any siege of a similar town in Europe.”80 Indeed, a sickly Richard found tactics at Acre so familiar that he managed to command his men from his mattress.81 At Arsuf, the only pitched battle that Richard fought in the Holy Land, under the king of England’s savvy generalship the famed Frankish cavalry charge carried the day.82 As the only Christian commander to defeat Saladin in battle, Richard I greatly enhanced his reputation for military prowess while in Outremer. The Continuation of William of Tyre, a chronicle of events in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem updated at various points in the thirteenth century by Frankish settlers, reports that Richard became something of a bogeyman to Muslims in the Levant: “King Richard’s renown terrified the Saracens so much that when their children cried their mothers would scare them for the king of England and say, ‘Be quiet for the king of England!’” In addition, “When a Saracen was riding his horse and his mount stumbled at a shadow, he would say to him, ‘Do you think the king of England is in that bush?’”83 Richard’s European warfare experiences probably also influenced his decision not to attack Jerusalem and pushed him to seek a truce with Saladin instead. A veteran commander, the king of England knew from his time in Aquitaine that the real trick lay not in capturing territory, but in holding on to it. Even if the crusading army managed to take Jerusalem, the Holy City would not have remained in Western hands for long because the majority of crusaders were sure to depart upon the completion of their pilgrimage. Conclusion Many of the methods employed by Richard I to govern his dominions in Europe also served the monarch well when leading a crusade to the Holy Land. As has been demonstrated, the king of England treated the crusading expedition almost as a miniature version of the Angevin Empire, and used a

80 Gillingham, Richard I, 173. 81 Ambroise, 100. 82 Itinerarium Peregrinorum, 253. 83 La Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr (1184-1197), in The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation, trans. Peter W. Edbury (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1998), 119. 222 Anderson Phillips great deal of the same ruling strategies to command an armed pilgrimage as he might have used to oversee the daily affairs of Aquitaine. In both arenas, Richard’s personality and image played key roles. The force of his personality evoked great loyalty from his men, and Richard I keenly understood the importance of performance and symbolic action to project a kingly image. Indeed, no one did more than Richard himself to fan the flames of the Lionheart’s legend among contemporaries.84 Likewise, in the Angevin as well as the Levant, patronage and largesse played crucial roles in cementing alliances, securing loyalty, and raising morale among the king’s men. Richard’s constant willingness to negotiate and engage in diplomatic overtures, whether with rebellious Aquitainian lords or, much to the chagrin of his fellow crusaders, Saladin himself, also carried over to the king’s time in the Holy Land. Finally, Richard the Lionheart’s famed military prowess made a seamless transition to Outremer. Although Richard’s skill as a diplomat went unrecognized for decades, he has never lacked for admirers regarding his generalship. His skill in the art of siege warfare during the Third Crusade won him much renown from Christians and Muslims alike. Although it might appear obvious that Richard would not entirely abandon the only methods of governance he had known when departing for the Holy Land, what is striking about Richard’s management of the crusade is the degree to which Angevin strategies of rule prevailed in a strange land under strange circumstances. Except for the furor over Richard’s decision to entreat with Muslims, the king of England enjoyed great success adapting European notions of rule and strategies of command to the needs of the crusade. If contemporaries viewed negotiating with the enemy as Richard’s only major misstep, perhaps today’s leaders could learn something from the his ideological flexibility, and seek to emulate aspects of his tenure as a crusading king.

84 Prestwich, 2. 223 essaytraces Trevor Erlacher Postcard from L’viv

Moluptate eos eari ulparchita dent ut officat. Us. At et, quiae pre dolorpores sam qui con re quunti quunto is sedis sanis el mini omnient urenti bea peritatem as acimiliquia dist, temperae dolorpores sam

tracesTrevor Erlacher is a Ph.D. candidate in Russian and East European history at UNC-Chapel Hill. His dissertation handles the intellectual and cultural history of radical, twentieth-century Ukrainian nationalism. He is currently conducting research in Lviv, Ukraine.

Prior to arriving here in L’viv for a ten-month research trip, I had been planning for years to build my career as a historian on the study of modern Ukraine. The question that would invariably spring to the nonplussed mind of whomever I told this to was, “Why (the) Ukraine?” 225 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

A shrine to the Heavenly Hundred near the Maidan. October 4, 2014.

Having chided them for the needless insertion of that accursed definite article, I would explain that I did not have any personal connections to Ukraine, but considered the Texas-sized nation of 46 million grossly overlooked and misjudged despite being key to understanding imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, and continental Europe in general. Ukraine, I would continue, represents an intrinsically fascinating counterpoint to the ethos of the Russian state. Federalism, democracy, anarchism, and individualism pervaded the political traditions of the former—centralism, autocracy, étatism, and collectivism those of the latter. Compare the Kozak Hetmanate to the Tsardom of Muscovy, the Ukrainian peasantry’s single- family plot to the Russians’ repartitional commune, Nestor Makhno to Vladimir Lenin: the difference is patent. Contrary to Russian nationalist myths, Ukrainians possess a distinct identity and have resisted assimilation into the sprawling empires of their eastern cousins for at least the last three centuries. Subjected to wars and occupations, cultural Russification, waves of state terror, mass arrests, exile, forced labor, and artificial famine, they have paid as heavy a price for self-determination as any European nation. I argued that Ukraine’s tragic and instructive past deserved a much broader international audience, and I wanted to be a part of raising that awareness. I was convinced, moreover, that the country’s struggle had not ended despite

226 Trevor Erlacher more than twenty years of nominal independence, that it would likely become the site of the next major European conflict, and that the Russian state would appear yet again on the other side of the barricades. What I had not anticipated were the literal barricades of steel, ice, and burning tires that fortified the perimeter of Independence Square—the Maidan—in downtown Kyiv this past winter. All the same, I felt vindicated as millions of Ukrainians spontaneously mobilized to demand real change from a government patently in thrall to Moscow and callously indifferent to their anger and suffering. What began as the popular defense of a much smaller and brutally dispersed student-led protest against then-president Viktor Yanukovych’s last-minute rejection of an association agreement with the EU, soon turned into a nationwide crisis that threatened to topple the entire regime. I followed the nascent revolution obsessively, inspired by the courage and resolve of the Ukrainian people in the face of sub-zero weather, truncheons, stun grenades, tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons. Originally peaceful despite the violence deployed against them, the protesters began to meet fire with fire on January 19 after the passage of the draconian “Dictatorship Laws,” which severely curbed the freedoms of speech and assembly in Ukraine. Equipped with homemade weapons, body armor, and Molotov cocktails, they fought pitched battles with riot police— the dreaded Berkut—and confronted roving gangs of government-hired thugs (so-called titushki). On January 22, Serhiy Nigoyan, a 20-year-old Armenian-Ukrainian, was among the first protesters to perish, shot to death by the police. He became a symbol for the movement’s youthfulness, diversity, and willingness to make great sacrifices for the future of Ukraine—a civic, as opposed to ethnolinguistic, nation. The Maidan’s demands grew more radical as the upheaval flared out into the regions, deposing Yanukovych-appointed governors and corrupt local authorities in its wake. State security forces resorted to more extreme measures. Kidnapped activists’ bodies began turning up in the forests around Kyiv bearing signs of torture. Then, between February 18 and 21, the Berkut, joined by snipers from the Ukrainian Security Service, carried out a massacre that left more than one hundred civilians dead. Ukrainians memorialized the fallen as the “Heavenly Hundred” (nebesna sotnia) who ensured the survival of the Maidan. Yanukovych fled the country for the protection of his masters in Russia the next day, effectively resigning the presidency.

227 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

A panoramic view of Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) in Kyiv, Ukraine, at the height of the protests during the winter of 2013/14.

The EuroMaidan Revolution, which Ukrainians widely regard as a “revolution of dignity” and a transfiguration of the nation’s spirit, had achieved a major victory, but its goal of turning Ukraine into a relatively prosperous “normal European country” with genuinely democratic institutions, the rule of law, and EU membership remained a distant prospect. As crowds poured into Yanukovych’s appallingly opulent estate at Mezhyhiria, the full extent of his corruption quickly became apparent. The ministries of the interim government discovered that seventy billion dollars had been stolen during the disgraced former president’s reign, leaving the country in dire financial straits. Yanukovych’s appointed generals had plundered and undermined the Ukrainian military at every level, while his allies in the Party of Regions retained their seats of power in the Ukrainian parliament and security apparatus. Then there was the problem of Ukraine’s far-right groups—above all, Svoboda and Right Sector—who made world headlines thanks to their high-profile but greatly sensationalized role in the revolution. They soaked up the limelight and puffed out their chests, while Russian media warned of a fascist putsch that many in the West, including area specialists who should have known better, took seriously. With an early presidential election set for May 25, the political situation in Ukraine was precarious. Meanwhile, recognizing the existential threat that the EuroMaidan Revolution poses to the kleptocratic status quo inside Russia and throughout its “sphere of influence,” the Kremlin reacted to the ouster of its vassal in

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Kyiv by physically and verbally attacking Ukraine at its most vulnerable moment. Having abandoned the capital city in defeat, pro-Russian “anti- Maidan” demonstrators, well stocked with “political tourists” from the Russian Federation, turned up in Crimea and Donbas. There had been no prior separatist movement to speak of in Ukraine, but suddenly there was a “Russian Spring.” Largely unopposed or even supported by local authorities (in stark contrast to what had just transpired in Kyiv), pro-Russian crowds, spearheaded by covert Russian special forces, seized municipal buildings, attacked Ukrainian patriots in the streets, waved Russian tricolors and St. George Ribbons, and demanded immediate independence referendums. Ukrainophobic propaganda from the state-controlled Russian mass media, which still monopolizes the airwaves in these regions, had prepared the ground for the ostensibly homegrown revolt by brainwashing the benighted local population with canards about a CIA-orchestrated coup d’état, a “Ukrainian fascist junta,” and the imminent ethnic cleansing of Ukraine’s ethnic Russian minority. Since late February, acting behind an exasperating smoke screen of outright lies and implausible denials, Russia has annexed Crimea and directly intervened to foment a Transnistria-style frozen conflict in parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, all under the auspices of blatantly fraudulent “referendums” and ultranationalist revanchism. Still basking in the pomp of the Winter Olympics in Sochi (and taking a page straight from Adolf Hitler’s playbook), Russian President Vladimir Putin justified the invasion and occupation of sovereign Ukrainian territory as a defense of the human rights of Russian co-ethnics and a legal reclamation of primordial Russian soil. Make no mistake about it: Russia is waging an undeclared war against Ukraine that has already claimed over three thousand lives, displaced hundreds of thousands more, and endangered the rest of Europe (as the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 by Russian proxies in Donetsk oblast amply demonstrates). Reports of Ukrainian POWs and suspected “collaborators” being subjected to torture, slave labor, and execution are common. Life in the warzone is a constant struggle for residents, who crowd together in basements without water and electricity for fear of shelling. In this regard, Putin has delivered on his promise in March to use Ukrainian non-combatants as human shields. Nevertheless, hundreds of young conscripts from the Russian Federation have been killed in Ukraine. It is

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becoming increasingly difficult for the Kremlin to deny that the country is at war as grieving Russian mothers step forward to demand answers and the anti-war movement gains momentum in Russia’s cities. On the Ukrainian side, dozens of small, crowd-funded “On March 16 we will choose.” A poster volunteer battalions have formed in occupied Crimea presents viewers with a choice between a Nazi swastika to join the fight against the Russian and the Russian flag in advance of the peninsula’s “independence referendum.” separatists, supplementing the initially incompetent and chronically under-equipped official armed forces. They act independently of the government in Kyiv, but enjoy its tacit support, and with members from across Ukraine and around the world expressing political views from the far right to the far left, the battalions have Self-proclaimed leader of the DNR with neo-Nazi past, Pavel Gubarev. added still more fire and uncertainty to the situation. After several months of successful advances, the Ukrainian government’s Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) seemed poised to reclaim all of Eastern Ukraine from the Russian-backed militants, but suffered a major setback in late August when several thousand regular Russian troops crossed the border to lift the siege on the cities of Luhansk and Donetsk. Instead of arming Ukrainians to defend themselves against an invader determined to undermine the entire security edifice of post-Cold War Europe, NATO and the EU have left them to their own devices and pressured President Poroshenko into accepting a humiliating “peace deal” with the Russian government and its proxies in Donbas that is unlikely to satisfy anyone on either side of the conflict in Ukraine. The deal grants three years of “special status,” including a general amnesty and self-rule, to the separatists within the territories they currently control. An all-but-meaningless ceasefire now holds and a buffer zone between the two sides has been established, but fierce fighting continues for control of Donetsk airport and the port city of Mariupol as casualties

230 Trevor Erlacher continue to mount. Despite what you may have heard on the television network Russia Today—the centerpiece of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine abroad—the Russian crusade against “Ukrainian fascism” is pure hypocrisy, projection, and sciamachy. Whereas Svoboda and Right Sector took less than a combined two percent of the vote in the May 25 elections that gave the Ukrainian presidency to moderate centrist Petro Poroshenko, Russia and the so-called People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk are rife with followers of National Bolshevism and neo-Eurasianism—the unabashedly fascist ideologies developed and popularized by Kremlin advisor and self- styled “philosopher” Alexander Dugin. Moscow’s chief allies in Europe (Hungary’s Jobbik, France’s Front National, Austria’s Freedom Party, Belgium’s Vlaams Blok, among others) are Eurosceptics on the far right, which it supports financially. Domestically and internationally, Putin’s Russia—with its persecution of ethnic, sexual, political, and religious minorities; one-party state; paramilitary youth formations; cult of the strong leader and machismo; palingenetic ultranationalism; expansionist jingoism; xenophobia; and state-dominated media—has become the nearest thing to a fascist dictatorship in the developed world today. Wrongly monopolizing the prestige of the Soviet Union’s contribution to World War II, despite being only one among the many nations represented in the ranks of the Red Army, the Russian state now claims (just as postwar Soviet propaganda did) that all its geopolitical rivals are “fascists.” Although every country in Europe, including Russia, produced its share of Nazi supporters in the 1940s, Putin and his allies invoke the historical stigma of collaboration exclusively against their enemies, including Poland and the Baltic States, which they also ominously (and baselessly) accuse of oppressing their ethnic Russian minorities. Heedless of the irony, Putinist propaganda smears all Ukrainians as fascists and “banderivtsi,” a polemical term derived from the name of Stepan Bandera, wartime leader of a faction of the far-rightwing Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the partisan Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Celebration of the OUN and UPA as a national liberation movement that fought against both Stalinism and Nazism had previously been largely confined to the country’s western and, to a lesser extent, central regions. Sympathy for the OUN continues to be strongest in L’viv—the historical

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The monument to Lenin in central Kharkiv, the largest in Ukraine, is pulled down by a pro-Ukrainian crowd. September 28, 2014.

epicenter of this particular brand of Ukrainian nationalism. Still, this peaceful, distinctively Central European city is hardly the bastion of Russophobia and rightwing extremism that it has been made out to be. Although Ukrainian language predominates in day-to-day business, many people—including thousands of tourists from the Russian Federation and refugees from the war-torn east, both welcomed here with open arms—speak Russian without the slightest worry. Locals readily and affably accommodate them. It is true that one can find streets here named after Bandera and his associates, and a large monument to the controversial leader that looks suspiciously like the hundred or so Lenin statues that have been demolished across Ukraine in symbolic rejection of the Soviet past and the legacy of Russian hegemony since the EuroMaidan Revolution. This outburst of popular iconoclasm has even spread to the city of Kharkiv—usually perceived as left-leaning, Soviet- nostalgic, and Russia-oriented—where the largest Lenin monument in the country was recently torn down with the approval of local authorities on September 28. But the general mood in L’viv, which has a proud tradition of multiculturalism and openness to the world, is one of patriotic solidarity with the rest of the country, emphatically including Donbas. Buying into the idea that L’viv is some kind of neo-Nazi “Banderstadt” would be an egregious mistake.

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“No to war with Ukraine!” Anti-war protesters march in Moscow on September 21, 2014.

Foreign invasions tend to inflame nationalism and consolidate post- revolutionary regimes, and present-day Ukraine is no exception. In the course of the EuroMaidan, Ukrainians previously indifferent or opposed to the ideologically antiliberal, antidemocratic OUN adopted its slogans and imagery, repurposing them toward liberal, democratic ends. Others— including the many Jewish Ukrainians who were active on the Maidan—have embraced the “Banderite” label ironically, in defiance and ridicule of Russian propaganda, despite harboring no rightwing, let alone fascist or anti-Semitic, views. There is, of course, the danger of whitewashing the OUN and UPA, which really did commit war crimes and collaborate with Nazism (even if this collaboration was ultimately superseded by an active struggle against the German occupation). The Red Army and the NKVD that carried out the “liberation” of Western Ukraine and the brutal pacification of the UPA-led resistance there were hardly angelic either. Fortunately, the EuroMaidan has given Ukrainians a new unifying narrative of national heroism that is not derived from the divisive history of World War II, whether it is the Soviet myth of the Great Patriotic War, or the Ukrainian nationalist myth of the underground UPA’s struggle for independence. Contrary to the claims of the Russian state and media that Ukraine is an artificial nation at war with itself, the country’s inhabitants have never been more united and convinced of

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their right to exist independently. The regions that Putin imagines rightfully belong to “New Russia” (a recently revived archaism from the lexicon of nineteenth-century Russian colonialism that embraces Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Poltava, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Donbas, Luhansk, and Odesa oblasts), have witnessed an upsurge of Ukrainian national patriotism in response to the annexation of Crimea and the war in the east. Moscow has completely alienated the hearts and minds of Kyiv—the “cradle of Russian civilization,” according Russian nationalist historiography. Putin’s foreign policy has ensured that henceforth Ukraine will look toward the West and away from Russia. The prospect of joining NATO, previously objectionable to most Ukrainians, has gained popular support and moved to the front of Kyiv’s agenda. Culturally and politically spurned, violence and economic blackmail are the Kremlin’s only recourse. These are the death throes of Russian imperialism in Ukraine. The only question is how many more lives it will destroy before admitting defeat.

Trevor Erlacher October 6, 2014

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235 living historytraces Living History

This volume of Traces inaugurates a new section, “Living History,“ which includes oral histories and interviews with “history makers,“ including both participants in notable historical events and the people who chronicle those events, the historians. As this volume revolves around the theme of “NC Politics,“ we begin with features on Isabella Cannon, the first female mayor of a US capital city, Raleigh, NC; Rosanell Eaton, a voting rights activist who was one of the first African Americans to vote in the state of North Carolina; and labor activist Anne Queen, who served as director of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Campus Y during a tumultuous period in the university’s history. These features aretraces followed by an interview with retiring UNC-Chapel Hill historian Christopher Browning, one of the top Holocaust scholars in the world. The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Interview with Mark Kleinschmidt

Mark Kleinschmidt is a former Chapel Hill City Council member and has served as Chapel Hill’s mayor since his first election in 2009. Kleinschmidt can boast of a number of “firsts,” as he is Chapel Hill’s first openly gay mayor and the first mayor elected through the town’s publicly financed Voter Owned Elections program. He also graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill’s first Teaching Fellows class in 1992, after which he worked as a teacher in Charlotte, North Carolina, before returning to UNC-Chapel Hill for law school. Kleinschmidt cut his teeth as a gay activist at the university, where he became involved in the Carolina Gay Association (now the Sexuality and Gender Alliance) as a freshman in 1988. As a lawyer, he worked on a pivotal lawsuit filed by the United Church of Christ, which sued North Carolina in April 2014, contending that the state’s recently enacted same-sex marriage ban violated the church’s religious freedom to perform gay marriages. A federal judge’s ruling in favor of the church in October legalized same-sex marriage in the state. Immediately after this ruling, Kleinschmidt spoke to Traces Executive Editor Mark W. Hornburg about the role that gay civil rights issues have played in North Carolina politics.

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Mark W. Hornburg: What was the state of gay rights in North Carolina when you first entered politics and what were the major issues then?

Mark Kleinschmidt: I first entered politics in 2001 when I was elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council. At the time I was only the fifth openly gay or lesbian elected official in North Carolina and all were from Orange County. I was also serving on the Equality North Carolina Board of Directors. The primary policy and legislative goals at the time were trying to repeal the state’s Crime Against Nature or anti-sodomy statute. For the LGBT community, the statute functioned as a means to “illegalize” gay and lesbian people. The statute was used as vehicle for not only maintaining state-sponsored (both explicitly and tacitly) discrimination, but also private bigotry. It was a difficult time. At the time, although we were hopeful, we weren’t aware that sweeping changes were about alter LGBT history in this state and country.

MWH: What changed and who was involved in that change? Was it a grassroots effort from below, or did particular people take the lead?

MK: The change occurred because of a variety of internal (to the state) and external circumstances. In the late 1990s the US Supreme Court handed down Romer v. Evans, a Colorado case that for the first time said that states and localities couldn’t impose discriminatory legislation born out of animus for a particular group, i.e., LGBT people. In addition, Hawaii and Alaska were experiencing the first wave of the marriage equality movement and responding by altering their state constitutions to prohibit same-sex marriage. In 2003, the Lawrence v. Texas decision eliminated all sodomy laws across the country. These events were changing the landscape for LGBT people everywhere. Marriage equality was happening in New England, and members of North Carolina’s LGBT community were anxious to be a part of it. Equality NC and the ACLU of NC were successful in getting an anti-bullying bill through the legislature, the first time sexual orientation was mentioned in the NC statutes. From my vantage point, I was seeing these efforts inspire much greater grassroots involvement. Donations to the ACLU and EqualityNC were increasing and more and more North Carolina cities began offering domestic partnership benefits. The larger culture was changing too. TV and film were portraying LGBT people as more than just

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comic relief and our lives were beginning to be defined as a central part of the overall culture.

MWH: How has the North Carolina experience differed from the national experience?

MK: North Carolina was, and continues to be, slow to respond. It’s probably a southern cultural problem. But because North Carolina was becoming a destination for people from around the country, we were and are a bit ahead of other southern states. The backlash also will likely be more intense because of how entrenched discrimination against LGBT people is in our state and across the South.

MWH: So how did marriage equality become the defining issue? Could you discuss your involvement in that?

MK: It was kismet. The Hawaii and Alaska experience in the 1990s put the issue on the radar. Then Vermont’s civil unions and Massachusetts’ marriage equality case in 2003 made many LGBT Americans realize that victory on this issue was possible. Also, I think many people saw marriage equality as the issue with the longest coattails. The thought is that once marriage equality was achieved, it would be easier to eliminate discrimination in other areas including employment and housing. Although I was often part of the conversations around marriage equality, I don’t believe any one person or small group of people can claim to be the catalyst for this change. For my part, as one of only a few openly gay elected officials, I was frequently called on to participate in the public conversation. I did innumerable TV, radio, and printed press interviews over the last decade on the issue, both locally and nationally. I debated marriage equality opponents at law schools, appeared on MSNBC, did lots of local and state-wide press, and eventually was one of the attorneys on the UCC v. Cooper case that ultimately brought marriage equality to the state. I co-authored an amicus brief in the 4th circuit case that compelled the outcome in the UCC case. During the Amendment 1 battle, I appeared at events across the state trying to inspire opposition to the amendment.

MWH: I want to get your reaction to how this pivotal civil rights issue has been handled at the very top of the political ladder, particularly in your own

240 Living History party, by reviewing in detail the president’s handling of the issue, which has involved many twists and turns. In 2004, Barack Obama said that “marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman,” and he suggested that civil unions were adequate for gays and lesbians because the difference between marriage and civil unions was partly just a matter of “semantics.” At the same time, while Obama was running for Senate in early 2004 he told the editorial board of Chicago’s Daily Herald that the gay rights struggle was comparable to the 1960s civil rights movement, noting that his father and mother wouldn’t have been allowed to marry in some Southern states, “So it’s not as if I’m not sympathetic to the idea that … politics shouldn’t get in the way if something’s right.” But in 2006, Obama said that “decisions about marriage should be left to the states as they’ve always been.” When he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2007 and 2008, he spoke at a forum sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign, where he said, “We should try to disentangle what has historically been the issue of the word ‘marriage,’ which has religious connotations to some people, from the civil rights that are given to couples, in terms of hospital visitation, in terms of whether or not they can transfer property or any of the other—Social Security benefits and so forth.” This was a stance that HRC president Joe Solomonese compared to the “separate but equal” doctrine that was used for decades to justify racial discrimination. Once he was elected president, Obama defended the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). When the Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss a legal challenge to DOMA in July of 2009, Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said the department’s standard practice was to defend existing law. Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder changed their position in February 2011 when Holder announced that the administration would not defend the constitutionality of Section 3 of DOMA as applied to same-sex married couples in the two cases filed in a federal appeals court. In 2011, Obama was still repeating his view that marriage was an issue for each state to decide. Then in 2012, he said his views had evolved, announcing, “For me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” This year, Obama asserted that the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a right to same-sex marriage while he simultaneously expressed support for the Supreme Court’s “incremental” approach. How have you reacted to the president making such incoherent

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statements over the years on this issue, or to the ironic fact of a self-identified black man defending a “separate but equal” system of marriage laws? As an attorney, what do you think of his assertion that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a right to same-sex marriage while he simultaneously expresses support for the Supreme Court’s incremental approach?

MK: While my reading of the Constitution would have compelled allowing same-sex marriage to the first couple who ever asked for a marriage license, I respect the fact that for others it would take some time to come around on the issue. Obama isn’t the only person to have “evolved” on this issue. I think it’s horrible that couples were denied their fundamental rights while waiting for others to evolve, but I’m not sure it could actually have happened any other way. In an historical context, views on marriage equality and full citizenship for LGBT people changed in an instant. I think this was made possible by the efforts of brave LGBT people willing to risk their lives and livelihoods on taking the risk to demand equality, and for others like our president and civil rights champions of the past for creating an environment for the change to occur. Had Obama spoken the truth about what I suspect he believed about marriage equality in 2008, he may never have been President. Does anyone think that a President McCain would have made the same statement about his evolving understanding in the spring on 2012? The views of millions had to change, not just one man’s.

MWH: How has your sexual identity affected your politics in areas other than gay rights?

MK: When one is engaged in fighting for civil rights for one group, it is difficult not to see and fight against discrimination that is happening to others. I don’t think I can claim that it’s just because I’m gay that I fight for reproductive rights for women, labor rights, immigration reform and against continuing racism in our society, but I suspect that because I am personally aware of the consequences that flow from injustice, I may be more attuned to the challenges others face.

MWH: Where are we now and where do you think we’re going?

MK: Legally, marriage equality won and we now need to focus our efforts

242 Living History on employment non-discrimination and housing. We just can’t allow it to be that now that we are allowed to marry the one we love, that once word gets out that we could lose our jobs. We must also play defense against those who would use “religious freedom” as a shield for bigotry. Neither I, nor anyone I know, wants to prohibit people from believing what they want, but for those who hold themselves out to serving the public—in government or in business—they must respect the now legally recognized marriages between same-sex couples. What value is there to a having a right that isn’t respected by the rest of society?

MWH: How do you think electing more gay politicians would change North Carolina politics? Is there any concerted effort to do so, and has the environment improved for that to happen?

MK: I believe more openly gay elected officials would produce a better environment in the state, not only for LGBT people, but also for any group that has felt historical marginalization. The voices of those who have been previously left out of conversations certainly enhance the quality of policy making in a more inclusive way that more often than not ensures a better result freer of unintended consequences. Homogeneous groups, groups who share common experiences tend to be shortsighted when it comes to understanding how their policies affect those with different like experiences. An LGBT voice for example can more readily identify how policy decisions affect LGBT people. I did just that during conversations around how our town’s occupancy rules operate and in pushing for more inclusive anti-discrimination policies. There’s no direct effort to elect more LGBT people in North Carolina, but EqualityNC vets candidates at all levels regarding their openness to understanding how policies impact LGBT people. The actual effort is more casual. Those in elected office, like myself, do a lot to reach out and develop relationships with other LGBT candidates. Current office holders were brought together last year at a documentary film screening in Chapel Hill. We generally know each other and communicate with each other when issues involving the community arise in our various jurisdictions.

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Living History: Rosanell Eaton

In January 2014, Editor-in-Chief Maggie Howell conducted an interview with Mrs. Rosanell Eaton, a North Carolina native who was one of the first African Americans to vote in North Carolina and is famous for her long history as a civil rights and voting rights activist. The following article uses material from this interview to connect her activism in the past with her activism in the present, focusing especially on her efforts to ensure fair voting practices in North Carolina. This issue reemerged with the introduction of a new voter identification law in North Carolina that would prevent Eaton, whose name is spelled differently on separate forms of official documentation, from casting a ballot because it requires each voter present two forms of official identification with no discrepancies between them. This legislation passed in 2013 following the US Supreme Court’s ruling that the “coverage formula” of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is unconstitutional. This key component of the act had determined which states and/or counties within a state that once enforced Jim Crow laws must receive federal approval of any proposed legislation dealing with voting practices. This article explores these developments from Eaton’s unique perspective.

Rosanell Eaton, now 92 years old, was one of the first African Americans to register to vote in Franklin County, North Carolina. As the youngest child in her family she was not the first to register, however, as all of her siblings had registered before her. On that day in 1942, she found herself in front of three men who would determine whether or not she could vote. “These three men, they looked at me in amazement,” she recalled, “like, ‘What is she here for?’ I told them I came to register to vote.” At this time it was not commonplace for a young, African American woman to register to vote in Franklin County, North Carolina. “They looked at each other and said, ‘Well, what can we do? Alright, then.’” Eaton recalled that though these election official did not hassle her, “they were shocked.” She was told to stand against the wall in front of them, put her hands by her sides, and to look straight ahead at them without moving or looking about. They then asked her to recite her name and the Preamble of the US Constitution, 244 Living History which she performed “without skipping a word.” After she finished, the election officials announced in a surprised tone, “That was a good job, young lady,” turning then to her mother to say, “You ought to be proud of her.” Afterwards, officials wondered whether Eaton would be able to fill out the paperwork to become a registered voter, since the literacy rate was much lower at the time, especially among African Americans. As valedictorian of her high school class, this was not an issue for Eaton. She remembered the amazement of the men, noting, “I don’t think they really knew what was going on.” After her experience registering, Eaton wanted to make it easier for others to vote, so over many years she has helped with voting drives. Registering people to vote soon became a way of life for her: she said there has “never been a day” when she has not had registration forms in her car. According to Eaton, she kept count of those she helped register in the 1940s and 1950s, but she “stopped counting after 4000.” She also has ranged beyond her own county and state, helping to register individuals across the South and even in Ghana as a part of a delegation under North Carolina Governor Hunt’s administration. In Africa she spoke with Ghanaians about the importance of getting an education and what role it plays in making informed decisions as a voter. Eaton also took part in organizing the Great March on Washington in 1963, traveling from Franklin County, North Carolina to South Carolina before she and other activists returned to North Carolina, spending three days in each county registering people to vote and encouraging others to join the March. After making its way across the state, this large group of Carolinians, organized with the help of Eaton, traveled to the capital with thousands of other men and women to protest for “jobs and freedom.” Later she continued the work of the Civil Rights Movement by reorganizing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in South Carolina and organizing the Franklin and Vance Counties’ delegation of men for the Million Man March in 1995. Shortly after graduating high school, Eaton married. While raising her children, she completed a bachelor’s degree in Education, starting at Vance-Granville Community College with afternoon and night classes and later transferring to North Carolina Central University. At 92 years old Eaton still works as a substitute teacher at local schools. She believes in the

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importance of education and emphasizes the need for universal access to public education. Her mother did not go to college and Eaton worked hard to earn her degree, which she says would not have been possible without the public education system. She used to tell her students that becoming a teacher was always a good idea, but North Carolina Governor McCrory’s approach to funding public education has tempered this enthusiasm. Considering her long history of protesting, instances of violence against her and entanglements with the law seem inevitable. Though the Ku Klux Klan burned crosses in her yard and local residents stood in her yard taunting her, she was never physically hurt. Surprisingly, she was never arrested for protesting or for anything related to her activism until 2013 at a Moral Monday event in Raleigh. These “Moral Mondays” are a series of protests that began in 2013 in North Carolina in reaction to legislation proposed and enacted by the Republican government in the state. “Things are worse now than they were then,” she said about the climate for protest. Not only had she never been arrested until 2013, but she had never been to court. Now she is preparing to take on the state and fight the new voter identification legislation in court in the coming years. The lawsuit has yet to officially develop and Eaton is not at liberty to disclose many details. This NC voter ID legislation followed soon after the Supreme Court’s June 2013 ruling on the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Before this ruling, Franklin was one of the counties that required federal pre-clearance and stricter regulations on passing county-level legislation that dealt with voting. A few years earlier at a county meeting, it was proposed that council members sign off on a petition to the federal government to do away with this supervision. Eaton could not attend this meeting, so her daughter attended in her stead. Eaton said that while most people did not really know about the Voting Rights Act—what it meant and why it was put in place—her daughter did,,voicing her opinion at the meeting and leading the council to dismiss the petition. This only put things on hold for a few years, because in 2013 the Supreme Court ruled the “coverage formula” component of the Act unconstitutional, bringing to a halt much of the federal government’s regulatory oversight of voting. Quickly following this development in 2013, North Carolina passed new legislation that will, within the next few years, increase the steps citizens of the state must take in order to cast a ballot at a voting center, including the new requirement that voters must bring

246 Living History two forms of identification. Eaton claims that this new bill would not have passed if the Voting Rights Act had remained untouched. She said that she feels as though she is currently having to retrace the steps she made years ago in her fight for fair voting practices. In fact, she believes it seems even worse now because she sees and is experiencing a reversal of all the progress made by voting rights activists like herself over the past 70 years. To Eaton, where voters previously moved away from the exclusionary voting practices of Jim Crow, they now seem to favor exclusionary practices once again; it seems worse to Eaton because of the idea that “we should know better” after living many years in a state with limited suffrage. Eaton refers to the current protests in North Carolina as “the Movement,” which lends a sense of continuity to her efforts. She sees the current movement as a continuation of what she has been fighting for her whole life. “It’s been a struggle from the very beginning,” she said, “and it looks like it’s going to be even worse.” In the words that Eaton used at a Moral Monday protest in Raleigh, she is “fed up” and “fired up” with the realization that the progress to which she has devoted the greater part of her ninety-two years seems to be turning in on itself in the span of just a few years. The Movement continues, and therefore so does Rosanel Eaton.

Living History: Dr. Anne Queen

The following essay centers around excerpts from interviews with Dr. Anne Queen located in the Southern Oral History Program Archives at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Queen played an important role as an activist in North Carolina, fighting especially for fair labor practices. Her work made her an integral part of the university’s and the state’s progressive histories.

Born in 1911, Anne Queen dedicated much of her ninety-four years to realizing her vision of a better future for North Carolinians. Queen was a factory worker for ten years following high school, an experience that acquainted her with the life of the laborer in the midst of the Great Depression. During her employment at a paper mill in her hometown of Canton, North Carolina, the factory struggled to reconcile local and national interests. This served as

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the springboard for Queen’s lifelong pursuit of labor and civil rights reforms. Working in the paper mill brought home to Queen the need for a strong labor movement. Queen recalled that the mill had a “Mill Council,” which was “an effort to at least give the appearance of democratic process for workers.” Though workers sat on the council, the company ultimately controlled it. “I’m not quite sure at what point the awareness for the need of a union began to grow in the hearts and minds of people,” Queen said. “It just may be that it was as the competition for the paper industry began to grow and people had a deeper feeling of insecurity.” She also cited “the social legislation that was passed during the Roosevelt Administration” for impressing upon workers “that they do have a voice in their destiny.” As a result of New Deal legislation, she went from earning fourteen cents an hour and working nine hours a day, to forty cents an hour for no more than forty hours of work per week. After her ten years at the paper mill, Queen left North Carolina for Kentucky and earned a bachelor’s degree from Berea College, which was founded by the abolitionist John G. Fee in 1855. Berea became for her the scene of her “liberation as far as economic and racial justices are concerned.” She followed her undergraduate education with a divinity degree from Yale University Divinity School in 1948, and then moved back down south, serving three years as Assistant University Chaplain at the University of Georgia. As with many figures from North Carolina in reform movements, religion played a key role in her life and activism. Queen believed in the “necessity for a social implication of the faith,” seeing faith and activism as inextricably linked. Queen returned to North Carolina and for five years held the position of college secretary for the American Friends Service Committee in Greensboro, a Quaker organization that helps to establish peace in communities around the world. She then moved to Chapel Hill and became associate director of the YWCA at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1956. Eight years later she became director of the university’s newly merged YMCA-YWCA. She remained the director for nearly two decades, ultimately retiring in 1975. According to Queen, a primary goal of her service as director during her nineteen years there “was to keep the administration informed in a way that the Y would be free to do the things that it really must do if it in any sense serves as a conscience on campus.” And indeed, it served as the

248 Living History campus conscience during a critical time for the civil rights movement. Perhaps the most memorable event during her tenure as director was the Food Workers’ Strikes of 1969 at the university, as the majority black dining hall workers joined UNC-Chapel Hill students and Queen to fight against unfair labor practices stemming from institutionalized racial inequality. Queen noted that though there had been Human Relations Committees in Chapel Hill before, the strike led to the creation by ordinance of a Human Relations Commission that recorded for “the first time, on paper, what their grievances were.” The state government became involved, as it did with other strikes occurring around that time at Duke University and NC A&T. Queen did what she could to keep the state authorities out of the negotiations, realizing the damage it would cause to the movement if Governor Bob Scott made decisions about how things were to proceed. She eventually took this concern directly to university officials. “I remember talking with President Friday and Dr. Jones one night,” she recalled, “and saying that if they could possibly persuade the governor to allow Lenoir [Dining Hall] to be closed until we could have the first session … between the administration and the workers.” She knew such an approach would “really help to set a climate that would at least move in the direction of trust.” The governor refused. Queen called this “the saddest moment in my experience here at the university.” She had to witness Highway Patrol officers “with their guns and their uniforms ... patrolling the picket lines. And keeping Lenoir open.” As Queen recalled, “With the Highway Patrol on campus, and the issue not resolved, it very rapidly became more than just a local issue.” During this time, Queen and UNC-Chapel Hill students took trips to the state legislature to impress upon members “that there really [was] an issue of justice at stake here.” The workers ended up receiving higher wages as an outcome of these efforts. The North Carolina Speaker Ban Law also came into effect during Queen’s time at the Campus Y. The General Assembly enacted this Cold War-era law in 1963 and it stayed in effect for five years. The law forbade any communist or person suspected of having communist or anti-Constitutional ties or sentiments from speaking on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. Queen and many students and faculty were disturbed by the legislation, which infringed upon citizens’ right to free speech and discouraged intellectual diversity. “I think the one thing about the Speaker Ban crisis that I was

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grateful for is that there were more people who came to the defense of the university than I think many people thought might,” she said. “I think that was the most serious threat to the freedom of the university of anything that happened” up to that point. During her time at the university, Queen helped establish the Upward Bound program, which serves low-income, prospective first-generation college students from North Carolina through after-school tutoring, workshops at the university, test preparation, academic advising, financial planning, and internship opportunities. She also became very involved in efforts to integrate the Chapel Hill school system. With such a background, Queen is an ideal person to reflect on the myth of North Carolina as the “most progressive Southern state.” After lamenting efforts in North Carolina and the South to “block the organization of labor,” she offered some caveats to the state’s “progressive” image. “I think that we have to be very careful about any kind of sentimental judgments about the progressiveness of the state,” she said. “I believe that this judgment is made partly because of the kind of the press we’ve had and the issues that the press has dealt with in times of crisis and because of the influence of Frank Graham and other people, most of whom were his associates in the South.” She concluded, “I really do think, and this is no lack of appreciation on my part for the state, that North Carolina has often times been applauded unjustifiably in terms of how progressive it is.” Anne Queen died in Canton in 2005.

Living History: Isabella Cannon

The following segment condenses two interviews with Isabella Cannon, the first female mayor of a capital city in the United States, who served as the mayor of Raleigh, NC, from 1977 to 1979. The interviews were conducted by Kathy Nasstrom in 1989 and Jim Clark in 1993. This synthesis focuses on Cannon’s background in politics, the church, and the civil rights movement, as well as her experience as a woman in an elected position. Cannon died at the age of 97 in 2002.

Born in Dunfermline, Scotland, Isabella Cannon moved with her family to

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Isabella Cannon in 1978. (Photo courtesy of Belkarchives.)

the United States in 1916. She received a B.A. in English and Science from Elon University in 1924. From 1947 to 1954, she traveled with her husband Claude to Liberia, West Africa, and to Iraq as an interviewer for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. This experience later guided her participation in the emerging civil rights movement back home. Though she grew up in Scotland in an area where she never saw a black person, she noted, “That doesn’t necessarily mean you grow up without prejudice.” Ironically, living in Liberia for many years meant that, she said, “Frequently I would be the only white person in a gathering of blacks.” Soon after these travels for the United Nations, and largely through the auspices of her church, she became a participant in the civil rights and peace movements. She was a “very active member of the United Church of Christ,” which figured prominently in the civil rights movement. For several years she served on the church committee that helped bring speakers to Raleigh. Along with Martin Luther King, Jr., and Eleanor Roosevelt, they invited Norman Thomas, the six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. According to Cannon, this “was a shock to some people.” Beyond hosting key figures in the movement, the church frequently held integrated events. “We were leaders for the very first time in having dinners where black and white could sit down and eat together,” she said.

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“We had a dinner every week, which created a great deal of concern in some areas in Raleigh.” She also actively participated in civil rights marches, “particularly when ... trying to integrate the lunch rooms at Woolworth’s.” She felt strongly about her role, noting that she “had absolutely no hesitation about being involved in that.” The United Church of Christ arguably played the largest role in Cannon’s activism. As someone who came from a small town, she said, “The church opened my eyes to what could be done, not only in a civil rights movement, but in community activism.” She said it “was like a door opening.” Through her own experiences, Cannon saw how influential churches were in the civil rights movement. Religion was the cornerstone of social and political life in North Carolina and across the south at that time, and many congregations used their constitutional right to assembly through their places of worship to promote equality before the law, basing such progressivism on their interpretation of the Bible, which they felt preached the equality of all people before God. Her own church, Cannon said, “was far from being the normal Sunday School group. It was a group that explored every aspect of life—political, humanitarian, economic.” In the church Cannon met five other people with whom she formed Raleigh’s Integrated Church Housing (RICH), which provided affordable low-income housing for blacks and whites in the city. “We were the earliest ones, insofar as I know, talking about integration in Raleigh,” she said. “We were such an unusual church, and so visible that newspapers and radio were always picking us up and commenting on us.” One of the radio commentators who often criticized her church was Jesse Helms, who held a position with a local radio station before his long career in North Carolina politics. In taped recordings of his comments archived by the United Church of Christ, Helms referred to them as “eggheads” and “communists.” According to Cannon, his comments made them out to be “really dangerous people.” Throughout her involvement in the civil rights movement, Cannon worked as director of the library at North Carolina State University. When she retired in 1970, she looked “for things to be involved in.” Already a volunteer with the Democratic Party, she dedicated even more time to its activities, particularly at the precinct level and with the Citizen’s Advisory Council, which promoted direct citizen involvement. Members would go

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“down to City Hall saying ‘these are things that we should be doing, these are things we should not be doing.’” Eventually, Cannon chaired the council. During her first visit to City Hall she was “terrified at seeing ... people sitting up there like a group of judges with all sorts of power,” but then she realized “that they were people just like me.” This realization informed her behavior as mayor, when she would tell people, “Remember, we’re your neighbors. We’re just people like you.” In the mid-1970s, Cannon began organizing a campaign to run for the position of mayor in the state’s capital city, Raleigh. Her campaign ran on small contributions, like “the newspaper boy bringing me one dollar ... $10 here, $25 here,” and the “very, very, rare $100.” She decided to run for mayor because of minimal government regulation that allowed mass commercial development in the city. Cannon recalled that “any developer, anybody wanting to make money, anybody wanting to re-zone, could go down to City Hall and the City Code ... was out-of-date. It was not being helpful in controlling the growth of Raleigh.” She was often criticized for being against growth, but claims she “never took that position,” but only “wanted to guide and control the growth, and the former Mayor, whom I ran against, was a developer and very opposed to anything that would control the growth of Raleigh.” Her campaign came up with a plan that legislators have relied on ever since as the blueprint for handling development, which “is still quoted as if it were the Bible.” Cannon made national news when, at the age of 73, she defeated the incumbent to become the first female mayor of a capital city in the nation. “It never occurred to me as anything historic when I did it,” she said. “I was just a furious, angry citizen, and I wanted to see something done…. So the identification as a woman or an older citizen was not there in my thinking at that time.” Though she did not run with her gender in mind, others paid more attention to it than her campaign, and once elected, she could not escape the impact it had on the work of the City Council. There was but one other woman on the council, Miriam Block. “Frequently, Miriam would support me in the voting,” she said. “Often the vote was six to two,” with the six men voting against the two women. Cannon’s proposal that women should be able to be firefighters in the city drew special fire. According to Cannon, men arrayed the usual arguments against the idea: “Women are too slight in stature. They cannot

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handle a limp body, getting somebody out of a six story window.” But she fought for the proposal, and women became firefighters in Raleigh. As a woman having no previous City Council experience, Cannon was not a part of the “good old boy” network. This caused problems in her work, especially when it came to communication. “One of the most visible evidences of that would be that news releases would be given to the newspapers, and I would not get them,” she said:

A reporter would come into my office: ‘Mayor Cannon, I’d like your comment on this recent release.’ ‘What release? I haven’t seen it?’ ‘Well, I’ve just gotten it from one office or another,’ normally the City Manager’s office. So I’d call or I’d ask, and I’d go along sometimes so angry I’d go barreling down the hall, and say, ‘Why have I not seen this release?’ ‘Oh, you didn’t get it? Oh, there’s a mistake. Isabella Cannon. It’s on its way to you.’ Well, it happened (Photo courtesy of Elon College.) too often for that to be.

Following her tenure as mayor, she spoke out about the need for more “affirmative action” to increase the presence of women in state and city government, especially in top positions. When women do get hired, they get what she calls the “A Train: the ‘Assistant,’ the ‘Acting,’ the ‘Associate.’” “We are still not giving full credit to the abilities of women,” she said, realizing, especially from her own experiences as both a mayor and an activist, that the fight for civil rights has yet to end.

Transcripts and audio files for both interviews are provided by the Southern Oral History Program and can be found at http://sohp.org.

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Interview with Dr. Christopher Browning, Frank Porter Graham Professor Emeritus, UNC-Chapel Hill History Department

Holocaust historian Christopher Browning, who has taught at UNC-Chapel Hill since 1999, retired at the end of the Spring 2014 semester. Browning is the author of seminal works on the Nazi regime and the Holocaust, including Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution In Poland (1992); Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers (2000); The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, 1939-March 1942 (2004); and Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave-Labor Camp (2010). He is also known for his role in heated debates with Daniel Goldhagen, author of Hitler’s Willing Executioners, over perpetrator motivation, and as an expert witness in Holocaust-related trials, especially the infamous “Holocaust denial” trial involving historian David Irving. On April 16, 2014, Derek Holmgren spoke with Dr. Browning about his distinguished career and the development of Holocaust studies over the past fifty years. Holmgren is a Ph.D. candidate at UNC-Chapel Hill who is working on a dissertation concerning refugee resettlement in West Germany following World War II.

Derek Holmgren: I’d like to start by asking you to speak a bit about your background and what initially led you to become an historian.

Christopher Browning: I guess I would start by saying that I went to college in 1962 thinking that I was going into political science. I took my first GOV 1 course and I decided, no, that didn’t suit. Then I basically dropped out of school after one year because I had an extraordinary opportunity. My father taught philosophy at Northwestern University, and he had what was called the Ford Globalizing Grant for internationalizing the curriculum. He taught comparative philosophy, so he was going to be in different places around the world. My mother suggested that my brother and I should drop out of school for a year and travel around and pass by and visit him on the way. Basically we kind of bummed around the world for twelve or thirteen

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months. I traveled all around the world, mostly hitchhiking. I think that I spent less than 1,500 dollars. The dollar was very strong then. One could travel poorly but well at that age. The important thing is that as we went, we would buy different books, read them, and discard them, because you couldn’t carry too much in your backpack. Increasingly, what was it that I wanted to read on this trip? I wanted to know what happened in this country and what happened in that country. Why is it the way it is? It was at that point that I became more interested in history than in current politics. By the time I was done with that year and was returning to college, I assumed I would be a history major. I took my first Western Civ course, loved it, and it was a done deal.

DH: Why did you decide to pursue history as a profession?

CB: My father was in academia, so it was the family business. Back then, as now, the most interesting thing that you can do with a history major is to teach and write history. I also went to Oberlin College, which as an undergraduate school produces a higher percentage of graduates who go on to Ph.D.s than any other school in the country. So it was not unusual in that atmosphere. If you did well in your major then the best thing that the best students in their major would do was go on and be the next generation. That was just the ethos of the college. So it was a combination of 1) I really liked history, 2) my father had done this as a profession and I saw it had lots of advantages, and 3) that was simply part of the college that I went to and this was considered a normal thing to do with your history major. I would say that I never agonized over it. It seemed like the natural thing to do. So I applied to various graduate schools and off I went.

DH: You went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison during a famous period in the history of that institution. Could speak a bit about what it was like to be doing history at Madison at that time and what was influential for you in terms of your development there?

CB: I went to Madison in part because it had this cluster of people doing stuff in areas I was interested in. I actually started in French diplomatic history. I did my masters on the disarmament policy of French Premier Eduard Herriot at the Geneva Disarmament Conference in 1932, sort of the last diplomacy before Hitler came to power. One reason I chose Madison 256 Living History

Christopher Browning.

was because there would be so many good people to work with. My advisor was Robert Koehl, who was an expert on the SS and in diplomatic history. Ted Hammerow, who did everything up to 1933. At that point he stopped teaching because he said that after 1933 nothing made much sense. Later he became more interested in the post-1933 period, but back then he would have nothing to do with German history after 1933. Of course George Mosse was there. Ed Gargan was there in French history, whom we knew as a family friend because he was teaching at Loyola in Chicago before he went to Madison. There was a whole cluster of people. Whatever way I went, I knew there was someone I could work with.

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Then the year I started, 1967-68, was a crucial year for the campus and for American history. In terms of my life, this was the point at which Johnson revoked deferments for graduate students who had started that year. Anybody in school before that was grandfathered in with a student deferment. My class was told, “one and done.” You could continue this year and after that you don’t get a new graduate student deferment. That was also the year of the primary when Eugene McCarthy ran against Lyndon Johnson. I was campaigning in that. Then a night or two before the primary, Johnson withdrew and announced he wasn’t in fact running again. Shortly after that, you had the assassinations of King and then Bobby Kennedy. Then of course in the summer the members of the Warsaw Pact marched into Czechoslovakia, then there was the Democratic Convention. This was the most chaotic year. It started with the Tet Offensive and it ended with the Democratic Convention and the election of Richard Nixon. Speaking of an absolutely crazy, chaotic year to live through, that was 1968. Fortunately for me, my draft board was giving teaching deferments in the Chicago area, so I was back in Chicago taking education courses in the middle of the Democratic Convention. Everyone was out having exciting, historic times while I am sitting there taking these dinky education classes hoping that I can get a teaching job before I get sent to Vietnam. Two weeks before my deferment expired, I got a job at St. John’s Military Academy halfway between Milwaukee and Madison, a private school. I had finished my masters in July and went on to do the education courses in August. So I got a job and was spared the draft. To show how different the job market was: in the ’60s they were hiring people who were ABD, and if you got your dissertation done, you got tenure. They had a huge shortage, because there was a massive expansion. With one year of graduate school, a master’s degree, and one year of high school teaching, I was hired as an instructor of history at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania after two other people had turned them down. I taught there for two years until I was beyond draft age. But, crucially, in addition to teaching all sorts of Western Civ, they said, “We have this course in German history that hasn’t been taught in a long time. Could you possibly teach German history?” To which I said yes. I had one German history course when I was an undergraduate. I wrote to a number of my professors and said, “Help, who do I read now?” One of

258 Living History them wrote back and said, “Well, Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem is ‘good for discussion.’” I had read Origins of Totalitarianism, which wasn’t good for undergraduate discussion but an important book. But I hadn’t read Eichmann in Jerusalem. Nor had I even heard of the huge controversy when it came it out, because of her attacks on the Eichmann trial as a showcase trial, attacks on Ben-Gurion, attacks on how the prosecution put it together, and of course her attack on the Jewish leadership during the Holocaust. I was totally unaware. I got the book, but what really fascinated me was the subtitle, which was the crux of the book, studying the “banality of evil.” In the middle of the Vietnam War, when the people I had campaigned for in ’64 had gotten us into this horrific war within four years, I was fascinated by this notion of how seemingly ordinary duty-abiding citizens and civil servants do these sorts of things. So that part of the book had a huge resonance with me. Arendt occasionally acknowledged that she got much of her information from Raul Hilberg, whom she both used and misused, but she seldom mentioned Hilberg, whom I had never heard of before. So, I ordered Hilberg’s book not knowing what it would look like. It came in this first edition, 870 pages, double columns, miniscule print, thousands of footnotes, and I was going to be teaching college courses with one year of graduate school behind me. So, I’m going to read this? I literally threw the book on the table next to my bed and said, “Well, maybe sometime.” Then I became seriously ill. I had a severe case of mononucleosis in which the virus went into the pancreas, and I had mono-induced jaundice and hepatitis. I was bedridden for a month. When I felt well enough to read, the only book I could reach without getting out of bed was Raul Hilberg’s The Destruction of the European Jews. I picked it up, started to read, mesmerized, and couldn’t put it down. I read it cover to cover. If some people have a religious conversion experience, I had an academic conversion experience. There is no other word that would quite be adequate for it. So, now I was really excited about getting back to graduate school and doing something in this area. I went back and talked to my advisor. It was really more appropriate for me to work with my advisor in this area, because Koehl did work on the SS, and I explained that—though we didn’t use the word “Holocaust”—I would like to do something on the Nazi persecution of Jews. Because I had previously done work in diplomatic history, I said that

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one topic I had been thinking of was the Jewish Desk of the German Foreign Office and Eichmann as the liaison to the SS. His response was, “Well, that is a very good dissertation topic, but keep in mind that has no professional future,” which in 1969-70 was perfectly accurate. There were no such courses taught at any American university. Hilberg didn’t teach his first Holocaust course until 1972. Aside from Yad Vashem Studies, which appeared once a year, there were no academic publications in the world in which you could publish. Aside from this teeny little conference called “The Church Struggle and the Holocaust” that Franklin Littell had just started in 1970, which was mainly Church historians, there was absolutely no conference at which you had any standing with this topic. So in terms of something having the infrastructure that gives it legitimacy as an academic subfield, the Holocaust did not exist. Fortunately for me, Koehl then said, “But if that’s what you really want to do, then you should do it anyway, because there’s no fate worse than to spend five years writing a dissertation if your heart’s not in it. That’s a death sentence.” He was actually very supportive. It turned out that George Mosse was fascinated by this topic and was heading in that direction himself. This was when he was getting increasingly into his work on fascism and racism. So, there were people there who were very supportive and helpful. When I finished there were two issues confronting me. One, the Holocaust as a field of research had not yet made its breakthrough. But the job market had collapsed totally. The University of Wisconsin, between Hammerow and Koehl, had many German historians on the job market. I think we had fourteen people on the job market. Two of us got jobs. It was just horrific, because these people were in the pipeline and the bottom dropped out. They were caught in midstream. There was just never again going to be a situation in which you could accommodate that number of people who had already come into the pipeline but weren’t out yet or were just coming out by the mid-1970s. When I went to Allegheny in 1969, I went with one year of graduate school, a master’s degree, and a year of teaching high school. Two years later I was replaced by Gordon Craig’s number one student, Ph.D. in hand from Stanford. You want to talk about a change in the job market!

DH: It must have been a shock for him, too, that he was getting the Allegheny position rather than something better. 260 Living History

CB: Yes, but at least he had a job. Most of the people I went to graduate school with didn’t get jobs. We were a decimated generation, and it was the case that when I went in, they were worried about how they would ever produce enough Ph.D.s to fill the positions we needed, and when I left, there were no positions and all of these people with no place to go. So, fortunately, I was one of the two of fourteen who got a job, at Pacific Lutheran University. And I started teaching a course on the Holocaust there during the first year. My first worry was that the beginning of the class was going to deal with the long history of anti-Semitism. Martin Luther was going to come up rather quickly, and here I was what was euphemistically referred to as one of the “unchurched faculty.” How much slack would I have to take on this topic? Fortunately for me, Roland Bainton, the famous Luther biographer from Yale, came in the fall before I taught my course, and someone from the religion department got up at the end of his talk and asked, “What can you say about Luther’s tracts against the Jews?” And Bainton said without batting an eye, “One of the greatest tragedies of Martin Luther’s life was that he didn’t die ten years earlier.” So, I had cover. It was out there and admitted that it was a terrible thing that he had done. After that, I felt better. I wasn’t risking myself by delving into those areas. The department and the university were supportive of teaching that course. So, it was one of the first courses taught in American schools and probably one of the first that had no Jewish students in it most years. Once in a while we would have one, but often I taught a Holocaust course without any Jewish students in it. Jewish students don’t flock to Pacific Lutheran University, for fairly obvious reasons. I was developing that course in a very strange atmosphere, but one which worked out just fine.

DH: Why do you think students were taking that class?

CB: For the same reason as today. Partly they understand that this was a significant event, but it’s kind of an eerie event and they don’t quite understand why it’s so historically significant. They know it happened, and they know that the fact that it happened is important, but they want to be able to say something more that. Some people take it because they like German history and they think they are going to get Panzers, which is the same reason some people take modern German history today. Some people take it because they come out of a Jewish background. This was just part of

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their family history. They assumed they knew everything there was to know about it, and it would be an easy course to take. They often were disabused of that. In general, I think that by the 1970s, the age of innocence was over. American textbooks in the 1950s or 1960s for Western Civ taught about the rise of the West, the history of progress. It was up, up, and away. Things were always getting better. The West was leading the rest of the world in becoming ever more civilized. I think that certainly Vietnam was a huge shock to that system in the United States, and you had another generation that was growing up in what amounted to a post-Hiroshima, post-Auschwitz world. Older faculty, particularly those who had been educated before World War II, could never wrap their minds around it. It just didn’t fit with how they understood European history. The Holocaust remained an aberration. When I took my course in German history at Oberlin College, we had a wonderful lecturer. He had a unit on the Nazi period, but we had one day of lecture that was called the “SS State” that was basically about the concentration camp system and the SS, but I don’t think there was a word about the Holocaust. I took a seminar on fascism and we did various things, but the only book we read on anti-Semitism and fascism was Jean-Paul Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew, a little theoretical book, but nothing about the real history of Nazi racism. Fascism was still interpreted in the old social history ways: Who voted for them? Who was in it? What could we deduce about fascism depending on who supported it? The notion of a racial revolution being at the core of National Socialism was just nowhere to be found, and the Holocaust likewise was seen as Hitler’s irrational side but not the important thing. That all began to develop in the 1970s. A lot of things began to come together. One, you had the NBC docudrama on the Holocaust, though of course the makers respond to what they think is a market. They don’t path-find. You had the Holtzman legislation that finally created the Office of Special Investigations to hunt for Nazi criminals who had been let into the country. You had Jimmy Carter, who created the Holocaust Commission, probably thinking that he was going to get a monument, and they came back with the proposal for a museum. You also had the first conferences going on. There was a series of conferences in the late 1970s on the academic side that were put on in San Jose of all places. There was a very helpful woman there who ran the local chapter of the Conference on Christians

262 Living History and Jews. There was funding, and several people worked with her to bring in international people. So, the first two big American conferences on the Holocaust were in 1977 and 1978. There had been one in New York in 1975 on Isaiah Trunk’s book on the Judenrat, so basically within three years you had three international conferences on the Holocaust, whereas before there hadn’t been any academic standing at all. All of that signaled that a real change was taking place. In the 1980s there was growing interest. By the late 1980s, the Holocaust Education Foundation, as a focus of its own program, was beginning to encourage and enable faculty who wanted to prepare and offer courses on the Holocaust at various schools. I think a real key insight of the man who founded that organization, a man named Setah Zev Weiss, was that we didn’t need another monument or another eternal flame. If you really wanted to shape American popular culture and American consciousness, you had to penetrate the undergraduate curriculum in American higher education. This led to a fairly important wave of finding people school by school who were interested in doing it. Usually it was German historians, not people in Jewish Studies. If they needed books for the library, you gave them a grant for that. If they needed a summer of study, then you provide that. If they needed release time, they paid for that. It was seed money to enable people to do it. Peter Hayes at Northwestern and I were the two closest advisors in terms of who would be amenable to this and getting it going. There was this extraordinary growth in the teaching of the Holocaust at the undergraduate level. However, there was no change at the graduate level. You had a few places that had funded the creation of endowed Holocaust chairs—for instance the 39 Club Chair at UCLA that Saul Friedländer held—and there a couple of others not at major universities. It wasn’t until UNC-CH hired me in 1999 that any American research university used a regular, preexisting slot in German history to hire someone with a Holocaust specialty. Omer Bartov, the following year at Brown, and I were the first two who took over what had been traditional German history slots, but came with a specialization in the Holocaust.

DH: Why was there such a lag?

CB: Well, of course, until you have it being taught to undergraduates, there’s

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no demand for it. Once it’s clear that on the job market that doing German history and the Holocaust is a very attractive combination, then people think, “How do we prepare?” Then it has legitimacy at the graduate level. So, I think you had to work from self-starters to begin to get a penetration of the undergraduate level. And the last domino to fall will be at the graduate level, where it is realized that this is really a significant, substantial subfield, a legitimate part of teaching modern European history, of training people at the graduate level in this specialization as part of modern German history, part of modern European history.

DH: Do you think that today’s students, when they are coming into these courses, have a much different consciousness of Holocaust history than when you look back to the early ’80s when you were teaching at Pacific Lutheran University?

CB: Some of them have had a high school unit. There are many states now that have a recommended unit and a few states have a “mandated” unit, but that doesn’t change much, because it means we have a week or two weeks here at the high school. That is fairly cursory, just as any aspect of history beyond American history is really quite limited in terms of what kind of depth they are getting at. But it does mean that when they see it in the catalogue, they don’t have any question about what it is or why it is being taught.

DH: While you were teaching at Pacific Lutheran, it seems that you had a chance to re-explore the issue of how ordinary people become mass killers. Could you talk through the origins of Ordinary Men as a project?

CB: When I did my dissertation it was an institutional study of the German foreign office. But it was also a little collective biography in the sense that I was looking at the five or six key individuals involved. I had discussed the history of each and talked about their differences, how some were quite gung-ho and some were somewhat reticent, and the ways in which they participated. Hilberg has this wonderful overarching framework of the Holocaust as an administrative, bureaucratic process. But he isn’t as interested in the motives and differences in personality and what may drive the players he talking about. He has his categories: the armed forces, the industrialists, the party, the bureaucracy. When I wrote my dissertation, 264 Living History

Christopher Browning.

after it was rejected at one press another press sent it to Hilberg and he wrote back very excited, very positive, but said that motivation is a tricky thing and you may want to be careful here. He was not urging me to develop that side of it and was, in fact, cautioning me that I should back off of it. But that’s what fascinated me. I wanted to get at this interaction between real people, real faces, real human agents. What was the human agency? What were the motives? What were the possibilities not to have participated? So, I was always looking from that point on for where were the points at which people said no or asked to get out, who somehow didn’t go along, as well as the people who did. In the course of the ’80s I did a number of studies that didn’t go beyond the article length. I looked at the ghetto managers in Poland, in Warsaw and Lodz in particular. I looked at the military administration in the occupation of Serbia, the motor pool designers of the gas van, the scientists and officials who were involved. So, I was looking at the public health doctors in Poland who were supporting ghettoization as a medical quarantine when it was guaranteed to cause the very epidemics that they were allegedly trying to prevent. What is the thought process and the assumptions that would cause someone to do something so obviously counterproductive? So there was a whole series of groups of participants that I was looking at.

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Then in 1986 I went to Germany, to Ludwigsburg, and was working on the bigger project for Yad Vashem that became Origins of the Final Solution. I was going through all of the indictments or judgments of each case that was from Poland. One way that I was going make my book different from Hilberg’s was that it was going to be chronological. He was looking at structures and I wanted to look at processes. Secondly, it was going to be much more centered on Poland in the early years of German occupation as crucial for understanding the origins of what’s going on in Poland later. Half of the victims were from Poland, but a fraction of the documents were from Poland. That is, Poland is vastly under-documented compared to its importance. So, I was going to fill those gaps by going through the judicial records. And it was that summer that I read two cases that absolutely arrested me. One was the Reserve Police Battalion 101 case when Major Trapp gives his speech in which he offers his men the option of opting out of the killing, and the other was the Starachowice case where the judgment was just this travesty of justice that was so breathtaking that you can say that you will never forget this. Fortunately, I worked Battalion 101 first. That meant going to Hamburg and working in the actual court records sometime later. But it came about because I was always ready for and anxious to see cases where people had choice. When I saw that testimony, which was quoted at some length in the judgment, about Trapp giving the speech and then ending it up with, “Those of you who don’t feel up to it, please step out,” that was just a “Eureka!” moment in research. Here was a case that was absolutely pivotal. You have the killers in the field, sitting there holding their rifles, minutes before they are going to shoot, being offered the possibility of not doing it, and a handful of them taking up the offer. It was something I was primed to find. I wasn’t looking for it, but I was on the alert for that sort of thing if I got a hit. So, I saw it and grabbed it and ran with it. It was something I had been waiting a long time to find. Though there’s no way to target a search. It has to fall into your lap at some point when you are doing something else. In a sense, two of my books just came about by going through that summer looking for things about Poland that were exceptionally interesting, and both of them turned out to be quite key. Once I started reading all of the testimonies and putting the manuscript together, the importance of it and the significance of it—Who were these people? What were their backgrounds? What were their average ages?—I

266 Living History didn’t know any of that when I read the indictment. I just knew that we had a case of choice. Who was making the choice, and who it was being offered to, and the nature of the battalion, that of course came later with the research. The last thing that came was the title. My publisher and I struggled a long time when it came to the title, Ordinary Men, which seems so obvious now. When you get the right title, it seems so self-evident. How could you not have known? Titles do take a lot of work and a lot of back and forth, but it turned out just right. That was the last thing done.

DH: One of the interesting things in Ordinary Men is that you incorporate social science research into the question of choice. Was that something that you came to as you were writing? Was it something that you were already aware of being out there?

CB: Quite the opposite. I wrote all of the other chapters first but needed a conclusion. The second-to-last chapter is the one on mutual perceptions, the Polish-Jewish-German triangle. I said, “That’s not the end of the book. What kind of conclusion do I need?” That’s when I started to delve into the literature. The text of the book was written without that literature, but when I came to it, it seemed so applicable and so insightful to help me understand what I had just written and understand the dynamics of it. I had already written about the battalion breaking into these three groups before reading about Philip Zimbardo’s prison experiment. Then I read Zimbardo, and it was there. He had exactly the same tripartite division of perpetrator stuff. I think that was important. It didn’t shape what I was looking for, but confirmed what I found and helped give me a vocabulary beyond history to explain to others what I had found. It didn’t help me write the text, but it helped me sum it up and explain it in a different vocabulary using different disciplinary language.

DH: That’s really interesting, especially because you were criticized for having brought these in. Which then of course brings us to Daniel Goldhagen, which I think is something we have to talk about in terms of your career. Two starting thoughts might be: one, how the controversy affected your own career, and, two, looking back twenty years later, what do you think that was all about?

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career. I had written Ordinary Men in 1992. I should go back, because the encounter began before then. I went to Hamburg in May of 1989 and spent the month in the office of the head of the NS investigations. She helped me Xerox everything I wanted, so I could go through everything quickly. The before day I left, she said, “Do you know a Daniel Goldhagen?” Well, I had known his father, Eric Goldhagen, and I had read his review of Arno Mayer’s Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? Here was a young graduate student who had trashed Arno Mayer quite viciously. So, I said, “Well, I’ve heard of him.” And she said, “Oh, well, he’s coming.” Hamburg was a major center of National Socialist trials. There were hundreds of trials. When she said that he was coming, I had no idea that she meant to say that he is coming to look at the same things you’ve looked at. That didn’t cause any alarm. The Holocaust Educational Foundation was having its first “Lessons and Legacies” conference in the fall of 1989, and Peter Hayes invited me to come and give a paper. I said that I had something I am working on right now that I would love to do. It was “Initiation to Massacre: One Day at Jozefow,” the first chapter I wrote. It was a small conference then. You invited people and circulated papers ahead of time, so it was a very intimate conference. The night before at the opening cocktail party, a young man came up to me and said, “Hello, my name is Daniel Goldhagen, and you scooped me.” So, I thought, I knew what Daniel Goldhagen was coming to Hamburg for and he thinks he owns this material. I figured it wasn’t going to be the last time I heard from him. Ordinary Men came out and had positive reviews except for Goldhagen’s in the New Republic. He wrote the one negative review. We had an exchange at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum at its first conference in December 1993 after his review came out. He was a commentator on a panel I was on, so I changed my paper to be a rebuttal of his review, and he commented on my rebuttal of his review. So, we had our first go-around. Then in 1996 his book came out. What was stunning for academics was this non-stop publicity. You couldn’t turn on the radio or the TV in the morning without it on some talk show or radio show, an absolute non-stop publicity blitz the likes of which I had never seen before or since. So many of these people were just getting a blurb sheet from Goldhagen about what was so important about his book and asking him softball questions that he would then proceed to bat out of the park. He was being lionized, and it was being accepted at face value that

268 Living History he had revolutionized Holocaust studies in terms of his great new discovery. That was the spring that I was a visiting scholar at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. That was also the spring when part of his publicity material said that his book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, was going to be the subject of a major international conference. What they then had to do was deliver on that. They went to the museum and said they wanted to have an international conference and we want to invite Richard von Weiszäcker, Günter Grass, and Jürgen Habermas, who were supposed to come worship at the feet of the new genius. The museum said that they don’t throw conferences to push books, but they did have a night when people present books, and he could do that. They made something bigger on one night: Goldhagen would speak and then there would be two panels of commentators. I assume there was some negotiation as to who would be the four panelists. Two scholars were already at the museum, me and Konrad Kwiet. Given that I was often mentioned in the footnotes of the book in an uncomplimentary way, it was self-evident that I should be there. The museum said that our two scholars should be on it, so the question was whom they would invite. They invited Yehuda Bauer, and then they had a German scholar, Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, who had written a book in 1979/1980 on the Einsatzgruppen. It was a very good book, but he kind of fell off the ledge the rest of his career, never quite developed. I think they thought he was in a no-win position. If he attacks the book, it proves the Germans still haven’t learned, and if he agrees with the book, even the Germans say yes. A win-win. What they didn’t know was that he was going to be incoherent. So, the conference started and Goldhagen talked for a long time. He was supposed to talk half an hour, but he talked for 45 or 50 minutes. The first panel gave their response, and Yehuda Bauer led off. I think that they assumed an Israeli would be very supportive, and I think they were just stunned when Yehuda Bauer ripped the book. The more Yehuda got warmed up, the more he ripped it. I think one could say that he went too far and that he got very into it. Then Konrad Kwiet came, and Konrad attacked Goldhagen. They had filled the big auditorium. They had a screen up in the small auditorium. This was a packed house event and I think they all thought that they were coming to celebrate the new hero of Holocaust studies, and the audience was stunned. They didn’t know what to make of this. What was going on? Then they had question period between the two panels. As often,

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the museum question time is a disaster, because people get up and make totally nonsensical statements and speeches that have nothing to do with anything that is going on. It was one of the worst of that kind that I had seen. There was a whole series of irrelevant comments. At the very end they took one more question, and a member of one of the universities in the DC area got up and said how disappointed he was. He had asked his graduate students to come to see an important academic discussion and what he had seen was jealous old men dumping on a newcomer, protecting their turf. Suddenly in the audience there was a reaction like, “Ooh, that is what this is about. This is the framing. Now I understand.” About two-thirds of the audience erupted into applause and one third sat on their hands in total discomfort at what had happened, and I had to get up and talk next. When I got up, it was a very hostile audience. For the first paragraph you could hear this sort of hiss in the crowd, that kind of apprehensive atmosphere. Fortunately, unlike Yehuda and Konrad, who had been quite aggressive, I was attacking his book but it was aimed in a much more careful way. So there was nothing in it that could be viewed as inflammatory. Very soon the crowd settled down. But at the beginning I was fairly aware that this was not a friendly audience. Then after me Wilhelm came up and was completely incoherent. Nobody knew what he was talking about. He talked for half an hour, and finally Richard Breitman had to come up and lead him off the stage. That was the big clash, the debate one could call it. Then Goldhagen went off to Germany. At this point there was no German translation, and the German press was quite negative, because they called this collective guilt. Then the book was very rapidly translated and came out in German that summer. He had his tour in September and early October with six big cities. There were sold out crowds. For the last one they had to move the event to the philharmonic in Munich because the place they were having it wasn’t nearly big enough. Germans started buying the book like crazy. I guess I read the account of one of the first meetings. What struck me was that it doesn’t sound like an academic discussion, it sounds like a revival meeting: people flocking and Daniel Goldhagen giving absolution. “Come and buy my book and as Germans you are all forgiven. It shows that you are changed.”

DH: What about his argument that under the Nazi regime Germans had exhibited a kind of “eliminationist anti-Semintism”? 270 Living History

CB: Well that was about their grandparents. I became aware of what a generational thing this had been when the following spring I was at a conference in New York. There was a young woman from Munich, a Ph.D., who worked at some academic institute. We made similar comments on a paper, and so we said, “Let’s go have lunch.” We talked at lunch. We talked about different things, and I don’t why, but at the end she turned the conversation to Goldhagen, and she threw her hand over her breast and said, “Ahh, I gave my heart to Goldy.” I gagged, picked my jaw off the table, and stammered something like, “But it is such a flawed book.” She said, “Ahh, this has nothing to do with the book. He took those old gray-haired German men and stuck their face in the Holocaust and made them admit they did it.” It was a generational rage at older generations that had left Germany with the bill and wouldn’t own up to it. I think that it had a very strong emotional and generational dynamic that had very little to do with the scholarship of the book. In the United States there was a growing resentment by many against scholars who were contextualizing the Holocaust, who were comparing it: how does this compare to the fate of the Soviet POWs, to the fate of the Gypsies, to other genocides? And at that point, the Holocaust’s “uniqueness” was a sacrosanct way of dealing with it that was fairly strong. There was a feeling among many that the Holocaust was being stolen, becoming more academic, less commemorative, less unique. It was more a historical event like any other. There was again a major emotional backlash against that, which Goldhagen played to perfectly. It was a bestseller in the US, a bestseller in Germany. The text doesn’t deal with historiography. So, for the general public reading it, they have no idea what’s going on below. But if you read the footnotes, he’s carrying on a very sharp attack on everyone in the profession. Virtually everyone gets trashed. In one footnote, he dismisses Michael Marrus, in another one he dismisses Raul Hilberg. My distinction, because I had scooped him, was that I got about thirty footnotes instead of one. Instead of one dismissive sentence, he would engage in arguing over things and allegations about what he said I had said throughout the whole section on the battalion. He had a section on the labor camps, a section on the death marches, and the first section was on the battalion, and that’s where we were at cross purposes in terms of the empirical evidence. And then in the conclusion, in terms of what it all means, we were obviously very different.

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To have this Harvard wunderkind attacking me and launching this publicity blitz was quite disconcerting. From the very beginning, my wife’s advice was to never get in a squirting match with a skunk, stay on the high ground, stay calm, reply to this in a tone that suits you, and not in kind with him. That was very good advice, and in the end, I think that I got lots of brownie points for keeping my temper and not replying in the snide ways that he did. Sales of Ordinary Men, which had begun to go down after the first two years, zoomed up and then hit a plateau. People began using it in courses and once it got built into syllabi, well, it churns off the press each year. Financially, he did me a great favor, one that didn’t come without its emotional down payment. But certainly I was a huge beneficiary of his drawing attention toward Ordinary Men and making it the center of the controversy. Actors say that there are no bad reviews. You want to get some reaction. In terms of academics, controversies get you lots of attention, particularly if you are at a small undergraduate school and not in the main swing of things, to suddenly be thrust onto the public stage is for one’s career a very different kind of experience. I am sure he didn’t intend it. I think that he wanted to snuff out Ordinary Men like a bug, but instead he gave it new life and, in fact, an ongoing life thereafter.

DH: It also seems that it sharpened the argument.

CB: Certainly it was phrased from the beginning as the ideological, cultural argument against the situational, social psychological argument. As with most arguments, when they begin they are polarized around two buzzwords, just as the “intentionalists” and “functionalists” were rather simplistically turned into a binary argument. Very quickly we got beyond this false dichotomy and into exploring how in fact does an ideologically driven regime recruit people who may not be ideological but who may still harbor some very basic cultural assumptions including different degrees of anti-Semitism. But it doesn’t mean that they are all little Hitlers, which is basically what Goldhagen was arguing. I think it gave a preeminence to what we call perpetrator studies. The focus before was all on decision-making, and now the focus shifted to perpetrators and explaining human behavior. I tried to do that with Ordinary Men, but when you get the controversy, as you say, it brings it to a whole new sharpness. With starkly different books pitted against each other, it stirs up all sorts of other kinds of research. The

272 Living History field does progress much more quickly with that kind of incubation.

DH: So it was very productive in that way.

CB: Yes. It’s not like Holocaust denial, which isn’t very productive. It turned out academically to be quite productive.

DH: You were just mentioning that the focus had been on decision-making. Then there’s a focus on perpetrator studies. But one of your next major works was on decision-making, in Origins of the Final Solution. You said earlier that this had been part of a longstanding project with Yad Vashem.

CB: Yes, after the first book came out. I can actually go back before that. I revised the dissertation and sent it off to Princeton University Press, which was one of the big German history publishers then. I inserted into the historiography part a whole very long explanation of how my approach differed from Lucy Dawidowicz, who had just published The War against the Jews, which was a bestseller in 1975, so any publisher would know: “Don’t send it to her.” Obviously Princeton didn’t read the footnotes, so it was sent to Lucy Dawidowicz, and what came back was four pages, single- spaced, margin-to-margin, of an absolutely vituperative attack. All sorts of absolutely false statements that I had done nothing but rehash Nuremberg documents. I was the first one to use full German court records that hadn’t been used in Holocaust history before. I looked through all of the Foreign Office files, including stuff that hadn’t been part of the Nuremberg documents. I mean, it was just a lie. It was an irresponsible claim to make to a publisher. Her main thrust was that anything that doesn’t focus on Hitler, on the SS, on ideology and anti-Semitism is irrelevant and of no importance. Her concluding sentence after these four pages of venom was that this manuscript makes no contribution, no matter how minor, to scholarship in the field. So, Princeton turned it down. But it got published with the next publisher, which sent it to Raul Hilberg. That was also in the late 1970s, when David Irving published his Hitler’s War, in which he made the allegation that not only did Hitler not give the orders for the Holocaust, but he didn’t know that it was happening until much later. According to Irving, the Holocaust was done behind Hitler’s back by his underlings. Martin Broszat in Vierteljahresheft, of which he was the editor, published his refutation of Irving but then put 273 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

forward his own thesis, which was that Irving’s not all wrong, because in fact Hitler didn’t give an order for this. This welled up from below. This was a spontaneous reaction of people to the failure to deport the Jews, the resulting backup, and the impasse that occurred. The Germans didn’t know what they were doing until they were already doing it. In a sense, conception followed practice. I had been up until then very much on the functionalist side in terms of liking how Broszat and Hans Mommsen had written about things. But this just didn’t compute for me. So I wrote a reply to Broszat that he published in the Vierteljarhresheft in 1981. For some, I was sort of a functionalist traitor. The intentionalists basically read Hitler’s speeches, lined up their note cards, and anything that didn’t fit they threw out. So, they had this wonderfully consistent, totally straight line from beginning to end, all focusing on Hitler and incriminating things that he said. Working on the bureaucracy, I looked at not what Hitler had said but what people were doing on the basis of assumptions of what was expected of them. So I could make a critique of Broszat from a functionalist point of view: what, in fact, is the decision-making going on, and what did you have to believe to accept that? For some, I was turn-coating. In the German world, if you had entrenched positions, you didn’t jump from one side to the other. You didn’t get out into no-man’s-land. Well, I got into no-man’s-land. But the Israelis liked it, because they were very intentionalist, but they didn’t know how to take on Broszat because they didn’t have that kind of approach to do it. So that’s when I was contacted by Yad Vashem. They were planning a multi-volume history of the Holocaust, thinking in the late 1970s that all that there was to be written had been written and we could have a summary of the secondary literature and have this comprehensive, multivolume history in which you would go by the Jewish community country by country. But someone then pointed out that if you were going to do a comprehensive history of the Holocaust, you needed something about the Nazis. They said, that’s right, so we’ll have a volume on German Jews, but we need one on the Nazis and decision-making. They approached Hilberg, and Hilberg said that he’d written that book and didn’t want to repeat himself. They approached Broszat and he said, “If you give me money for an assistant to write it for me, I’ll do it.” And they said no. Then they were in a quandary and that’s when my Foreign Office book had come out and then my reply to Martin Broszat. So someone there said, “Why don’t we

274 Living History interview Browning?” I was doing my sabbatical year in Germany and I flew to Jerusalem in June of 1981 and interviewed at Yad Vashem. After three years of haggling they offered me a contract in 1984 to do this volume on the German side. In fact, it eventually was going to be more than one volume. One was going to be on the 1930s that someone was going to do. I was going to do the middle volume, and they never got around to figuring out who would do the last. So that was in the works from the mid-1980s. I had a fair draft done in 1989, and then the archives opened in Eastern Europe. Everything I had done was absolutely obsolete. Well, not absolutely, but I had to go back and look at all of the new stuff. That meant several years at the museum looking at all of the microfilms that they had gotten. The book that I had been interviewed for in 1981, I had signed a contract for in ’84, and had thought I was nearing completion of in 1989, came out in 2004. It was in its origins before Ordinary Men. In fact, I had gone to the archives in Ludwigsburg as part of this, to look at all of the Poland cases to be part of that research, and Ordinary Men was a spinoff. In terms of where I was when I started projects, it was prior to Ordinary Men.

DH: Why do you think that is such an important topic, uncovering this decision-making process? It’s of course a topic of immense controversy between intentionalists and functionalists, the issue of is there a Hitler order or not?

CB: Well, the intentionalist-functionalist controversy was there before the Holocaust got involved. They had this big conference at the Cumberland Lodge in 1979 sponsored by the German Historical Institute of London. German historians Mommsen, Broszat, Andreas Hillgruber and others came, and then some of the English historians. That’s the conference at which Tim Mason presented this paper that invented these two words and classified what had gone on during the ’70s without the participants knowing terms for what they were arguing, though they were engaged in this intentionalist-functionalist controversy. I read the Mason paper immediately and was fascinated by it. There was a conference organized in Paris for the summer of 1982 by Saul Friedländer and Francois Furet, who was a major French historian of the French Revolution, and who hosted it at his institution in Paris. Broszat fell ill in the spring, and I suddenly got a

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telegram: could I possibly write a paper and come to this conference that was going to take place in a couple of months? So I took the Mason terms and applied them to the historiography of the decision-making. That was sort of my first international splash. That was the first time that I had met many of these people. That then framed this discussion for the decision- making in the Final Solution from that point on. Why was it important? We were trying to figure out what made the Third Reich work. Why did things happen the way they did in the Third Reich? One simple answer was that they did because Hitler wanted them to. The other was much more complicated: one, you had all sorts of shifting coalitions and political impasses, and how the system functioned determined what the options were and how things could happen the way they did. One group of historians argued that people do things because they have certain fanatic beliefs. And another group said, like Marx, that people make history but not the history they want or think they can. There were all sorts of parameters in which they operate, and understanding those parameters was absolutely key. It became then morally overloaded because one side accused the other of trying to exonerate Hitler. And the other side claimed, “You’re trying to use Hitler to exonerate the German people.” The blame should be shed over everybody, as Mommsen said, not just Hitler. Whether you were trivializing Hitler or you were using him as the scapegoat for all Germans became the moral subtext to all of this, in which people would hint at this or in conversations blurted out, though they didn’t usually say it so baldly in print. For the Holocaust, that of course adds a second emotional dimension, because now what is at stake is the mass murder and genocide of the Jews. I would say that all became intertwined. When Ernst Nolte in the Historikerstreit tried to trivialize all of this as a pale copy of what happened in the Soviet Union and nothing original, and so forth, that added the even greater emotional subtext in terms of people crying, “Enough! Schluss, let’s be done with this.” It was a controversy that had its academic side, which stimulated a lot of research. We didn’t know enough about how decisions were made. As long as the assumption was that Hitler ordered it, then you didn’t have to spell out how it happened and in what way. To prove a functionalist argument—I call myself a moderate functionalist—you needed Hitler as a key decision maker, and you needed his obsession with

276 Living History anti-Semitism. But how did that create a government harnessed to mass murder? That required a whole lot more. You had to understand how the system functioned. It was one thing to know why Hitler wanted to kill Jews. It was another thing to know how it was possible, why he thought that he could get away with it. I didn’t get so much involved in the Historikerstreit, which was an internal German thing, but I was very interested in getting the empirical side of the debate on the decision-making as precise and detailed as we could possibly get it. I would argue that what it came down to in the end was this very precise issue of dating, of understanding at what points did something happen, because the context changed so rapidly from the summer to the fall to the winter to the spring. If you don’t know when you’ve crossed the Rubicon, you don’t know what the historical context was in which that was done. Historians need context. Context is how we explain things. So when you don’t know what the dating and context of it are, you are not going to come up with an explanation. The need to be as empirically precise and to get as close as we could in terms of an accurate chronology was essential to writing a plausible and credible history of how this took place. DH: And one can draw such different conclusions based on when these decisions were made, if it’s in the summer of 1941 or in December of 1941.

CB: Yes, is it in frustration of defeat or is it at an earlier point when they think they are going to win? Obviously it says something different about the system, what the explanation is depending upon which of those contexts is at work. Is it a consolation prize or is it the prime goal?

DH: Shifting gears a bit from historiography to professional history. You were at Pacific Lutheran for roughly 25 years and then decided to come to UNC-CH in 1999. Could you talk a bit about why you decided to come to UNC-CH?

CB: Occasionally I did apply for jobs, but I was in a situation in which I fell between the stools. If it was a job in German history, I was doing the Holocaust, not German history. If it was a job in the Holocaust, they wanted research in Jewish language sources and working on victims. So, whichever way it was advertised, I suited nobody. I applied for a few jobs and got absolutely nowhere. I never had an interview. I had one phone interview that

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was interesting. It was going pretty well. This is by now in the early 1980s. I think that I had had 16 preparations at PLU by then and naïve as I was I mentioned that I had 16 different preparations. That just killed the interview. They just assumed that I was a dilettante. Anybody who is teaching at a school like that where you have to do this and that can’t be serious. Here we do our specialty and that is all. How could anybody pretend to do anything more? That’s what I think happened, because somebody had punctured the balloon, the air went out, and they lost all interest immediately. Very soon they said thanks very much and hung up. There was the frustration that once you were classified as an undergraduate teacher at a teaching institution, doing the kinds of teaching you had to do, you couldn’t really be a fulltime or serious scholar. That was certainly the second dimension. One, the specialties didn’t fit, and secondly there was the notion that if you had been doing that, you can’t really be at the caliber that we want from you, if you are going to be applying to a research university. Part of it was snobbery, to put it bluntly, and misunderstanding of some of the kinds of people teaching at those schools and the kinds of work that they are doing. Of course, then came the notorious endowed chair at Harvard. As I now recreate it—again, I am on the outside and so I am not sure that in this case I am the best source—what I think happened was that a very wealthy donor endowed a chair at Harvard and the department didn’t want it. If you want to bring visibility to some topic and you are going to throw three million dollars at it, you are going to do it at Harvard or Yale or some place where it will be seen. So, Harvard is one of those places that has to fight off endowed chairs because everyone is trying to use them for their special purposes. I think they didn’t want this. The dean said they had to take this, because this was a donor who was giving millions of dollars to other things too. This was not a donor you could kiss off. So, reluctantly both the History Department and Jewish Studies had to conduct a search that they did not want to succeed. At Harvard you are smart enough to know how to fail when you want to fail. There was a search that was a fiasco. They ended up hiring nobody and the donor took his money and gave it to the medical school. The one place I had an interview, well, they wouldn’t even call it an interview—it was a “consultation.” We were consulting with the committee as to what direction this whole thing should take. It was so bizarre. When

278 Living History you went there and spoke, everyone knew what was happening, but you couldn’t even call it a job interview. At that point I said that I will finish my career at PLU. It is a wonderful part of the country. It is a good school. I get time off I need for writing and publishing. Fine. But I do remember thinking as Gerhard Weinberg at UNC-CH was getting close to retirement, at some point somebody is going to get the best German history job in the country. That’s going to be one lucky person. It literally never occurred to me that I might be that person. I thought that there’s a real plum position. Somebody’s going to get that, and that’s going to be really nice. Then Konrad Jarausch approached me at a German Studies Association conference and said did you know that Gerhard has announced his retirement and now we are going to be looking and won’t you please apply? I was very busy. I didn’t immediately go home and apply. Then Konrad sent me a letter that said get off your butt and apply. So I did. Then it happened. It was totally unexpected. It was Konrad who persuaded me that I should do it. They had four candidates who came. A number of them were good people. I was very fortunate that my number came up.

DH: You’ve now been at UNC-CH roughly fifteen years. What have you liked most about being in the History Department?

CB: For me, by far the most important thing is to work with grad students. As a teacher you leave three legacies. There’s the students you teach. There’s the publications that you leave behind. And, if you are lucky enough to be at a school like this, there are the graduate students that you get to work with, in a sense preparing the next generation to carry on. I could do the first two at PLU. I had worked out a system. They had a good sabbatical program. So, every seventh year I could get off, and informally I had worked out in between that as long as I got outside funding, I could have a year leave without pay and go do my research. So, I had worked out a system where I could be productive there. I could publish there. I certainly had plenty of students to teach there. But the chance I had here was the chance to come work with a great graduate program. That has just been really fun. It has been easily the thing that I appreciated the most.

DH: My impression is that although you have supervised a number of specifically Holocaust projects, they haven’t all been perpetrator studies or

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that sort of thing. There’s been quite the variety.

CB: It’s been about half and half. Several people did the global history thing. Ricky Law did Germany and Japan. Dave Pizzo did Germany and Southeast Africa, the Hehe Revolts in the 1890s. So, they did a German component with a global dimension. Kevin Mason actually did something on Austria, the pro-independence, anti-Anschluss people in the 1920s. That was an area I was learning. I could help a great deal in the writing and the organizing, but in terms of the research, he had to do that on his own. Then I had a series of people who worked much more closely in the Holocaust. Michael Meng did the Polish-German one. Eric Steinhart wrote on Transnistria. Waitman Beorn wrote on the army. But George Gerolimatos has done Schleswig-Holstein in the post-World War II period. Laura Brade is back doing Jewish refugees in the Holocaust. Mark Hornburg is doing Nazis, but not the Holocaust. He’s working on homosexuals in the Wehrmacht. It’s a Nazi topic, but isn’t Holocaust per se. It certainly comes up later, because part of what he’s doing is looking at different aspects of Nazi persecution. So, he’s on the cusp, I would say.

DH: Thinking about where the field is today and avenues for research, are there areas where you think that Holocaust history or German history as affected by Holocaust history has a lot of work left to be done?

CB: Certainly there are several things that are booming. One is what I call aftermath studies: the repercussions of the Holocaust after 1945. Michael Meng’s book, Shattered Spaces: Encountering Jewish Ruins in Postwar Germany and Poland, is an example of that. Patrick Tobin did a postwar thing and Richards Plavnieks basically worked on the Arajs trials after the war. He started thinking that he would work on the Arajs Kommando but became enthralled with the postwar trials. So, the whole judicial side of things is a major part of aftermath studies. I’ve had two dissertations now in that area. Certainly culturally in terms of novels and other things. I don’t get into that, but there are lots of people who do. Another major area is to go eastward and downward, as we get into Eastern Europe and more and more down into the local and looking at the situation well beyond the German attack on Jews. What is the whole ethnic background in these mixed population areas that are affected by the Soviet entry in 1939-’40 and

280 Living History then by the Nazi arrival in 1941? What an explosive, combustible situation that has created, so that when the Germans come, it’s like throwing a match on gasoline. You don’t get a combustible thing out of spontaneous generation. There’s a history to it. It’s that multiethnic, longer history where a lot of interesting history is being done. The interaction between the local population, the Jewish population, the Germans, and the Russians, for that matter, is a major growth area. A lot of these areas might have a combination multiethnic area, but it’s a different multiethnic combination. So, how is Transylvania different from Lithuania, different from Ukraine, different from Eastern Poland? That we are still mapping out.

DH: When you look back over the research in Holocaust history since you’ve been doing it, roughly 45 years, what do you think are the major accomplishments in that field over that time?

CB: It’s beginning with nothing, and it’s become something. When I started, as my advisor said, there’s no professional future here. It didn’t exist. What there had been was an initial generation of people who had a personal connection with it. Hilberg’s family had fled Vienna in 1939. Saul Friedländer had been orphaned in France in the 1940s. Others had fled to Israel or had been in Israel before the war, like Yehuda Bauer, but clearly had that connection. After that generation there was a gap. Then it really started with Michael Marrus, me, and some others who after that gap started doing our research. But we had to be self-taught. There was nobody whom we worked with that specialized in this area. In a sense, we had to create a field. The old guard was still there. Certainly working with Yehuda Bauer, Saul Friedländer, and that generation, and working with people like Michael Marrus, Peter Hayes, and so forth. There was a passing of the torch because a new group did come along who became interested, trained themselves, got published, got established. That was the point at which in terms of academic field but also in terms of public consciousness, the field really took off in the 1980s and 1990s. The last thing was providing for training of the next generation that wouldn’t have to be self-taught. That really would be part of the program, and to go to workshops where everybody there was working in Holocaust studies. I never went to a Holocaust studies workshop. There was no such thing when I was starting. In that sense, just to see the extraordinary

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development in the field and the extraordinary speed with which it’s moved from decision-making to perpetrators to integrated history of the Holocaust and aftermath. All of that has happened in a very short period of time. It’s been quite a ride. For me, it’s been fun because I’ve actually moved with it. I worked on different parts of it as it has gone. It is a field that has grown and changed and developed very rapidly in a very short period.

DH: What are your plans for retirement?

CB: I have a mini-project. It’s in a totally new area that I’ve never done, which is an American rescuer, a man who worked out of Geneva in the Vichy internment camps in southern France. The president of the Le Chambon Foundation, a man named Pierre Sauvage, who’s made a documentary of Le Chambon, is working on various rescue things. He told me one day that he has the letters and journals of man named Tracy Strong who had worked in these camps and rescued people, and would I be interested? I’m never one to turn down a windfall when something that no one has looked at before falls into my lap. So, I am in the beginning processes of doing a rescue project.

DH: So, this is going to be a biography of him? Or a project about rescue with him as the starting point?

CB: It’s an area that I don’t think I am going to get into in a big way. I think it’s going to be a long article that looks at him in those particular three years of 1940 to 1943 as someone who starts out as what we now call a humanitarian relief worker. His first job was working with French POWs in German camps thinking about how to make life better. Then he goes down to Vichy to work on how to make the lives of refugees there better. Really, for me, the key point is how does he decide that we’re beyond the point of trying to improve life in camps and we have to get people out? How does he manage it? How does a twenty-six-year-old American spring people out of camps in France and get them over the boarder into Switzerland? It’s not a Scarlet Pimpernel story. But it is looking at people who are caught in that situation but with the motives that he had—which were to be a helping person, otherwise he wouldn’t have been in this situation to begin with—when do they decide to stop trying to improve the lives of many and to save a few, if you can save a few. I think that it’s going to be a long article, and I’ll have to prevail upon friends to publish something longer than they normally would, but I have people who owe me. 282 Living History

283 reviewstraces Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Bryan Hardin Thrift. Conservative Bias: How Jesse Helms Pioneered the Rise of Right-Wing Media and Realigned the Republican Party. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2014. Reviewed by Jennifer Donnally

Jesse Helms has been a pivotal figure in histories of modern American conservatism. Few scholars have contested Helms’s role in transforming the solid Democratic south into a Republican stronghold, but scholars continue to debate how and why this phenomenon occurred. In Conservative Bias, Bryan Hardin Thrift, an associate professor of history at Tougaloo College, argues that Jesse Helms and his development of a conservative media offers one of the best explanations of the South’s political realignment and America’s larger rightward turn. By focusing on Helms’s career in media during the 1950s and 1960s, Hardin traces the origins of the committed political ideologue whom many readers may already know. But the author also reveals a grand political experimenter with whom readers may be unfamiliar. In Thrift’s telling, Helms is a political chameleon, a man who works with Republicans and Democrats, puts forth different arguments to combat civil rights and integration, and at times grapples with the inconsistences of his own life as he pursues riches as a television executive while trying to uphold his Southern Baptist values. In Hardin’s capable hands, this experimental Helms becomes an important bridge builder whose printed editorials and televised commentaries unite working-class whites and country club Republicans, evangelicals and racial segregationists (not that the two are mutually exclusive), and Southern Democrats and Midwest and Western

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Republicans to forge a new coalition of voters in America’s sunbelt. By focusing on the media Thrift offers an interpretation of Helms’s life and contributions to American politics that clarifies some of the alliances and ideological shifts that supported the rise of a new political order in North Carolina in the 1970s and the rise of the Republican coalition under Ronald Reagan in 1980. Perhaps Thrift’s greatest contribution to current histories of America’s right and North Carolina politics is his theory of pious incitement, “an outrage-driven symbolic politics that offered moral indignation to build conservatism.” Through pious incitement, Helms substituted an explicitly racist discourse for a moralistic discourse that highlighted personal responsibility over government intervention and championed free enterprise. In the 1950s and early 1960s, pious incitement tapped into whites’ growing unease with the civil rights movement and offered a more sanitized defense of white privilege than the discourse used by racial segregationists such as George Wallace and Strom Thurmond. In the 1960s, Helms was thrilled to find that his less radical defense of white privilege was gaining increasing support from whites outside the South as his WRAL television news commentaries reached a broader audience. Helms then used the same moralizing tone and expression of outrage to take on the social and cultural transformations brought about by the 1960s counterculture, women’s movement, and gay and sexual liberation movements. However, Thrift falls into a trap that has ensnared many other historians of conservatism. In this book, Helms appears as both a political ideologue and experimenter. Indeed, what makes Helms such an intriguing political figure is that he appeared more loyal to “conservatism” than to the Republican Party throughout his career. But while Thrift assumes that Helms adhered to a consistent definition of conservatism that predated his emergence in politics in the 1950s, the author fails to define Helms’s notion of conservatism. This raises the questions: what political ideology did Helms adhere to and did that ideology change over time as coalitions formed and compromises were made? On the other hand, Thrift excels at analyzing what many historians have argued is one of the few consistencies American conservatives have exhibited over time, namely a defense of white privilege. Well written and argued, this book will be of interest to anyone who studies North Carolina politics and modern American conservatism.

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Craig Koslofsky. Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Reviewed by Brian Drohan

In Evening’s Empire, Craig Koslofsky, professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, explores the role of “the night” in early modern European culture. Analyzing daily life, representations in art and literature, physical space, and language, Koslofsky provides fascinating insights into how European conceptions of the night shaped and were shaped by a process of “nocturnalization.” This process ultimately led to Europeans’ “colonization” of the night through the displacement of traditional nocturnal groups by social elites. Koslofsky examines relationships between Europeans and the night through five topics: perceptions of the “diabolical” and the “divine” at night, meanings of darkness and night in court culture, the impact of street lighting, processes of “colonizing” the night, and conceptions of the night during the Enlightenment. For early modern Europeans, the night held important religious connotations. Whereas the night had long been associated with Satan, death, and sin, by the end of the sixteenth century new understandings emerged. According to Koslofsky, the context of the Reformation was vital to these interpretations. Religious reformers and defenders of tradition perceived their age as a struggle between good, epitomized by light, and evil, associated with darkness. Reformation confessional conflict distorted existing boundaries of truth and falsehood, likewise blurring traditional images of night and darkness. Koslofsky describes Anabaptist and Mennonite devotional practices as one example of new, positive associations with the night. These groups met regularly at night beginning in the 1530s, often congregating in forests outside of towns and cities because they believed that God was to be found “in the wilderness and in the darkness.” Perceptions of darkness and night also changed in political imagery and court life. The daily life of the court extended later into the day as courtiers remained active into the night. Entertainment was important to the court, with plays and ballets occurring in the evening. Such performances 287 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

portrayed sovereigns in a spectacular fashion using chiaroscuro imagery, which contrasted the sovereign’s “light” with darkness. According to Koslofsky, in an era of confessional divisions rulers required new, supra- confessional symbols of authority, therefore portraying themselves as givers of light. For instance, in 1653 Louis XIV danced in the Ballet de la Nuit, appearing in the final scene as the Sun, his first appearance as the “Sun-King.” Fireworks displays and other nighttime spectacles employing celestial imagery meant that evening entertainment became an arena of political assertion and contestation, as rulers displayed their authority. Technological developments also shaped European visions of the night. Street lighting, which was essential to the nocturnalization of urban rhythms, was installed beginning in the late 1660s in Paris, Lille, and Amsterdam. Koslofsky writes that in Lille the rationale for introducing street lighting was to protect inhabitants from the thousands of French soldiers stationed in the occupied city. In other places, street lighting became a contested issue. Town burghers in Vienna complained about the aristocratic luxuries of nightlife that street lighting promoted. The burghers simply wanted to go to sleep, wake up early, and get to work without nighttime distractions. Authorities intended street lighting to promote law and order, but it also beautified a city and encouraged nighttime socialization. Koslofsky argues that imposing a new order in urban spaces amounted to the “colonization” of the night. As a space of colonization, the night was a zone of contestation between polite society and the “vagabonds” and young people who were displaced. This colonization redefined traditional nocturnal youth culture as “impolite” to make space for “respectable” nighttime social activities. Such activities included coffee houses, which emerged as a specifically nocturnal setting for the growing bourgeois public sphere. Although aristocratic women were sometimes accepted in this new cultural sphere, such as in Paris, coffee house culture was overwhelmingly male. Evening leisure was the province of “young gentlemen” and formed an important social experience. In rural areas, however, colonization of the night was less successful. Whereas colonization of the urban night displaced one set of “inhabitants” (youth and “vagabonds”) with another (elites), Koslofsky argues that attempts to colonize the rural night involved clearing the night of traditional activities, which would essentially empty the night of activity altogether.

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Colonizing the rural night became a program of social discipline that compared traditional spinning bees to brothels and sought to regulate the opening times of inns and taverns. The disciplinary reach of the state was limited, however, so the colonization of the rural night failed. Finally, Koslofsky explores perceptions of night and darkness during the Enlightenment. He argues that Enlightenment discourses shifted away from issues of Heaven and Hell, the existence of ghosts, the power of witches, and other topics with theological implications. Instead, authors such as Fontenelle used imagery of light and dark to create a sense of European moral and intellectual superiority based on race, disparagingly equating Africans, Indians, and Chinese peoples’ “absurd beliefs, barbaric practices, and scientific ignorance” with their darker skin. Enlightenment discourses, according to Koslofsky, contributed to racial hierarchies in which knowledge of the natural world and “advanced” civilization belonged to lighter-skinned Europeans. Koslofsky’s study is insightful and interesting, but the author could have pushed his investigation further by examining the nocturnalizaiton process in European colonies. The colonies are important not only because coffee and tea—sober beverages that fueled the coffee house phenomenon— originated there. The European colonial experience also matters because colonization involved cultural exchanges between Europeans and indigenous populations, leading to blended, hybrid cultures. It would be interesting to know whether changing European perceptions of the night emerged in settlements such as Jamestown, Bombay, Madras, Jamaica, Batavia, and New Amsterdam, or whether new cultural understandings emerged due to contact with native peoples and life on foreign shores. The absence of the colonial experience is one minor omission in an otherwise outstanding book.

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David Cunningham. Klansville, U.S.A.: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Reviewed by Evan Faulkenbury

Travelers moving westward along Highway 70 near Smithfield, North Carolina, in 1966 would have noticed a brightly painted billboard that boldly proclaimed: “You are in the Heart of Klan Country. Welcome to North Carolina. Help Fight Integration & Communism!” For some, the notice spelled welcome, but for others, it sent an ominous warning. Dozens of identical signs littered the state’s roads, simultaneously promoting the United Klans of America (UKA) and intimidating those who dared believe that the rights of citizenship extended beyond white Protestants. Whether in Smithfield, Salisbury, Greensboro, or Goldsboro, UKA members proudly declared their state to be “Klansville, U.S.A.,” home to the largest and most active Ku Klux Klan in the country. Klansville, U.S.A.: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan is an iconoclastic account of the Old North State during the mid-twentieth century. A sociologist at Brandeis University whose previous work revolves around federal counterintelligence of both the Klan and the New Left, author David Cunningham exposes a dark underside of North Carolina, one that is far removed from the progressive bastion that politicians and business leaders led the nation to believe North Carolina to be. The state housed a powerful terrorist organization that shaped local politics, united communities, and harassed African Americans, all while hiding in plain sight in a place known for its moderation among its Deep South brethren. Drawing on Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports, oral histories, local newspapers, and files from the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), Cunningham traces the history of the United Klans in North Carolina and argues that their activism was part of a broader reactionary social movement responding to recent African American economic and social gains. He further contends that the UKA played a role in the conservative upsurge of the late 1960s within the Republican Party. With 192 klaverns (the customary name for local KKK cells) and around 12,000 members at its peak, the UKA certainly was a force in North Carolina 290 Book Reviews for much of the 1960s. It remains doubtful, however, that the UKA played a major role in this political shift, but Cunningham’s insightful commentary on the cultural significance of the United Klans is persuasive. While Cunningham briefly outlines the long history of the Ku Klux Klan from Reconstruction onward, his focus remains on the UKA, a union of Klans formed in 1961 under the intense leadership of Robert M. Shelton. As Imperial Wizard, Shelton crisscrossed the South for years delivering the keynote address at Klan rallies, where he would at once denounce civil rights, communism, Black Power, Jews, and the federal government. In 1963, Shelton loyalist Bob Jones emerged as Grand Dragon over North Carolina, tasked with the mission of revitalizing the Klan across the state. By the summer of 1964, Jones’s adept leadership and tireless promotion of the UKA resulted in a statewide resurgence. Dues-paying members reached an all-time high and large rallies were common, resembling “skewed county fairs, complete with live music, concessions, souvenirs, and raffles and other games for adults and children.” While the UKA consciously tried to build a wholesome public image, a “militant core” within the organization intimidated African Americans and liberal whites with cross burnings and clandestine attacks. For years the UKA enjoyed its influence, but by 1969 federal investigations, infighting, and pending charges against its leadership reduced the organization to a shell of its former self. The irony of North Carolina’s reputation as a progressive stronghold, while at the same time that it was home to the era’s most powerful Ku Klux Klan, is central to Cunningham’s argument. Throughout the Deep South, where governors took public stands against integration and where police officers unleashed water hoses and dogs on peaceful marchers, right-wing extremism had company. Local klaverns in these states competed for membership and publicity with various radical organizations, such as the White Citizens’ Councils. North Carolina during much of the 1960s, however, retained a moderate government that actively cultivated a progressive business and political image, all while quietly maintaining similar Jim Crow laws as other southern states. Superficially at least, leaders abided by federal civil rights legislation and slowly desegregated public schools. With North Carolina’s leadership projecting a spirit of cooperation, poor whites across the state felt abandoned and feared black competition in work and society. Class tensions thus contributed to the UKA’s rise in North Carolina. Poor

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whites, who made up the bulk of the membership, joined the UKA to form “an organized defense of ‘authentic’ white interests.” Thus, North Carolina’s brand of racial moderation paradoxically provided the social space for the Klan to thrive. As a sociologist, Cunningham’s methodological approach highlights the communal structure of the UKA. He draws on ethnic competition and social movement theory to explain motivations and understand the popularity of the Klan in North Carolina. Cunningham contends that a shared sense of racial threat metastasized into mass collective action that revolved around an imaginative narrative of victimization. UKA members interpreted African American gains as a loss to their own privilege, and through kinship ties, prejudice could be shared. A sophisticated network of community activities linked Klan members and fostered their movement, including rallies, marches, membership rites, church barbeques, newspapers, women’s auxiliary groups, and support from local businesses. The author weaves these activities together to explain the sociological side of the Klan, but keeps his focus on contingencies that characterizes the complex history of the UKA. In far too many histories, scholars dismiss the Ku Klux Klan as a fanatical group that had no bearing on the larger political economy. With this study, Cunningham demonstrates the frightening influence of the radical right. The UKA may have been smaller by comparison to other institutions, but it was far-reaching and part of the wider conservative movement. Klansville, U.S.A. may have referred only to North Carolina during the 1960s, but as the larger history of the twentieth century illustrates, extremism had no borders.

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Catherine Merridale. Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin. London: Allen Lane, 2013. Reviewed by Gary Guadagnolo

In her latest tour de force, Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin, historian Catherine Merridale delivers a fast-paced and meticulously researched biography of the Kremlin, the large fortification in the center of Moscow that has long served as the nucleus of Russia’s military and political power. Binding together Merridale’s narrative, which begins with the founding of the Kremlin in the twelfth century and extends to the present day, are each successive regime’s attempts to use the fortress to establish and maintain its authority. Merridale argues that the Kremlin is much more than a cluster of defensive, ecclesiastical, and administrative buildings surrounded by red walls. It is also a place of wealth, myth, ritual, and prestige that reflects and reinforces the ideology of its inhabitants. From its inception the Kremlin served as a military compound, though the people who constructed Moscow’s first wooden fort in the twelfth century could not have imagined the underground lairs and transportation systems that would be built to withstand a nuclear attack centuries later. The first bricks of the fortress that still stands today were laid in the last two decades of the fifteenth century during the reign of Ivan III (r. 1462-1505). Under his rule, Moscow’s territory and riches expanded apace with the spiritual authority of the Russian Orthodox Church. His massive construction drive strengthened Kremlin fortifications and led to the erection of new palaces and cathedrals. When some of the more ambitious projects stalled, Ivan III recruited the Italian Aristotele Fioravanti to come to Moscow as the Kremlin’s chief engineer and architect. Merridale lingers over the many connections between the Kremlin and European specialists, of which Fioravanti was just the first. In one of her most engaging historiographical interventions, Merridale extracts the Kremlin from the clutches of Russian nationalists, connecting the fort to its many foreign roots, including German cannon-founders, Persian smiths, an exceptional Scot clockmaker, and a slew of Italian master-builders, without whose expertise the fortress could not have been built. 293 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Merridale is at her best when she teases out the story behind an idealized Kremlin. Such is the case in her reading of Kremlenagrad, an intricate map drawn around 1600 and published later in the seventeenth century, which shows the Kremlin in flawless condition. Its clean and orderly lines mask the turmoil surrounding the reigns of Ivan the Terrible (r. 1547-84) and Boris Godunov (r. 1585-98) and the ensuing Time of Troubles (1598-1613). Fire, famine, terror, and foreign occupation ravaged the Kremlin and the city of Moscow. By the time Mikhail Romanov (r. 1613-45) was elected as tsar, the Kremlin, as well as the rest of the country, lay in ruins, far from the picturesque Kremlenagrad. Merridale casts a similarly critical eye on The Tree of the State of Muscovy, an icon made in 1668 by Simon Ushakov. The icon features Peter, the leader of the early fourteenth-century Russian Orthodox Church, and the grand prince Ivan I (r. 1325-41) planting a tree in a pristine, red-bricked Kremlin. The leaves of the tree depict a continuous line of rulers leading to Aleksei Romanov (r. 1645-76), son of Mikhail, and tsar at the time of the icon’s creation. Merridale sees this as a typical rewriting of Russian history, legitimizing the Romanov dynasty with a worthy political and religious pedigree while ignoring centuries of dynastic struggle and civil war. Merridale describes Romanov rule as “novelty disguised as heritage,” in that the tsars sought to portray their dynasty as eternal and divinely appointed, akin to past Russian monarchs. This happened in part through an ambitious Kremlin building campaign in the seventeenth century, which again opened the country to innovation from outsiders. The Kremlin’s foreign coterie had untold influence on Peter the Great (r. 1696-1725), who in 1711 moved the capital of the Russian Empire from Moscow to the newly founded St. Petersburg as part of a Europeanization campaign. The Kremlin, though largely abandoned, remained an important symbol of Romanov continuity and was still used for all coronations. In spite of a succession of near-death blows, such as a plague outbreak in 1771 and the burning of the city during Napoleon’s 1812 invasion, the fortress endured as the heart of Russia. During the golden age of Russian culture in the nineteenth century, specialists working in the fields of history, archaeology, architecture, and folklore glorified the Kremlin as the premier icon of Russian national identity. Merridale provocatively contrasts their ongoing preservation work

294 Book Reviews in the Kremlin with the growing social discontent among the country’s workers and peasants, which erupted in 1905 with the assassination in the Kremlin of the ultraconservative Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich by a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The ensuing 1905 Revolution, First World War, and February and October Revolutions of 1917 reflected the contradictions and challenges of Russia’s modernization, with the Romanov dynasty ultimately falling to a new dictatorship of the proletariat led by Vladimir Lenin’s (r. 1917-24) Bolshevik Party. Merridale does not dwell too long on the twentieth century, which gives the Soviet period a much more balanced feel in the longue durée of Russian history. She accounts for Lenin’s decision to move the Russian capital back to Moscow in 1918 and the havoc Bolsheviks wreaked on the Kremlin’s many architectural and artistic masterpieces, either destroying them as emblems of the old regime or stripping them for parts to sell in order to keep the government afloat. Inevitably, the Party began constructing symbols and rituals in the Kremlin to support its rule. Joseph Stalin (r. 1924-53) “taught the old walls to speak Bolshevik Russian,” lighting up the Kremlin with its now-iconic five red stars. Throughout the Soviet era, the Kremlin projected a future of socialist equality and splendor in the midst of crippling economic stagnation and material want. In concluding her narrative, Merridale focuses on the transfer of the Kremlin from Mikhail Gorbachev (r. 1985-91) to Boris Yeltsin (r. 1991-99) and his Russian Federation. Merridale has little love for the current set of Kremlin occupants, who thinly veil their own despotism with democratic language. She interprets the “surprise discoveries” in 2010 of two sixteenth- century icons in the walls of the Kremlin, apparently saved from destruction in 1937 by faithful Russians opponents to Stalin’s campaign against the Orthodox Church, as nothing more than a stunt to whip up devotion for the ruling party among “half-asleep” citizens. Some may be turned off by overt criticisms of Vladimir Putin’s (r. 1999-present) “sovereign democracy,” but Merridale remains consistent in her message that autocratic rule in Russia is neither inevitable nor timeless, but rather rooted in the decisions of individuals who can be held accountable. This much-needed biography of the Kremlin, which spans the entirety of Russian history in a much more effective and engaging manner than most textbooks, will be of great interest to a range of audiences. Merridale,

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who gained access to the Kremlin’s own libraries for this project, scoured additional depositories in Russia, the UK, the US, and Italy, accumulating a prodigious number of primary and secondary material. Specialists will be eager to mine her endnotes, which use these sources to address some of the most fractious historiographical debates in the field. Merridale also interviewed a number of the Kremlin’s past and present caretakers, whose anecdotes and gossip enliven the text even more. Cumulatively, she does not shy away from the complexities of the Kremlin, encouraging her reader to appreciate the mysteries of the red fortress while resisting the temptation to be blinded by its gold.

Michael Reynolds. Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 19 0 8 -19 19 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Reviewed by Stephen Riegg

The centennial of World War I offers an apt moment to reconsider that conflagration of total war in Europe and beyond. If western audiences are most familiar with the story of uneasy alliances and trench warfare on the Western Front, Michael Reynolds’s monograph reminds us of the Great War’s toll on the borderlands region of Ottoman Turkey and Russia. In this revised doctoral dissertation, Reynolds, Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, places the two crumbling empires into the international—or, to use the nomenclature on which he insists, interstate—context. Marshaling evidence from a wide array of official and private correspondence, state decrees, and memoirs, culled from Turkish and Russian diplomatic archives, Reynolds contends that it is this interstate dynamic that holds the key to understanding the nearly simultaneous fall of the two neighboring empires. Reynolds argues that exogenous forces, such as rivalry between states, rather than such endogenous causes as ethnonationalism, precipitated the collapse of the Russian and Ottoman empires. He posits that a state’s “horizontal” ties to other polities are often more important for

296 Book Reviews understanding its political behavior than its “vertical” ties to its subjects, and agrees with Charles Tilly that “war made the state, and the state made war,” thereby minimizing, but not discrediting, the role of nationalism in bringing about the fall of the two empires. In short, the book “treats the Ottoman and Russian empires as state actors rather than as manifestations of proto-nationalist ideologies or holding tanks of nationalist movements and argues that interstate competition, and not nationalism” doomed the two powers. Although Reynolds privileges the Ottoman over the Russian side of the story, by focusing on the geopolitical conflict and the role of interstate politics rather than the destabilizing activities of the subject ethnicities within the empires, he breaks away from the recent historiographical trend of highlighting the internal politics of the Russian empire and the simmering of its various nationalities. In doing so, Reynolds is responding to John LeDonne’s call for considering Russian imperialism within the framework of international relations and Russia’s geopolitical rivalry with nearby powers. This monograph also builds on Dominic Lieven’s emphasis on the ways in which diplomatic and military concerns vis-à-vis its neighbors shaped Russia’s imperial identity. The book’s eight mostly thematically arranged chapters begin with an overview of Russo-Turkish ties from the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 to the July Crisis of 1914. Reynolds spotlights the state-to-state or “high politics” of this period, exploring the ways in which the two foes sought a secure and stable frontier between their domains. The next two chapters analyze the “low level” encounter of the two empires and, in particular, the roles their variegated populations played in inter-imperial politics. As warring contiguous states, the Ottoman and Russian empires strove to exploit their neighbor’s nominal control over its ethnically and religiously other subjects—such as Armenians of Anatolia in the Ottoman case and North Caucasian Muslim highlanders in the Russian case—but these schemes often backfired. In chapter four, Reynolds argues that Turkey’s entrance into the war amounted to a “calculated gamble” that aimed to achieve security and internal stability, rather than a quixotic plot for pan-Islamic glory. The Young Turks hoped to buy time for desperately needed domestic reforms, which in their view could be achieved only without the meddling of foreign powers. Next, chapter five focuses on the new conceptions of state legitimacy that

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informed much of the contemporary decision making in both Istanbul and St. Petersburg. Reynolds finds that the wholesale massacre of Armenians in Anatolia was more a result of “calculations of state interest than ethnic passions.” In the lead-up to the bloodbath of 1915, “the Ottoman government had, at best, failed to provide security to Armenians. At worst, its own officials had fanned and manipulated anti-Armenian sentiment.” Reynolds is careful not to exonerate Armenians for their share of brutality unleashed on Turkish civilians, but concludes that “the natural response of any population living under such conditions of malevolent anarchy would be to arm and organize itself, and such behavior is not in itself an indication of bad faith or betrayal.” What is more important here than recurrent questions of who initiated the carnage and who suffered the most is that Ottoman and Russian authorities equally sought to exploit the violence to their benefit. In chapter six, Reynolds considers the evolution of Ottoman policy toward Russia and the Caucasus in the twilight of the war and the immediate postwar period. Tangible considerations of realpolitik, rather than ideology, informed Ottoman aims. Istanbul first pursued the restoration of the prewar boundary between the two empires, but as the chaos of revolution and civil war enveloped Russia, Ottoman statesmen called for the return of former Turkish provinces in Anatolia, wrested by its Orthodox foe in the Russo- Ottoman War of 1877-78. The book’s penultimate chapter considers Ottoman ties with the embryonic Transcaucasian Federation, and Turkey’s hopes to see the formation of a neutral buffer zone in the Transcaucasus before the resurgence of Russian power. While the rise of newly independent Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia in this period is usually seen as the fruit of long- held nationalist aspirations, Reynolds argues that, in fact, interstate rivalry was pivotal to the ephemeral emergence of these three nation-states. In the final chapter, Reynolds illustrates how the Ottoman state took advantage of Russia’s weakened hold on the Caucasus to make a foray into Azerbaijan and Dagestan. But again he emphasizes that “geopolitical imperatives” and not ethnoreligious solidarity guided Turkish actions. Taking advantage of their relative superiority in the region in the wake of the war, the Ottomans’ primary goal in the summer of 1918 was not only to secure their eastern frontier against future Russian aggression, but also to fortify themselves against potential hostility from Britain and Germany. Reynolds’s cogent emphasis on the pressures exerted on Russia

298 Book Reviews and Turkey by the centripetal forces of interstate rivalry will find many sympathizers who question the ostensible power of centrifugal nationalisms. While one wishes that Reynolds had been more generous with his citations, the book’s reliance on both Turkish and Russian sources will succeed in swaying the most hardened proponent of the nationalism paradigm.

William J. Cooper. We Have the War Upon Us: The Onset of the Civil War, November 18 6 0 –April 18 6 1. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012.

Kenneth M. Stampp. And the War Came: The North and the Secession Crisis, 18 6 0 -18 6 1. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1950. Reviewed by Robert S. Richard

Professional historians began debating the causes of the American Civil War more than a century ago, when James Ford Rhodes famously endorsed the notion of an “irrepressible conflict” between North and South grounded in the intractable moral dilemma over Southern slavery. While this interpretation has engendered many compelling versions to date, other scholars have taken inspiration from an opposing “blundering generation” view espoused by the revisionist historians of the 1930s and 1940s. These dueling schools of thought have profoundly shaped scholarly investigations of the outbreak of the Civil War, for they strike at the heart of two essential historical questions: why did the Southern states secede from the Union in 1860-1861, and could disunion have been prevented by means of a political compromise? Followers of the “irrepressible conflict” tradition generally concur that the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 made Southern secession all but inevitable, while those historians who perceive a “blundering generation” of antebellum politicians tend to blame disunion on the persistent failure of Lincoln and other Republicans to

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appreciate the seriousness of the crisis. Although published sixty-two years apart, Kenneth M. Stampp’s And the War Came and William J. Cooper’s We Have the War Upon Us constitute an apt pairing that demonstrates the enduring vitality of this debate. Each work offers a nuanced and engaging account of the chronologically compact yet historically momentous political phenomenon known as the “secession winter” of 1860-1861. Besides their focus on the frenetic final months leading up to the Civil War, however, these two meticulous, narrative-based analyses share little in common. Stampp and Cooper both claim to move beyond stale questions about the inevitability of the war or why the war emerged over the long term. But if they succeed in avoiding the latter, they fail miserably in escaping the former. While scrutinizing the rapid chain of events that directly precipitated the war, their divergent theoretical assumptions and methodological approaches oblige each author to embrace either the “irrepressible conflict” or the “blundering generation” interpretation. To the extent that these rival schools have influenced scholarship on the secession winter, Stampp and Cooper stand as their finest representatives. Naturally, Stampp denies belonging to either of these interpretive traditions in any strict sense. Acknowledging that slavery lay at the root of the sectional conflict, he maintains that “there did exist a profound and irrepressible clash of material interests,” not to mention popular attitudes, between the free and slave states by 1860. Then, before succumbing to this materialist version of the “irrepressible conflict” school, Stampp adds an important qualification: “All this did not make a civil war necessary or inevitable.” He also stresses that we must not judge the American statesmen of 1860-1861 through the lens of the present, for they merely “accepted as God-given the social institutions and political standards which generated and shaped the forces making for war.” Accordingly, Stampp devotes his study to an investigation of how those forces played out in the North. In concluding that social and political forces remained virtually irresistible to Northern decision-makers during the tense days of the secession winter, he betrays an underlying adherence to the idea that the war was, ultimately, “irrepressible.” Stampp’s restrictive methodology bestows the book with an insightful, but limited, outlook on the convoluted process of disunion. Focusing on Northern newspapers, published letters, congressional records, and a

300 Book Reviews smattering of archival manuscripts, the author eloquently narrates the actions of major political figures and legislative bodies in the context of evolving Northern public opinion, roughly from Lincoln’s election in the fall of 1860 to the bombardment of Fort Sumter in mid-April 1861. His perusal of these Northern and Republican-centric sources leads Stampp to conclude that the “great mass of Republicans were unalterably opposed to compromise” to the extent that secessionists and even Southern Unionists would have deemed satisfactory. In resisting the Crittenden Compromise and most other conciliatory proposals, Republican officials paid heed to the wishes of those citizens who had elected them, not to mention the 1860 party platform on which they had been elected. Moreover, Lincoln’s prolonged “defensive” and “law enforcement” stance, as well as his eventual resolution regarding Fort Sumter, reflected the increasing bellicosity of his constituents, while William Henry Seward’s policy of “voluntary reconstruction” via “masterly inactivity” soon lost touch with reality on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. Thus Stampp assumes that Republican conciliation was practically impossible from the moment of Lincoln’s election. He devotes his remaining energies to exploring how the determinative Republican antipathy to compromise, especially over the territorial expansion of slavery, translated or evolved into the North’s equally decisive hostility to “peaceful disunion.” In both cases, Stampp argues that Republican leaders, Lincoln above all, were justified in pushing the country towards civil war based on the “social institutions and political standards”—i.e., free-labor capitalism and the perpetuity of the Union—on which they had staked their entire claim to political existence. Considering the vital evidentiary role and unyielding, free-soil nationalism of Northern public opinion in Stampp’s analysis, it is unsurprising that he dismisses the compromise efforts of even moderate Republicans as “superficial” and “at worst … fraudulent.” To be fair, these efforts included the dissimulation of outwardly conciliatory Republican congressmen like Charles Francis Adams, who sponsored but did not vote for a bill to organize New Mexico as a slave state, solely for the purpose of arresting secession in the Upper South. Whereas Stampp limits his scope to Northern sources and is therefore confined to making judgments that reinforce the historical authority of those sources, William Cooper takes a broader geographic approach that

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threatens to reduce Stampp’s conclusions to ashes. Despite professing to treat “North and South, Republican and Democrat, sectional radicals and sectional conservatives” simultaneously, however, Cooper falls into a trap similar to that of Stampp by emphasizing the role of Northern and border- state conservatives and Southern Unionists during the secession winter at the expense of everyone else. In Cooper’s view, genuine compromise was a readily attainable goal that, were it not for the obstructionism of Lincoln and other “hard-line” Republicans in Congress, would have peaceably saved the Union. Perceiving a far more divided Republican party in 1860 than does Stampp, Cooper powerfully evokes the “blundering generation” school in his depiction of Seward as a conservative hero tragically tethered to the ideological inflexibility and rash partisanship of an inexperienced, belligerent Abraham Lincoln. Unlike Stampp, who envisions a “great mass of Republicans” in complete opposition to compromise over the expansion of slavery, Cooper points to a “substantial portion” of “pro-compromise Republicans” supporting the extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean, as well as other components of the Crittenden Compromise and Virginia’s “Peace Convention” plan. Identifying Lincoln as a “hard-liner” representing only a fraction of the party, Cooper chastises him for failing to live up to the legacy of his political hero, Henry Clay, which he attributes to Lincoln’s “ignorance of the South, his vigorous partisanship, [and] his visceral antislavery commitment.” Indeed, Cooper repeatedly insists that Republican “hard-liners” like Lincoln “did not think nationally, only sectionally,” without considering that the two notions might not be mutually exclusive. Meanwhile Seward, despite never voting in favor of a single conciliatory measure regarding the territories, is elevated in Cooper’s narrative to the status of the Great Compromiser, for he supposedly hoped— though the evidence Cooper provides here is flimsy—that the “Republican party could embrace the Crittenden Compromise or the Peace Convention proposals and become the great Union party.” In documenting the “hardline” Republicans’ dogged resistance to becoming the “great Union party,” Cooper lays the blame for the breakout of hostilities squarely on their shoulders. How does one make sense of such contradictory approaches to the tragedy of the secession winter? Both Stampp and Cooper fault congressional

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Republicans for stalling the last-ditch compromise efforts of the 36th Congress, but Stampp sees admirable structural forces justifying Republican intransigence while Cooper emphasizes their partisan machinations and callousness towards the possibility of war. What about the influential Southern politicians from the seven Deep South states—including a highly respected conservative senator from Mississippi named Jefferson Davis— that had already seceded from the Union by February 1861? To what extent does their resignation from Congress during the secession winter and their abject refusal to reenter the Union at any price hold them accountable for the war? Although Cooper chronicles their movements in considerable detail, he fails to weigh their actions in the mental deliberations of Lincoln, Seward, and other Republicans who eventually rejected compromise with Northern conservatives and Southern Unionists. Despite the exhaustive scholarship on those fleeting, restless months of 1860-1861, most of which has emerged between the publications of these two important books, the big picture still seems sorely incomplete.

Elizabeth Heineman. Before Porn was Legal: The Erotica Empire of Beate Uhse. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Reviewed by Alex Ruble

In her 2011 monograph Before Porn was Legal: The Erotica Empire of Beate Uhse, historian Elizabeth Heineman narrates the fascinating story of West Germany’s premier erotica company. Beate Uhse- Rotermund, a Luftwaffe pilot-turned-sex expert, began her career in the late 1940s, responding to the growing number of postwar pregnancies by publishing brochures about birth control methods. By the 1950s she had founded a mail-order business for erotica and sex toys, and a decade later she established physical stores. Uhse next ventured into pornography and pioneered online pornography in the 1990s. Heineman situates the rise of her subject’s empire in postwar West German economic and political developments, arguing that Uhse’s business reflected

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the country’s conflicting attitudes between maintaining “a healthy sexual- moral order,” guaranteeing economic liberalism, and protecting political freedoms. Her study falls into an emerging body of scholarship on the history of sexuality in postwar Germany that includes works like Dagmar Herzog’s 2005 monograph Sex after Fascism, though Heineman does not draw such direct connections between the memory of Nazism and postwar attitudes about sexuality, and she modifies slightly Herzog’s characterization of 1950s West Germany as sexually stifling. After an introduction to the history of sexuality in Germany before 1945, especially its regulation, Heineman jumps into her analysis of the “erotic ice age” after the war. The Law on Youth-Endangering Texts, sodomy laws, and the rise of purity leagues created an atmosphere of sexual repression endorsed by the ruling Christian Democrats. As Heineman demonstrates, however, the “ice age” metaphor extended only so far, as the 1950s were also the decade of skyrocketing sales of mail-order erotica, courtesy of Uhse’s firm located in Flensburg. The increase in erotica sales was not simply a reaction to the tightening governmental grip on sexuality, but represented a political tussle among Christian Democrats, liberals, and the erotica industry. Meanwhile, as the state struggled to maintain its regulatory hold on sexuality, erotica entrepreneurs took advantage of the “Economic Miracle” to sell their goods. Heineman examines how products from Uhse’s and similar firms helped married couples reestablish their relationships. Erotica firms grew as married couples rushed to order items to help their unions. Consequently, the firms became expert marketers. Catalogs broadcasting headlines such as “Is Everything All Right in Our Marriage?” forwarded the idea that women were not alone in searching for solutions to marital strife. The language of product descriptions offered remedies for a number of problems ranging from fear of pregnancy to premature ejaculation. To arouse men’s interest, Uhse included photos of naked women. By assuring male readers that sexuality of all forms was acceptable and female readers that they, too, could enjoy a fulfilling sex life, Uhse attempted to appeal to customers’ desires for a meaningful and satisfying family life. Halfway through, the book shifts to an analysis of the “Beate Uhse myth” as a story readers identified with the changing notions of gender and sexuality in West Germany. According to Heineman, Uhse mythologized

304 Book Reviews herself in the catalog as a product of German history. By the time she opened her first erotica boutique in 1962, she was already a household name. The book’s fifth chapter, “Sex Wave,” describes the emergence of erotica from the ostensibly hidden world of mail-order to a public, brick-and-mortar presence. Here, too, the increasing wealth of West Germany facilitated a more liberal attitude towards sexual consumption. As the sex wave paved new avenues for the erotica industry, it reopened political debates over the role of the state in regulating sexuality. In the 1970s, the sex wave became the “porn wave.” Pleasure, not instruction, became the focal point of the industry. Erotic novels, magazines, photographs, and films overtook the sales of sex manuals and different forms of contraceptives. The goal of marital harmony was displaced in favor of voyeurism and personal satisfaction, a decidedly male domain. The biography of Beate Uhse is merely a starting point for Heineman, whose real purpose is to demonstrate that the myth of Uhse represented changing notions of gender, sexuality, and class in West Germany. Heineman’s ability to contextualize her subject while showing her pivotal role in changing German conceptions of sexuality is excellent, but the emphasis on Uhse may be misleading. As Heineman states early on, Uhse was not alone in her endeavors, as 111 mail-order firms existed in Germany in 1952. Competitors such as Walter Schäfer, the proprietor of Gisela, receive surprisingly little attention in the book. Though Heineman can hardly be admonished for focusing on Uhse, for which there is a plethora of fascinating material, the title may be too restrictive, suggesting that Uhse created a monopoly over erotica. Nevertheless, for those interested in gender and sexuality, Before Porn was Legal tells an interesting story that successfully intertwines well-known narratives of German history (the Economic Miracle, Adenauer’s conservative rule) with lesser-known cultural and social currents.

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Paul Robinson and Jay Dixon. Aiding Afghanistan: A History of Soviet Assistance to a Developing Country. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Reviewed by Austin Yost

Afghanistan has been one of the world’s largest recipients of foreign aid for over sixty years, yet it continues to be ranked among the poorest countries in the world. In Aiding Afghanistan: A History of Assistance to a Developing Country, University of Ottawa professors Paul Robinson and Jay Dixon combine their respective expertise in Russian military history and economics to examine why the Soviet Union’s foreign aid programs in Afghanistan did not achieve better results. Drawing on newly available sources, the authors connect Soviet-era development theory with more modern ideas about the role of institutions in achieving stable economic growth, producing a work that serves as a warning to other developed powers working towards similar goals of stabilization and economic reform, both in Afghanistan and elsewhere. This volume seeks to provide a balanced analysis of the achievements and failures of Soviet aid to Afghanistan between the years 1919 and 1991, as it revisits a once-controversial topic that the authors claim has been misanalysed by more politicized scholars looking through the lens of the Cold War. The authors advance the revisionist argument that Soviet development policy in Afghanistan was not in fact neo-imperialist in nature. Indeed, Soviet efforts at nation-building were far more sophisticated than those practiced by the NATO forces now occupying the country. However, as most American analyses of Soviet aid efforts have been summarily negative, the authors’ assertion that Soviet aid was largely well-intentioned merits explanation. While it is indisputable that both the USSR and the US both used international aid and credit as a tool to absorb developing nations into their respective spheres of influence, it has been asserted commonly that Soviet investment in Afghanistan was merely a ploy to gain access to that country’s rich natural gas reserves. The authors counter this view with mountains of data that was unavailable to previous commentators, detailing the staggering level of assistance rendered by the Soviets in Afghanistan and 306 Book Reviews appending an exhaustive list of the aid programs and assistance agreements signed by both nations. They note that rather than impressing exploitative reforms and economic pressure upon the Afghans without their consent, the Soviets in reality consulted with the Afghan government extensively in the co-development of policies meant to lift the nation out of underdevelopment. According to the authors, “Afghan officials under King Zahir Shah could display considerable initiative in deciding on which projects they wanted funding,” and “Afghan requests were rarely rejected.” The book’s analysis of Soviet aid to Afghanistan presents interesting insights into the progress of Soviet foreign policy, and the parallels between Soviet and American thinking on the issue are striking. During the Stalin era, Soviet siege mentality greatly limited the USSR’s willingness to reach out to developing nations. With the advent of the Khrushchev era and the worldwide popularity of planned economics as an alternative to capitalism, especially in the developing world, the USSR saw an opportunity to expand its influence and prestige without the use of armed force. Later, as nations like Afghanistan remained impoverished and the rise of Brezhnev led to a more conservative and inward-looking Soviet regime, the value of public sector expansion, heavy industrialization, and economic autonomy was reexamined in the context of Soviet academic discussions on socialist development in the Third World. A new emphasis was placed on the development of profitable export industries necessary to repay the growing debts owed to the Soviet Union. But these more market-based policies did little to improve the situation, resulting in a paradigm shift in Soviet thinking. Rather than viewing social and cultural organization as dependent upon economics, as in the traditional Marxian view, the Soviets began to recognize that institutional reform was required to pave the way for the growth of wealth and prosperity. It was with this in mind that the Soviets supported the radicalism of the Marxist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) after it seized political control of the country in the Saur Revolution in 1978. Soon after the revolution, the PDPA called upon the Soviets to intervene in order to prevent the collapse of the newly established Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. By the mid-eighties, Perestroika-style reforms were even carried out and Soviet aid began reaching the Afghan private sector. However, the authors make clear that despite improvements in the Soviets’ overall approach, redoubled efforts towards lifting Afghanistan

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out of poverty produced little result in the chaos of the 1980s. Aiding Afghanistan will provide new insights of great use to scholars of both Soviet history and political science. Perhaps not intended for general audiences and at times somewhat dry in its tone, the book nevertheless serves as a fascinating and data-driven description of Soviet economic investment and eventual calamity in Afghanistan. The authors present a bleak evaluation of the gap between the massive amounts in development aid received by Afghanistan during the Cold War and the growth of the Afghan economy and living standards in the same period. Though the authors claim that the Soviets had reached the now widely accepted conclusion that “institutions rule” far sooner than their western counterparts, emphasizing the importance of an advanced, cooperative civil society to the success of economic development, the attempt to reform Afghanistan on an institutional and social level ultimately resulted in a calamitous civil war.

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Film Reviews

Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter, directed by Philipp Kadelbach (teamWorx Television & Film, 2013). Reviewed by Peter Gengler

In March of 2013, the three-part German television miniseries Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter (Our Mothers, Our Fathers) brought to life the experiences of the German World War II generation on the Eastern Front. Although modern German audiences have become inured to spectral images of the Nazi past flickering on their television screens, nearly ten percent of the population tuned in to follow the fictional story of five friends living in the Third Reich. Additional programming featured intimate conversations with eyewitnesses and their descendants, as for the first time in years the German public intensively discussed their collective past, while historians and public intellectuals offered their input on the show’s merits.Unsere Mütter, which was distributed in the US later as a feature film under the titleGeneration War, has been hailed as a resounding success simply because it has initiated an inter-generational conversation. Yet despite attempting to illuminate the worldview of viewers’ ancestors, the work’s problematic narrative contributes very little to German public memory of the Nazi dictatorship. This high-budget miniseries is part of long tradition of bold cinematic confrontations with the Nazi past. A number of films and television programs in the last thirty years prompted similar public debates in Germany and, in some cases, led to laudable reassessments of the Third Reich and its legacy. The 1978 American television series Holocaust confronted German audiences with Nazi barbarity, arguably engendering a greater awareness of and willingness to commemorate the victims of German genocidal policies. Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List similarly prompted soul-searching and renewed discussions over the question of German guilt. In addition to these filmic treatments, the contentious 1995 HamburgWehrmachtsaustellung ,

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(Photo courtesy of teamWorx Television & Film.)

or “German Army Exhibit,” exposed to a popular audience the complicity of the regular army in Germany’s atrocities, even as veterans decried such characterizations. However, the latest iteration of seven decades of Vergangenheitsbewältigung—a uniquely German word translating roughly to “coming to terms with the past”—is marked by a greater degree of earnestness and vigor. The show’s producers explicitly attempted to ignite a critical dialogue between generations and to instigate an “active grieving process.”1 Recalling his father’s emotional reaction to the film, producer Nico Hofmann related how their conversation had ended in tears. Why, Hofmann asked, had it taken until 2013 for his father to divulge his experiences of serving on the Eastern Front? Ostensibly, Unsere Mütter could at long last facilitate family dialogue and bring closure to all, overcoming a German grief that has lingered since 1945 but has not adequately been contended with. Journalist Bernhard Schulz concluded that the most important achievement of the series is that Germans have “now received a language with which we can speak about what had been mostly unspeakable.”2

1 Morten Freidel et al., “Es ist nie vorbei,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 18, 2013. 2 Bernhard Schulz, “Die Sprache des Krieges,” Der Tagesspiegel, March 20, 2013. 310 Film Review

(Photo courtesy of teamWorx Television & Film.)

The supposed importance of this intergenerational bonding is lent weight by the timing of the project. In all likelihood, this will be the last time that a public discourse of such proportions will take place while those who experienced the war are still alive. The sense of urgency has underlined the apparent need to uncover final truths and lessons. Indeed, as journalist Frank Schirrmacher noted, Unsere Mütter is an admonishment to young Germans far removed from dictatorship, who had the privilege of what former chancellor Helmut Kohl once called the “mercy of a late birth.” “It is never over,” Schirrmacher asserted.3 The ongoing prosecution of members of the terroristic National Socialist Underground (NSU) and renewed attempts to ban the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) underscore for some the need to be ever vigilant against the specter of Nazism. With regard to its ambition to educate viewers, the miniseries can claim some notable achievements. The brutality of a number of the scenes is haunting, confronting audiences with images of swamps that run red with the blood of murdered civilians and open-air executions of Jews and suspected partisans. In a refreshing departure from older movies in this

3 Freidel et. al, “Es ist nie vorbei.” 311 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

genre, the unprecedented scale of the war of annihilation waged against the Soviet Union has been successfully conveyed. Particularly in the 1950s, German war films such asHunde, wollt ihr ewig leben (Dogs, do you want to live forever), Der Arzt von Stalingrad (The Doctor of Stalingrad), orDie Brücke (The Bridge) depicted the common soldiery fighting for Germany and not for National Socialism.4 Moviegoers were exposed to the message that the true German military man fought against overwhelming odds while attempting to outwit crazed Nazi officers. The soldier was German, the Nazis were “others.” The common themes of these films included the futility of the war, inevitable defeat, and suffering in the ruins of Stalingrad and in captivity, thereby turning “ordinary” soldiers into tragic heroes. Moreover, rank-and-file soldiers were presented as victims of maniacal Nazis, the menacing Red Army, the horrendous Russian winter, and a war they never wanted. Unsere Mütter is far more sophisticated than these earlier works, capturing the daily anguish of common soldiers without papering over the complicity of the Wehrmacht in Germany’s war crimes. Historian Norbert Frei has argued that the film is a vast improvement over all previous attempts simply because the war against the Soviet Union had never before been shown in such a stark manner.5 The series reflects recent historical scholarship, which Frei regards as an important and new development in cinematic representations of this time period.6 Overall, the notion that war brings out the worst in people—prophetically articulated early in the series by one of the protagonists—is convincingly communicated. Despite its admirable intentions and the seemingly cathartic public

4 The rehabilitation of the military was not just necessary for helping Germans and veterans come to terms with the Second World War. The distancing of the regular army from Nazism on the screen and in print paralleled the rehabilitation of the German military by the western Allies and German government, enabling the formation of the Bundeswehr and incorporation into NATO in 1955. 5 Nicholas Büchse, Stefan Schmitz, and Matthias Weber, “Das gespaltene Urteil der Historiker,” Stern, March 23, 2013, accessed December 18, 2013. 6 In particular, Frei applauded the show’s uncompromising portrayal of the regular army’s participation in mass executions of Jews and their involvement in reprisal actions against the civilian population, a key component of German anti-partisan warfare. This reflects the latest scholarship of historians such as Sönke Neitzel and Harald Welzer, whose study of secret Allied recordings of German POWs demonstrate that knowledge of, participation in, and approval of war crimes was widespread within the German regular army. See Sönke Neitzel, Abgehört. Deutsche Generäle in britischer Kriegsgefangenschaft 1942-1945 (Berlin: Propyläen, 2005) and Sönke Neitzel and Harald Welzer, Soldaten. Protokolle vom Kämpfen, Töten und Sterben (Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer, 2011). 312 Film Review discourse, some pundits have accused Unsere Mütter of falling short of its professed aims and inhibiting an understanding of how “our mothers and fathers” actually acted, thus complicating an honest confrontation with the German past. Critics have argued that the series does not address all dimensions of the war generation’s experience and indeed establishes some erroneous interpretations that cannot lead to a meaningful or accurate understanding of what daily life was like in Hitler’s Germany. Moreover, given the fact that this will be the last discussion with the war generation, historians have emphasized that it is all the more vital that the intergenerational exchange leads to an understanding of German history with true explanatory power. The portrayal of the five protagonists represents one of the greatest failures of Unsere Mütter. Each represents a compelling yet problematic archetype. Wilhelm, the narrator of the story, corresponds with the self- representation of many veterans who remember their war service as a well-intentioned but misguided defense of their homeland. Initially bound by patriotism and sense of duty to the fatherland, Wilhelm’s convictions are put to the test by the realities of fighting a losing war. Another character, Charlotte, is a proud German woman burning with enthusiasm to contribute to the war effort, prompting her to volunteer as a nurse on the Eastern Front. Other characters who have a more ambivalent attitude to the regime also invite sympathy. Greta, for instance, has an affair with an SS officer who promises to help her with her career as an aspiring singer. This relationship in turn allows Greta to arrange for her Jewish boyfriend Viktor to escape to the United States. When the SS officer reneges on the deal and has Viktor arrested, Viktor escapes from a train that is bound for an extermination camp and joins a group of Polish partisans. The last of the five friends, Friedhelm, represents the complete inverse of his brother Wilhelm: a sensitive and reluctant soldier scorned by other soldiers for his “soft” nature, the mistreatment of his comrades and the vicious war eventually turn him into a cynical and hard man. In time Viktor becomes a skilled soldier who resents Wilhelm’s increasing disillusionment. These diverse characters represent “ordinary” Germans with whom the viewer is invited to identify. Each of the friends is confronted with his or her own trials, as the “total war” forces them into making agonizing choices that require weighing morality against survival or personal advancement.

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Ultimately, many make unconscionable decisions. Wilhelm executes a Russian commissar and Charlotte denounces one of her fellow nurses after discovering her to be a Jew. Greta’s desire for stardom leads her to have an affair with the SS officer, while Friedhelm drives Russian peasants into a minefield to clear the way for his platoon. Friedhelm’s prophecy that the war would bring out the worst in them is thus fulfilled. These dramatic plot twists confront German viewers with the possibility that their “mothers and fathers” may have committed unspeakable acts during the war. Indeed, many “ordinary” Germans failed to act morally.7 But how the decisions of the protagonists play out and what conclusions they draw from their choices is drawn too neatly. Ultimately, the friends seek and find redemption, echoing the simplistic tropes of the 1950s war movies. Whereas in these earlier renditions German soldiers never committed dishonorable acts, the makers of this series arrange for the protagonists to fail morally only to emerge finally as tragic heroes opposed to the chaos around them. For example, Wilhelm’s disillusionment leads him to opt out of the system and desert the military, after which he is captured and demoted to a penal battalion, where he murders his vicious commanding officer. He survives the war, but as a broken, tragic figure. Meanwhile, Charlotte is plagued with guilt for having sent the Jewish nurse to a certain death. But the nurse has escaped and joined a Russian unit, and forgives Charlotte’s betrayal by saving her from rape at the hands of Red Army soldiers. The apolitical Friedhelm murders an SS officer and martyrs himself when he single- handedly attacks a Russian unit in order to save a group of eager yet green Hitler Youth members from senseless death. Greta’s vanity and concern for stardom is dispelled by the reality of war when she witnesses the chaos of a field hospital. After she publicly predicts Germany’s certain defeat, Greta is arrested and executed. Perhaps because he is Jewish and a victim of Nazi genocidal policies, Viktor enjoys the distinction of being the only character who has not been forced into a dubious moral dilemma. However, even he emerges a hero after his rabidly anti-Semitic partisan comrades ostracize him for defying them to free a group of Jews that they have come across in a locked train car after an ambush. These character evolutions make for entertaining television, but

7 See for instance Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: Harper Perennial, 1998). 314 Film Review unsound history. The audience may breathe a sigh of relief when characters make amends for earlier shortcomings through rebellious acts against the regime. Viewers may mourn the fates of the five friends, or cry with the protagonists as they belatedly realize that National Socialism has destroyed their lives. The characters come across as youngsters swept up in the times while their enthusiasm for the Third Reich is portrayed as the result of well-intentioned but misguided patriotism. Above all, the war has made the five friends victims: victims of a regime that targeted them for their politics or race; victims of a war that robbed them of youthful innocence and transformed them into beasts; victims of a government that betrayed their trust; victims of the times. The protagonists are all “types” reflecting how members of the war generation like to think of their experiences or how Germans wish their elders behaved or they themselves would have acted had they faced similar circumstances. This identification with the five friends is strengthened through stereotypical representations of sadistic and barbaric Nazis, who unlike the viewers’ tragic mothers and hapless fathers, are the “real” fascists. Many historians charge that this binary is fundamentally false. By suggesting that these protagonists were “typical” young Germans who represent their generation, the narrative is at odds with the supposed intentions of the filmmakers, who sought a confrontation with the past. German historian Martin Sabrow emphasized that focusing on these characters was an artistic choice that does not reflect Nazi society accurately.8 Though it is nearly impossible to reconstruct public opinion in the Third Reich, most historians agree that in the spring of 1941 the regime enjoyed broad support from the German population.9 Nevertheless, in this series the public’s enthusiasm and love for Hitler, the firm conviction in Germany’s destiny to rule Europe, the war fervor, and the widespread apathy—if not antipathy—toward Jews falls completely to the wayside. The war generation was not, as the series suggests, merely comprised of youngsters hoping to live life to the fullest but who were denied this dream by the war. Instead, they

8 Büchse, Schmitz, and Weber, “Das gespaltene Urteil der Historiker.” 9 Robert Gellately has argued that the majority of German citizens supported Hitler despite the extent of Nazi atrocities, which were widely known among the population, until 1945. Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). See also Peter Fritzsche, Life and Death in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008). 315 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

were a highly politicized and indoctrinated generation who backed Hitler and wanted National Socialism to succeed. It is true that many Germans regarded themselves as apolitical and began to harbor misgivings after Allied bombings destroyed hearth and home and certain defeat loomed. There also were some Germans who behaved as heroically as these protagonists did, and many more who were disillusioned by the time the war ended. Though many Germans suffered and saw their youthful years consumed by warfare, the series does not begin to answer the crucial question: how did ordinary Germans behave in the Third Reich? The narrative that is established inUnsere Mütter presents a misguided view of German history for popular audiences. As the historian Ulrich Herbert has warned, despite the film’s entertainment value and stark portrayal of the horrors of war, the perspective is all wrong.10 With increased distance from the Nazi period and a rapidly diminishing pool of eyewitnesses, the danger exists that young Germans, supplied with the images of these films, will come to the conclusion that though their elders may have done bad things, they could not do otherwise, as they were living in a hellish dictatorship that consumed them as well. The real responsibility lay with others, with the criminals who drove millions into barbarity with their sadism and ideological fervor. It is a rendering that many of the war generation are eager to endorse. As Herbert pithily noted, Unsere Mütter argues that “the Nazis were always the other guys.” This particular vantage point can contribute little to a public debate. The content of Unsere Mütter reflects the history of postwar German memory politics and provides some insight into the future of Germany’s public memory. Historians have frequently pointed out that the immediate postwar period was marked by “selective remembering” that ignored or marginalized Germany’s victims and crimes and privileged German victimhood.11 Discussions of the Third Reich, when they took place, commonly focused on the plight of civilians during Allied bombings,

10 Ulrich Herbert, “Nazis sind immer die anderen,” Die Tageszeitung, March 21, 2013. 11 See Robert Moeller, War Stories: The Search for a Useable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Moeller counters the notion that Germans did not talk about their past, arguing that they selectively discussed aspects that emphasized German suffering and ignored atrocities that the Third Reich had committed. Particularly in the 1950s, the reluctance to take responsibility for Nazism fused with the anti-communism of the Cold War, enabling a public memory filled with “blank spots.” 316 Film Review expulsions, terror at the hands of the Red Army, survival in captivity, and futile yet valiant struggles at the front where soldiers fought bravely for their country. Genocide and ethnic cleansing were shrouded in silence, while discussions of the ordeals that “ordinary” Germans had endured abounded. Germans remembered their suffering as a means of coping with trauma, but this came at the expense of commemorating the victims of Nazi persecution. It wasn’t until the 1960s that the German Federal Republic confronted its past and vigorously addressed the issue of collective guilt. The Eichmann and Auschwitz Trials revealed the scale of Nazi genocidal policies and the broad pillars of support upon which they stood. The war generation’s children, the baby boomers, were appalled and confronted their parents with the common question: “What did you do during the war?” The perceived passivity if not outright criminality of their parents and authority figures added a crucial dimension to the generational revolt of the 1960s. Despite their political failures and naiveté, members of the “68 Generation” were the first to interrogate their parents, thereby shifting greater attention to Germany’s war crimes. This social upheaval was central to increasing public commemoration of the Holocaust. Each passing decade seemed to widen the circle of those culpable for the horror unleashed by Germany. Far more people had pulled triggers than previously thought, many more millions had lent support to the regime. Entering the twenty-first century, German public memory seemed fixated on questions of German guilt, even if individually the war generation tended to renounce personal responsibility. Nevertheless, the 2005 opening of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, in the heart of Berlin, seemed to signal that contrition, introspection, and commitment to honoring the victims lay at the center of Germany’s self-perception. Yet while public commemoration during the mid-2000s remained focused on the Holocaust, the memory of “ordinary” Germans’ experiences in the Third Reich demonstrates continuity with the 1950s period of “selective remembering.” The victimhood trope of the 1950s has found renewed currency, particularly on the big screen. In 2004, Germans flocked to see Der Untergang (The Downfall), the celluloid portrayal of the last days of Hitler in his bunker, which was located a stone’s throw away from the Holocaust Memorial, then nearing completion. The destruction of Berlin and the civilian population’s frantic struggle for survival served as the

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backdrop to the death throes of a crazed Nazi leadership indifferent to the wanton destruction. In 2006, Dresden dramatized the Allied firebombing of the Saxon capital and the plight of its inhabitants.12 And in 2007, Die Flucht (March of Millions) portrayed the hardships of the millions of German civilians fleeing the Red Army from East Prussia. Though these movies have striven to avoid apologetics, it appears that narratives of German suffering continue to resonate deeply in the Federal Republic. Few Germans are willing to dismiss the centrality of the Nazis’ victims in German public memory. Yet critics fear that the resurgence of German victimhood narratives will lead to an incomplete or erroneous historical awareness in which German misery is privileged over or equated to the suffering of Germany’s victims. These concerns are only amplified now that the war generation and Holocaust survivors are passing away. One may ask why such a trend has emerged after decades of public commemoration that concentrated on collective culpability and the publication of countless historical studies underscoring the broad appeal of Nazism. It appears that the long-extant notion of German victimhood coexists with the official public memory stressing German guilt. As Harald Welzer and Sabine Moller demonstrated in an intriguing oral history project that investigated multiple generations of single families, a disconnect between private family memories and public commemoration exists.13 The vast majority of participants in the study—whether the war generation, their children, or grandchildren—make use of “victimhood” and “heroisation” tropes to frame their family experiences. The generation that lived in the Third Reich typically appears as victims of social circumstances, war, captivity, and military occupation and simultaneously as “heroes” through

12 The firebombing of Dresden had been the subject of a contentious public debate a few years before, after the historian Jörg Friedrich publicized a controversial work that claimed the air raid constituted a war crime. See Jörg Friedrich, Der Brand. Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940-1945 (Berlin: Propyläen, 2002). Incidentally, the company behind Dresden also produced Unsere Mütter. 13 Harald Welzer and Sabine Moller, Opa war kein Nazi: Nationalsozialismus und Holocaust im Familiengedächtnis (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 2002). 318 Film Review demonstrated acts of resistance to the regime.14 Within German families, the Nazi dictatorship is largely understood as a system of coercion and terror, leaving no room for individual agency. The scholars concluded that “from generation to generation the picture becomes clearer that ‘the Nazis’ increasingly became ‘the others’ and thereby the distance of the ancestors to the events in the ‘Third Reich’ became ever greater.”15 Despite tremendous achievements in public commemoration, the German family continues to offer safe haven for “selective remembering” and narratives that present their ancestors as victims of dictatorship and war. Indeed, the authors suggest that “the realization that National Socialism was a criminal system that claimed millions of victims requires successive generations to construct a past in which their relatives appear in roles that have nothing to do with crimes.”16 The Holocaust and the war against the Soviet Union have been investigated in great detail and are fixtures of the public memory of World War II, yet both have little place within German family or popular memory, as their narratives stem from external sources such as history books, television programs, memorials, and museums. The dominant source for most Germans’ historical understanding of the Third Reich comes from family memories and narratives that mitigate personal responsibility. The power of these family stories cannot be understated. More than seventeen million men served in the Wehrmacht, meaning that nearly every family experienced war. Virtually all Germans had access to sanitized recollections. This has produced a contradictory and paradoxical public memory in which Germans commemorate the Holocaust and acknowledge collective guilt, but where few culpable individuals can be found within the family. “The Nazis” were everywhere, except in one’s own home. Programs such as Unsere Mütter are the creation of screenplay writers torn between decades of public discourse over German guilt and private

14 The authors corroborate their theory by citing a 2002 study of the Emnid-Institut in Bielefeld, which concluded that Germans between the ages of 14 and 29 had the propensity to turn their elders into regime opponents or even resistance fighters: 14 percent claimed their parents had lent active resistance, and only 4 percent believed them to have been convinced National Socialists. Only 3 percent of respondents believed their grandparents had been directly involved in any criminal acts. See Walzer and Moller, Opa war kein Nazi, 247. 15 Welzer and Moller, Opa war kein Nazi, 156. 16 Ibid., 207. 319 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

family memories in which the war generation claimed to have avoided criminal behavior altogether or, if they were implicated, were caught up in events beyond their control. Above all, they suffered from wartime brutality and dictatorship. Thus, Unsere Mütter is successful in dramatizing, for instance, how virtually every soldier serving on the Eastern Front would have participated in or witnessed atrocities. This is an achievement of sensitive and informed filmmakers taking stock of scholarship that has dispelled decades-long myths of a Wehrmacht with a reputation beyond reproach. At play as well, however, are familiar tropes concerning how Germans contended with their family’s relationship to the regime. The series and its cinematic renditions reflect how Germans see their “mothers and fathers.” In fact, the appealing redemption of the characters and their ultimately ennobled disposition only validates what many Germans believe about their own families. A rendering that is sensitive to the individual plight while contextualizing it with the understanding that this suffering was a consequence of a dictatorship with broad popular support is a difficult task that requires balance and nuance. Few cinematic works have fully succeeded in that regard, though perhaps Unsere Mütter has been more successful than some. The critics of Unsere Mütter express justifiable fears that the series encourages a new popular consensus on the Nazi dictatorship, one in which the reality of the regime is glossed over. Until a film captures the appeal and internal logic of the Nazi worldview for its adherents and explores fully how National Socialism functioned without resorting to stock characters and stereotypes, teenagers in 2014 who get their history from popular culture may be no closer to understanding life in fascist Germany. Unsere Mütter may visually represent the brutality of the Eastern Front and lead to a new realization of what grandpa went through during the war. This is not, however, conducive to a discussion about “how it was.” That conversation remains outstanding, at least beyond academic circles. In view of the dwindling witnesses, such a discussion among the German public likely will not involve the war generation.

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(Photo courtesy of Schramm Film Koerner & Weber.)

Barbara, directed by Christian Petzold (Schramm Film Koerner & Weber, 2012). Reviewed by Julie Ault

The heroine of the 2012 filmBarbara, a doctor living in 1980s East Germany, struggles with choices surrounding her attempt to escape to West Germany. Removed from her prestigious position at the Charité hospital in Berlin and sent to a provincial backwater on the Baltic Coast as punishment for applying for an exit visa, Barbara is under surveillance by the infamous State Security, or Stasi. As a consequence she regards everyone around her with distrust and veiled hostility. A Stasi officer in town compares her to a sulky six-year-old, at the same time acknowledging that Barbara’s recent incarceration has dissolved whatever circle of friends she once had. Barbara is nevertheless a committed doctor who becomes attached to her patients and the hospital’s director, Andre, who tries to befriend her despite the fact that they both know he is reporting on her to the Stasi. With mutual respect for each other’s professional abilities, Barbara and Andre work together closely on numerous cases, including a young woman named Stella who is serving time in a dreaded “socialist work camp” in Torgau. Barbara proves her skill as a doctor by diagnosing Stella

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(Photo courtesy of Schramm Film Koerner & Weber.)

with meningitis, which the other doctors had overlooked, believing that the patient “was faking it because she didn’t want to work.” Barbara soon learns that Stella is pregnant, and she realizes that being sent back to the work camp could be disastrous for her patient. This plot twist sets up a wrenchingly dramatic scene in which work camp authorities, unaware of Stella’s pregnancy, refuse her a longer convalescence and forcibly remove her from the hospital. Eventually the audience discovers that Barbara has applied for an exit visa in order to join her prosperous West German lover. Throughout the dramatization of her lover’s brief, illicit visits, he is depicted as well intentioned and sympathetic, but oblivious to the daily challenges Barbara faces. This is expressed most clearly when he proposes to move to the East if Barbara cannot join him in the West. Barbara quickly sets him straight, telling him that he’s crazy because “one cannot be happy here.” Barbara’s lover then explains that he has arranged for her to escape illegally to the West via Denmark, and that the escape is planned for a few days hence. With her departure imminent, Barbara must face the reality of leaving. Can she give up everything she has worked for, especially her job, to be reunited with her lover in the West? To stay means being under constant surveillance in a politically oppressive state, yet what lies in the West is

322 Film Review unknown. When her former meningitis patient escapes from the work camp and seeks her doctor’s aid, Barbara must decide how she can best help her. Ultimately, the doctor must choose between her own escape and sending her patient in her place. Despite the film’s melodramatic plot twists, director Christian Petzold offers a nuanced depiction of life in East Germany. Barbara not only shows the viewer the oppressive arm of the Stasi and the vindictive control of the communist state, but blends these alienating elements with humanizing moments and plot lines. For instance, the thoroughly detestable local Stasi man, who orders searches of Barbara’s apartment (and body), is not simply a black-hearted villain, but also a husband whose wife is dying of cancer. At the same time, Barbara is motivated by her dedication to her work and her patients despite working in a system that has punished her. Moreover, Petzold refrains from portraying the West as a promised land, exploring different levels of interaction between and perceptions of East and West. Humorous scenes between East and West Germans illustrate the distance between the two worlds. In one scene, an East German speaking with a friend of Barbara’s lover looks at the Mercedes the two are traveling in and marvels that “you can even get them with heat now.” Additionally, although Barbara wants desperately to get out of the East, Petzold suggests that she would face different kinds of challenges on the other side. Her lover promises Barbara that once she’s in the West she can sleep in every day, because he earns enough that she won’t have to work anymore. His kind assurances leave his beloved somewhat underwhelmed, however, as he disregards the fact that Barbara is a highly trained pediatric surgeon who finds great satisfaction in her work. Petzold’s movie adds a layer of nuance to filmic depictions of East Germany, neither demonizing nor trivializing the political repression there. Barbara stands in contrast to The Lives of Others, released in 2006, which graphically exposed the Stasi’s obsessive paranoia, setting off a media frenzy about the role of the secret police. The film depicted only one aspect of life in East Germany, and one that relatively few experienced. Barbara also shows the Stasi’s violation of individuals’ privacy, illustrating the ways in which communist authorities imposed their will by applying pressure to people’s weaknesses and isolating them from friends and family. Yet Petzold demonstrates that fear was not East Germans’ sole motivator. Daily life

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went on with or without Stasi surveillance, which is illustrated by Barbara’s confusion over whether to stay or to flee to the West. The multifaceted plot Petzold unfolds inBarbara reflects a trend in German media and academic literature of portraying East Germany as a totalizing, but not necessarily totalitarian state. The party-state apparatus is everywhere, but it does not completely rule Barbara’s life, whether she is continuing to meet her West German lover, caring for her patients, playing the piano, or bonding with her boss. Likewise, recent scholarship has sought to further our understanding of the complicated dynamics between citizen and state, as well as between individuals within the society, a development that hopefully will be reflected in more films set in the former East Germany.

A Film Unfinished, directed by Yael Hersonski (Oscilloscope Laboratories, 2010). Reviewed by Mark W. Hornburg

In 1942 a Nazi propaganda team began filming in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw, only a few months before many of its residents were to be shipped to Treblinka for extermination. When the team’s black and white footage, labeled simply “Das Ghetto,” was discovered by East German archivists after the war, it was treated by scholars as authentic documentation of the lives of the half million Jews who’d been corralled into an approximately two-square-mile slice of the Polish city. In fact, some of the footage will be familiar to viewers, as it has appeared already in Holocaust documentaries minus the crucial context of its provenance. Among other things, the footage shows countless street scenes and overcrowded, unsanitary housing with garbage piled outside; a ritual bath scene in which naked men and women bathe together; the ceremonial circumcision of a baby born so prematurely that it was unlikely to survive long; an elaborate funeral procession; and the dumping of bodies in a mass grave containing layer upon layer of corpses. Though no one knows today what the Nazi regime’s purpose was in commissioning this footage, these scenes suggest that the filmmakers may have intended to use it in an

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(Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories.)

“educational” antisemitic film, one similar to the notorious The Eternal Jew. What the Nazis intended to do became clearer in 1998 when another reel was discovered containing thirty minutes of outtakes that revealed the staged nature of many scenes, as well-heeled Jews were filmed repeatedly ignoring beggars or corpses lying on the sidewalk. These orchestrated shots juxtapose the nattily attired to starving ragamuffins in order to highlight the supposedly decadent lives that some Jews were living in the ghetto and the callousness with which they regarded the plight of fellow Jews. Other staged scenes depict well-dressed Jews enjoying a meal in an upscale restaurant and men and women dancing and drinking champagne at a lavish ball. While many Holocaust memoirists have noted that social hierarchies outside the ghetto were to a certain extent recreated inside it, the propagandists who staged these scenes amplified differences between the poor and the wealthy with the apparent intent of reinforcing stereotypes that were used to justify the Final Solution. In the documentary A Film Unfinished, Israeli director Yael Hersonski overlays this original footage with commentary from a handful of survivors whom she invited to view the film and with excerpts from the diaries of several ghetto residents, including the head of the ghetto’s Jewish Council, Adam Czerniaków, who committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide pill

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after mass exterminations began. The man behind the camera, Willy Wist, is also heard from, in voiceovers based on court transcripts of his testimony during postwar prosecutions of German war criminals. These voiceovers put the lie to the message that the images were meant to deliver. Upon viewing a filmed scene of the interior of a well-appointed ghetto apartment, during which a well-dressed woman is seen moving a vase of flowers, one of the ghetto survivors intones dryly, “Where did one ever see a flower? We would have eaten the flower.” These voiceovers often achieve a poetic quality, as revealing commentary is artfully matched to propagandistic image. In one sequence, Jewish Council leader Czerniaków recounts the propaganda crew’s filming of rabbis and petitioners arriving at his office. For this scene, the filmmakers removed all the paintings and charts in the office and placed on Czerniaków’s desk a giant nine-armed candelabra filled with lit candles. “In the meantime an old Jew with a Vandyke beard was seized on the street,” an actor playing Czerniaków says in voiceover. “He sat in my apartment for hours, but his photogenic qualities were not used. I can imagine what happened when he returned home and tried to tell his wife that he had earned nothing while waiting for three hours to be a ‘star.’” As the scene comes to a close, the Jewish Council leader who will soon swallow a cyanide pill concludes wistfully, “I wonder whether I will ever meet you, my professional colleague. Did we not both miss our destiny?” In another moving sequence, a female survivor is shown watching footage of corpses lying in the street as residents walk by, footage with which the Nazis intended to illustrate Jewish callousness. “It is true that we had to walk by,” the survivor admits. “No one looked, it was impossible. We became indifferent to the suffering of others, because otherwise it was impossible to live.” Watching the footage then stirs her memory, and she remembers a night when she was walking down a crowded street and tripped in the dark, losing her balance. “When I opened my eyes, I saw that I had fallen on a corpse,” she recalls. “My face was nearly touching his, and I was shaking. Then suddenly, it was if all the corpses which I had previously avoided looking at were there in the face of this one man.” The conceit of filming survivors as they view the footage can sometimes seem sadistic, however. “What if I see someone I know,” asks one woman, nervously. “I keep thinking that among all these people, I might see my

326 Film Review mother walking,” says another. At the end of the documentary, the camera frames the survivors’ faces as they view extensive footage of emaciated corpses being hauled to a mass grave, where two Jewish workers at the bottom of a deep pit assiduously pile corpse upon corpse. As the camera focuses upon the survivors’ faces, they cover their eyes or look away in disgust at what the Nazi cameramen has captured and the Israeli filmmaker is forcing them to see. Ironically, for a documentary filmmaker who warns us to be wary of the truth value of what we see in photos and films, director Hersonski adopts techniques of “dramatic recreation” that become so naturalized that the viewer begins to take them as authentic. Czerniaków’s diary entries are read by an actor in their original Polish, while Wist’s postwar court appearance is reenacted by actors playing the cameraman and the prosecutor. A tape recorder is seen being turned on, as if the testimony the viewer is about to hear is being replayed from original court recordings rather than re-created by actors from court transcripts. An actor playing ghetto Kommisar Heinz Auerswald also is shown typing up his weekly reports on the ghetto and is heard “reading” from them. And while the original footage was silent, sound is sometimes provided by the filmmakers, as when a woman at a staged ball is suddenly heard singing. At the same time, the survivors remain anonymous, their names appearing in the end credits but nowhere else, their testimony strangely disembodied and decontexualized. In fact, historical context is the biggest casualty of Hersonski’s decision to privilege dramatic effect. The director provides little sense of how the camp actually functioned, from the improvised economic system that kept the streets humming to the Nazi kidnappings of workers that required Czerniaków to collect money from residents to pay ransoms. And though it happened after this footage was shot, surely the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, led by the Jewish Fighting Organization and entailing the use of underground tunnels, homemade explosives, and smuggled arms, deserves some mention. The director frequently freezes figures in mid-stride as they make their way through the ghetto streets, zeroing in on their tired, gaunt faces. Aiming for pathos, she reminds us that most of the people we see in the film will soon be dead. But some of these pathetic figures will refuse to go to their graves silently. In less than a year they will pick up guns and hold off elite SS soldiers for 28 days, until the Nazis resort in desperation

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to burning the ghetto to the ground. In her quest for dramatic effects the director misses an opportunity to provide dramatic historical details. At the same time that propagandists are filming the abject conditions of the ghetto and administrators are contemplating its liquidation, the Jewish community is arguing over how to respond to these ominous events and an underground army is slowly building.

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Exhibition Reviews

Out of the Shadows: Undocumented and Unafraid (Salir de las Sombras: Sin Papeles y Sin Miedo); Faces of Freedom Summer: The Photographs of Herbert Randall Levine Museum of the New South, Charlotte, NC. Reviewed by Sarah McNamara

(Photo courtesy of Levine Museum of the New South.)

North Carolina’s history is intimately intertwined with the history of the civil rights movement. Traditionally seen as the beacon of Southern progressivism, the state attracted attention throughout the 1960s and 1970s as NC government policies bent to the demands of a liberal and more inclusive generation. But after the state helped to elect Barrack Obama in 2008, it took a turn toward staunch conservative politics that negated

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(Photo courtesy of Levine Museum of the New South.)

much of its past achievements. Cuts to unemployment insurance and public education, restricted access to reproductive healthcare, refusal to expand Medicaid, and the passing of the marriage amendment and anti- immigration legislation signaled the dimming of the state’s progressive light. In this charged context the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte is commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the civil rights movement, reminding North Carolinians of their historic place in the ongoing movement by debuting the exhibition series Destination Freedom: Civil Rights Struggles Then and Now. As part of the series, from December 2013 through December 2015 the museum will simultaneously display two exhibits by different artists that highlight past and present efforts to defend civil rights in the United States. The two exhibits recently on display,Out of the Shadows: Undocumented and Unafraid (Salir de las Sombras: Sin Papeles y Sin Miedo) and Faces of Freedom Summer: The Photographs of Herbert Randall link the black freedom struggle with the present fight for immigrant rights and immigration reform. The juxtaposition of these two movements reminds visitors that civil rights are not just voting rights—they are human rights, and the struggle is not over. Out of the Shadows, designed by Annabel Manning in collaboration

330 Exhibition Review with Carla Hanzal, is an original exhibit making its debut at the Levine Museum. The exhibit features interviews, photographs, and artwork of thirty Latina/o undocumented activists from North Carolina. Inspired by Ralph Ellison’s novel The Invisible Man, this exhibit removes the cultural barrier that renders undocumented youth invisible to the American public, and explores the dual life lived by the state’s 150,000 undocumented young women and men.1 As guests enter the exhibit, their image is projected onto a television screen. Appearing as a blue and white negative, a visitor’s first (Image courtesy of Levine Museum of the New South.) step into the space makes them subjects and consumers of the exhibit. In the background the voices of young women and men fill the room as they reflect on the duality of their place in American society, contemplate their invisibility, and proclaim their presence through activism. These testimonios, or self-narratives, serve as moments for the subjects to reclaim their identities and publicly define themselves. The exhibit is organized as a series of stations. Each subject has a space featuring his or her portrait, again as a blue and white negative, and a set of headphones that plays the subject’s oral history. Focusing on each participant individually reveals the personal side of undocumented immigration and forces visitors to dismantle generalizations they may have about this seemingly invisible population. On the wall opposite these portraits and listening stations hangs original art created by the exhibition subjects. All are personal expressions of their dual identities and personal obstacles as undocumented youth and rising activists. Out of the Shadows ends as it begins, at a common contemplation space

1 The subjects of Out of the Shadows (Salir de las Sombras) are all “DREAMers,” or those undocumented immigrants eligible for citizenship under the DREAM Act. This bill was introduced in 2001 and died in 2010. According the DREAM Act, undocumented men and women who arrived in the United States before their sixteenth birthday would be eligible for permanent residency and citizenship if they had no criminal record and completed high school, earned a community college/four-year university degree, or joined the military. 331 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

that invites visitors to contribute to the exhibit. At a wall displaying a black-and- white image of a faceless child wandering along the US border, visitors may place sticky-notes containing questions, statements, or quotations that reflect their thoughts about the exhibit or the subject matter. By combining interactive elements with reflection, Manning and Hanzal successfully created an exhibit that illustrates the need for immigration reform and the complexity of the American (Image courtesy of Levine experience. Museum of the New South.) Linking the present to the past, the exhibit Faces of Freedom Summer: The Photographs of Herbert Randall is also on display at the museum. To complement Out of the Shadows, museum designers joined these two exhibits through space and sound. Visitors enter Faces of Freedom Summer through an open archway that connects the two exhibits and transports visitors from the movement of today to its roots in the 1960s. In this new space the familiar melodies of “We Shall Overcome” and “This Little Light of Mine” fill the room. Yet the faint voices of undocumented activists can be heard in the background, constantly reminding guests that neither movement stands alone. Both are connected as civil rights movements with the common goal of establishing equal access to opportunity in the United States. Faces of Freedom Summer is a traditional exhibit, both in content and expression. As a celebration of freedom summer and the freedom riders, black-and-white photographs of the period are displayed throughout the room, a small sample of freedom rider Herbert Randall’s 1,759 images taken in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, during the summer of 1964. The photographs focus not only on familiar images of freedom summer—the freedom bus, freedom marches, and freedom schools—but on the faces and actions of young activists who dedicated their time to communities in the hope that they could change the oppressive culture of the Jim Crow South.

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(Photo courtesy of Levine Museum of the New South.)

In contrast to Out of the Shadows, Faces of Freedom Summer provides no information about the struggle, motivation, or organization of freedom summer. Immersed in a room of monochromatic faces, classrooms, marches, churches, congregations, and communities, visitors see the people who made the civil rights movement. While at times the lack of information about each photograph leaves guests wanting to know more, the photographs make a statement about what fueled the movement, sans words or placards. Seeking to move beyond the politics of the past, Faces of Freedom Summer highlights the communities and young activists that made freedom summer possible. Because mainstream education and popular culture focuses on sanitized images of people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., the power, will, and determination of a generation often remains a footnote in the narrative of civil rights history. As more of an artistic exhibition, this window into the past highlights the importance of youth activism in the national struggle for civil rights. These exhibits not only complement but enhance each other. Out of the Shadows and Faces of Freedom Summer both show the personal side of civil rights activism and move beyond the headlines that often dictate their popular perception.

333 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History Site-mémorial du Camp des Milles / Memorial site of the Camp des Milles Les Milles, France. Reviewed by Maggie Howell

This is a front view of the Camp des Milles today. Made entirely of brick, the building experienced drastic fluctuations in temperature. Brick dust irritated the internees’ lungs and settled on their every meal; internee Lion Feuchtwanger once ironically quoted Faust in reference to ingesting the dust, writing: “You will eat the dust, and with an art.” Taken June 2013. (Photo by Maggie Howell.)

In 1939, French officials transformed a former tile factory in Les Milles, France, into a prison where for four years they detained thousands of men, women, and children, the majority of whom were Jewish. In 2012, after a thirty-year struggle the memorial site of this internment camp finally opened to the public. As the only French camp of a considerable size still completely intact and accessible to the public, the site is of memorial importance.2 A veritable lieu de mémoire, it reminds all who visit of the terrors that occurred at the hands of French citizens in an idyllic provincial town from 1939 to 1942. The site’s history reflects what historian Henry Rousso has called the “Vichy Syndrome,” a term used to describe the French public’s guilt-laden preoccupation with the wrongs of the Vichy regime and the continual commemoration and contestation of events that occurred in

2 La Fondation du Camp des Milles, “Site-mémorial.” 334 Exhibition Review the regime’s four years.3 The long struggle to open the memorial demonstrates the continuing difficulties the French populace has in dealing with its complicity in the persecution, arrest, internment, and deportation of thousands of Jews during World War II. Within eleven days of the memorial’s opening a museum was also inaugurated at the former Drancy camp, which was located in a suburb of Paris and was once the largest center in France for deportation to concentration and extermination camps during the war.. For the “Nazi trace” image: Many years It has taken many years for these sites to after the camp closed and the war ended, some people defaced a wall in gain recognition for their tragic pasts, but the building with a Nazi swastika as an act of anti-Semitic sentiment. This these museums reveal an effort to educate shows the continuing importance of museums in using the past to teach others on the importance of reflection as individuals in the present. Taken July an act of prevention. 2014. (Photo by Mark W. Hornburg.) The first of the site’s three sections, “le volet historique,” explores the camp’s history from its use for interning “enemy subjects” during the Third Republic’s final months through its development as a camp for “undesirables” under the Vichy regime between 1940 and 1942. It also provides a wider perspective of this period and the camps set up around France for the same purposes. The exhibition displays a map of the French camp network, Vichy propaganda, countless videos about individuals who helped rescue Jews interned at this particular site, and brief biographies of and some artwork by famous prisoners, including Wols, Hans Bellmer, and Max Ernst. In addition, this section houses items and a timeline concerning the circumstances surrounding the rise of the Third Reich, the Second World War, and the Final Solution. As with most Holocaust sites and museums, this memorial space dedicated one case to the ubiquitous symbol of Jewish internment during the war: a prisoner’s striped uniform from Auschwitz. The second section, the volet mémoriel, consists of select areas within

3 Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France Since 1944, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991). 335 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

For the “Video room 9” image: The museum creates an interactive experience for viewers, encouraging them through video, image, and text, to be vigilant in combatting all forms of prejudice. Taken July 2014. (Photo by Mark W. Hornburg.)

the former factory related to its operation as a camp. The visitor travels through the area where internees put on theatrical productions, among the cells of the “Catacombs,” and in the upper levels, which also served as living quarters. The windows on the second and third floors play an important role in the memorial’s presentation and history by looking out on a train car from the time period similar to those used for deportations, and by drawing attention to the prisoners’ desperation, as several women tried to take their own lives by throwing themselves out of these windows, sometimes with their infants. Where there is despair, however, there is also hope. Many children were saved in hidden spaces on these upper levels, and along the passageways to these areas these same children and some interned adults etched into the bricks messages of encouragement and faith, and last words to loved ones. A key focus of the museum is the cultural production that took place there and which validated the internees’ humanity in spite of their routine experiences of dehumanization. The “Salle des peintures murales,” or mural room, located in a small building outside the main structure, shows a sampling of works prisoners made during their internment. In addition, some prisoners decorated around their cells, which were located in the

336 Exhibition Review tilery’s former brick ovens. The prisoners called these cells “the Catacombs” because they were so dark, cold, and damp, but the name is also fitting because catacombs are often large graves, and many of the internees did not live to see the end of the war. Many of these prisoners also may have chosen this name in homage to “Die Katakombe,” a Berlin cabaret that boasted a politically motivated repertoire before Nazi officials closed it in 1935. Around these cells prisoners also painted flowers, theatrical masks, and other decorative details, continuing to produce art even though there seemed no reason to do so and even though these designs were not visible for the majority of the time because of the almost constant darkness. In the final section, the “volet réflexif,” the museum aims to impress upon the visitor the importance of upholding human rights and speaking out against persecution. This part of the site displays images of genocide, racism, and other types of persecution and violence. There are also images of resistance, as well as famous words warning against prejudice. In this sense, the memorial contributes to the “universalization” of the Holocaust, asking visitors to see it as part of the broader universe of human suffering. One interesting element is the inclusion of a mirror, forcing one to see oneself as a part of the exhibit and provoking introspection on the topics raised in this section. Whether intentional or not, this element is particularly ironic in a country that has engaged for so long in denial of its complicity with the horrors of the Nazi regime.

The American Way: Die USA in Deutschland Haus der Geschichte, Bonn, Germany. Reviewed by Scott Krause

For nearly a year, the Federal Republic of Germany’s Haus der Geschichte, or House of History, revisited one of its defining postwar cultural inspirations, the United States. From March 2013 through February 2014 the exhibition The American Way: Die USA in Deutschland offered more than 200,000 visitors a comprehensive overview of two intertwined topics, surveying both the influence of American culture on Germany and contradictory German perceptions of the United States. To pursue their ambitious dual agenda, the curators relied on traditional exhibit materials like uniforms

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and posters, alongside which they displayed signifiers of modern popular culture like audio playlists and mobile apps. The American Way guided visitors in one large circle past exhibits from seventy years of German-American history, from World War II to the present. Familiar displays of contemporary US Army uniforms and care packages stood in for the American war effort and occupation after the collapse of Nazi Germany. This exhibit reflected the fact that, despite American involvement in severe aerial bombardment of German population centers during the war, Germans singled out the United States as the most benign occupation regime, which was based in West Berlin, the southern German states of Hessen, Württemberg-Baden, Bavaria, and the port of Bremen. Together with the British occupation zone, these areas formed the nucleus of the 1949 Federal Republic, which restored representative democracy with limited sovereignty. Contemporary posters praising the benefits of the Marshall Plan indicated a German-American cultural bonding, while various iconic industrial products showed its economic underpinnings. Most notably, a tailfin Taunus, a Ford Motor Company limousine assembled in Cologne, illustrated how the adaption of American consumer culture to German palates made the West German rump state Europe’s economic juggernaut. This narrative of success fails to grasp its Cold War origins, however. Germans in the Federal Republic emulated the United States with particular enthusiasm because it signaled defiance of Soviet-style communism. Moreover, the division of Germany shut out seventeen million in Moscow’s client state, the East German Democratic Republic (GDR). The curators attempted to rectify this dilemma by dedicating a separate room to East German perceptions of the United States. This self-contained exhibit accentuated the gulf between state-prescribed depictions of the United States as a behemoth of reactionary capitalism on the one hand and the widespread allure of American pop culture on the other. American foreign policy tried to capitalize on this during the Cold War For instance, for forty years, the American government funded Berlin’s Radio in the American Sector (RIAS). United States foreign policy envisioned RIAS as a weapon in the Cold War, while the GDR leadership reviled it. Despite its political polarization, this radio station succeeded in keeping the population on the other side of the Iron Curtain attuned to the pulse of American pop culture.

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The American Way depicted the GDR authorities’ most memorable attempt to assuage popular desire. In 1988, the socialist state youth organization FDJ invited Bruce Springsteen to perform in East Germany, as “singer of the American working class.” The rock superstar’s East Berlin concert attracted far more than the 160,000 tickets allotted. Overrun by an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 attendees, GDR authorities had to helplessly endure thousands of their citizens singing along to “Born in the USA.” American pop culture swept the West German market to an even greater degree. A digital jukebox and video projector allowed visitors to browse through the American pop music that has dominated the German charts from the 1960s to the present day. A collage of movie posters reaching from the floor to the ceiling and replicas ofStar Wars robots R2D2 and C3PO symbolized the popularity of Hollywood productions in Germany. Casual American visitors thus could grasp the shared cultural references resulting from the American entertainment industry’s success abroad. However, the exhibition’s section on the history of German-American cultural relations since 2000 questioned the notion that cultural compatibility bred understanding. Charred wreckage from the World Trade Center combined with hundreds of German consolation letters served as poignant reminders of the shared shock of 9/11. Video clips showed German Chancellor Schröder’s proclamation of “boundless solidarity” with the United States in its “War on Terror,” followed by his government’s refusal to contribute to the Iraq War sixteen months later and the overwhelming popular opposition against it. An iPod and Starbucks paper cup stood juxtaposed to the exhibits of such political turmoil. Despite fundamental political differences, Germans consume American pop music more intensely than ever before, while sipping “Kaffee to go.” The Federal Republic’s former capital, Bonn, served as a fitting location for this exhibition. More than any other West German city, Bonn symbolizes the heady postwar boom years of the Wirtschaftswunder. Hurried construction inserted the administrative apparatus for sixty- three million citizens—and one of the United States’ largest diplomatic posts—into the Rhine meadows adjacent to this once-quaint college town. Since the government’s move to Berlin in 1999, Bonn has become an open-air museum of the Alte Bundesrepublik, the Federal Republic prior to reunification. The exhibition therefore resembled the host city itself in

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its loss of a clear narrative after 1989. The collapse of communism and the Federal Republic’s absorption of the GDR has failed to make the United States and Germany “Partners in Leadership,” as then-President George H.W. Bush had hoped. Uncertainty emerged with the loss of clearly defined roles, as the United States no longer represented a closely followed model in the West and an officially reviled but secretly attractive model in the East. Diverging economic strategies have questioned these roles. While American manufacturing has eroded since the 1980s, Germany has retained the industrial might Americans had helped to rebuild in the 1950s. Knowing the temporal and geographic limits of the linear success narrative, The American Way asks whether Germany and the United States are growing culturally together or apart. The exhibition’s failure to answer this question accentuated its larger significance. For instance, the curators did not examine geographic blind spots in the German image of the United States. As loyal customers of Hollywood and veteran tourists of New York, most Germans’ image of the United States is more urban than most Americans would recognize. Germans’ rarely come in contact with rural, devout areas United States and thus regard them as foreign. The exhibition succeeded, however, in offering an overview of a broad topic that comprised many conundrums, most notably the existence of two competing German states. It also offered a first assessment of the last decade in its provocative illustration of that time: a paper cup. Globalization’s ubiquitous beverage results from an American corporation adapting Italian coffee culture to palates worldwide, ready to be tossed away once consumed.

Weblinks:

Exhibition web page [in German]: http://www.hdg.de/bonn/ausstellungen/wechselausstellungen/ ausstellungen/the-american-way-die-usa-in-deutschland/ Exhibition mobile app: https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/ viewSoftware?id=641510100&mt=8 [in English]

340 traces Rich, upperclass North Carolinians at the turn of the previous century tower above cotton pickers intraces the 1930s. The cotton pickers’ mouths have a rule running through them and the women are bowed and obscured. (President Roosevelt and party at Biltmore, the home of Mr. George Vanderbilt, Asheville, N.C. and Cotton picking near New Bern, N. C. courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Brandon Whitesell, Graphic Designer