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The American Founding and the Culture Wars

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The American Founding and the Culture Wars The American Founding and the Culture Wars Alan Gibson California State University, Chico In March, 2003, led by Marguerite Talley-Hughes, three teachers at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Berkeley, California spearheaded an effort to change the name of the school where they taught. Teachers at the school, the petition sent to the school board calling for change argued, had become “increasingly uncomfortable to work at a site whose name honors a slaveholder.”1 Jefferson’s wealth, political power, and prominence in American history were secured, Talley-Hughes argued, “because he owned slaves, not in spite of that fact.” Jefferson used the “threat of physical violence” to elicit forced labor from slaves. He also advertised rewards for the capture of his runaway slaves, ordered slaves flogged, and sold them away from their families. Furthermore, Jefferson could not be exonerated as “a man of his time.” Numerous men and women of Jefferson’s generation opposed slavery and some took extraordinary efforts to end the practice. “With that information,” Talley-Hughes argued, “we do not need to rely on contemporary ethics and morality to find Jefferson lacking in the integrity and courage which generally define a hero.”2 1 Cindy Peng, “School Mulls Moral Dilemma in Deciding Whether to Change Name,” The Daily Californian, May 5, 2005@ http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=18617. 2 Marquerite Talley-Hughes, “Thomas Jefferson: A Man of His Time?,” Berkeley Daily Planet, March 9, 2004@ @http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?archiveDate=03-09- 04&storyID=18442. 2 The teachers’ petition set off a divisive debate in the school and the local community that gained national attention and swept through the conservative blogosphere. In the Berkley community, opponents of the name change charged their opponents with creating conflict in the once peaceful and unified school district and protested that they were being labeled racists for supporting Jefferson.3 For their part, proponents of the name change told of threatening emails and broken friendships.4 In the blogosphere, several conservatives offered serious reasons for retaining Jefferson’s name. Jefferson’s public record on slavery, one commentator insisted, established his credentials as an opponent of slavery. A complex and multi-faceted man like Jefferson, several opponents of the name change contended, should not be judged by the singular fact that he was a slaveholder. Others pointed out that Bishop George Berkeley had bought slaves to work his Rhode Island plantation during his short stay in America.5 Although the bloggers who made this observation failed to connect the dots, the implication of their point was that the citizens of Berkeley had better be prepared to 3 J. Douglas Allen Taylor, “Board Vetoes Jefferson School Name Change,” Berkeley Daily Planet, June 24, 2005 @http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?archiveDate=06-24-05=216. For verification that opponents of the name change were labeled racists see also Elliot Cohen, “Commentary: Berkeley Strays From Democratic Path,” Berkeley Daily Planet, July 12, 2005@http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?archiveDate=07-12-05=21832. 4 Ibid. 5 For some of the conservative bloggers’ commentary see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1415149/posts, June 2, 2005; “Wordsmith from Nantucket,” “The Little Known History of Slavery, Part Three,” Saturday, February 24, 2007@ http://hammeringsparksfromtheanvil.blogspot.com/2007/02/little- known-history-of-slavery-part_24.html. See also the particularly intelligent and informed commentary by Rob Browning, a local Berkeley resident and former editor of the Berkeley’s Mark Twain papers. Browning, “Commentary: Jefferson School: What’s the Rush?,”The Berkeley Daily Planet June 14, 2005@ http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?archiveDate=06-14-05&storyID=21617. For verification that Bishop Berkeley had owned slaves see “The First Scholarship Fund”@ http://www.yaleslavery.org/Endowments/e2schol.html. 3 also rename the city and its most prominent university if being named after a slave-owner was now the standard for change. Still other conservative bloggers simply could not contain their contempt or temper their ridicule. The alternative name changes suggested by bloggers included “George Jefferson Elementary School” (after the character played by Sherman Hemsley on the 1970s and 80s situation comedy “The Jefferson’s”) and “Tupac Elementary,” which the blogger suggested should be affiliated with “C-Murder Middle School,” and “50-cent High School.” Two other bloggers suggested that the school should be named after Alexander Hamilton. “Hamilton was, in fact, born in the West Indies,” the first suggested sarcastically. “So, he’s, like, totally multicultural and stuff…” “Heck,” a second added, “he was even born a bastard, so that should be another point in his favor.” “Jefferson was your typical French-loving slave-owning rich politician who claimed to be a man of the people,” another blogger quipped. “Very much like our modern Democrats like Corzine, Kerry, Soros, etc.” One conservative blogger spoke for most of the others when he said, “Given that it is a school in Berkeley. I’d bet Jefferson wouldn’t mind [having his name removed].”6 Back in Berkeley, the teachers’ petition set in motion a procedure that took over two years to complete. Under policies established by the local school board, twenty percent of the students, parents, faculty, and staff of the school first had to request a name change. If this was achieved, then a list would be drawn up and a vote would be taken to 6 Blogger comments can be found at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f- news/1415149/posts, March 22, 2005 and http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f- news/1415149/posts, June 02, 2005. 4 select a name that would challenge Jefferson in a run-off election. If the challenger won, the school board then had to vote on whether or not to approve the name change.7 A petition signed by twenty percent of the students, parents, and teachers was easily secured. A list of proposed alternative names was then drawn up – based on suggestions by parents and one student. This list included, among others, Ralph Bunche (the United Nations diplomat and first black to win the Nobel Peace Prize) Sojourner Truth (the former slave who became a leading abolitionist and woman’s rights advocate), Cesar Chavez (the Hispanic founder of the National Farm Workers Association), Rose (the name of the street where the school was located), Ohlone (the original native American tribe who had first settled the land surrounding Berkeley), and Sequoia (after three prominent Sequoia trees on the school’s grounds). Following district policy, a vote was then taken in which Jefferson school parents, staff members, and students (some as young as five years old) chose Sequoia as the most worthy name to be pitted against Jefferson in a run off election.8 In the run off election, these same groups opted 239 to 177 to rename the school after the three Sequoia trees on the grounds. This victory, however, was short-lived as only a week later the Berkeley school board voted 3 to 2 to keep Jefferson as the school’s name. This decision was announced in an emotional meeting in which students wept; the 7 Matthew Artz, “Renaming Vote Stirs School,” Berkeley Daily Planet, February 3, 2004@http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?archiveDate=02-03- 04&storyID=18197. 8 Cindy Peng, “Community Votes to Drop Jefferson, Rename School,” June 2, 2005 The Daily Californian, @http://dailycal.org/printable.php?id=18791; Patrick Hoge, “Berkeley School to vote on renaming Jefferson Elementary, President’s slave holdings perturb families, teachers,” March 22, 2005@http://sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/22/BAGIIBSTMA1.DTL; Kristin Bender, “Jefferson Stays as name for School,” June 24, 2005 @http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20050624/ai_n15838645 5 school board member who cast the deciding vote for Jefferson apologized for disappointing many; and several proponents of the change cried foul play at the board’s administrative decision to overturn the majority vote of the students, teachers, and students. Most dramatically, immediately after hearing the decision, advocates of the name change stood and sang the civil rights song “We Shall Overcome” only to be told by at least one opponent of the name change to “Get Over It.”9 Although dismissed as frivolous and treated comically by many distant from the dispute, the debate over removing Jefferson’s name from the Berkeley elementary school was deeply serious to its participants. Equally important, it has been parroted across the country in the last decade in numerous specific efforts to change the names of schools named after slaveholders and in a variety of other disputes that have placed the American Founders at the center of the culture wars.10 These disputes - over for example whether Thomas Jefferson sired Sally-Hemmings’s children and how their relationship should be presented to the public at Monticello, claims for the influence of Native American ideas in the formation of the American Constitution, and most recently if slave-servant’s quarters at the excavation site of Robert Morris House in Philadelphia should be identified and how slavery should be displayed at Independence National Historical Part - raise specific questions about when and how we should evaluate and possibly change our 9 Taylor, “Board Vetoes Jefferson School Name Change.” 10 The News Hour reports that there are about 450 schools named after George Washington alone and hundreds more named after other American presidents and Founders who owned slaves. Perhaps the most dramatic effort to rename schools has come in New Orleans. In 1992, the Orleans Parish School Board adopted a specific policy calling for the renaming of all schools named after former slave holders.
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